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It's been a while since CSI:NY has stirred debate that didn't revolve around the festering mound of creative offal that is DL, but Danny Messer and his lousy case of the Blue Flu has done it. The hardcore Messer fangirls are resolutely standing by their man, and since I'm a card-carrying, banner-waving Flack fangirl, I can't snicker too loudly. But Danny really did behave like an ass, and before Flack turned up at the precinct with the weight of the world on his shoulders, I was ready to pillory him, too. Thankfully, Flack really is doing it for more than the paycheck, and the writers had the good sense not to flush two characters in a single episode.
I'm getting tired of the excuse that Danny has a child on the way and therefore has more at stake than anyone else. Sixty percent of the PD managed to report for duty, and I'm sure some of them have children and families, too. Danny isn't the only cop with a sex drive and a working penis, hard though that must be to believe. Hell, I bet some officers even have multiple children. Or sick relatives. Or aging parents. They still did their sworn duty. Having a baby bump looming over your head like ten pounds of turd in a Ziploc baggie doesn't make you a special snowflake. It makes you a fertile human being.
No one told Danny to father a child before he was financially prepared. He stuck his cue into Lindsay's ball return of his own volition. He wasn't a teenage boy with more hormones than sexual experience who convinced himself that the girl couldn't get pregnant the first time. He was an adult in his thirties with vast sexual experience, and he knew damn well the consequences of unprotected sex. He did it anyway and came up short. Too bad for him. Lindsay has just as much at stake, and she clocked in.
I'm sorry that Danny doesn't feel respected, but no one deserves to die or be robbed or raped because Danny isn't getting the proper handjob from the NY public or the brass. This isn't a bus drivers' strike, which is inconvenient but largely non-fatal unless you're a commuter who relies on the bus for transportation to doctors' appointments. People depend on police and firemen and doctors to keep them safe and alive. A person who loses their loved one to a mugging isn't going to give a shit that Officer X was butthurt over their lack of respect and decided not to come in for work; they're going to be furious that their loved one died so he could make another payment on his Harley. It's not fair, but there it is.
If Danny had simply not reported for work at all, I could've respected him for it. I wouldn't have agreed with his choice, but I would have understood it. As Mac said to Dunbrook, he admired men who stood behind their convictions. But Danny chose to come to work for the sole purpose of making a show of leaving--a juvenile "look at me, rebel Danny Messer"--gesture that insulted his colleagues' intelligence. Lindsay's conversation with Hawkes made it sound as though Danny had made the decision well in advance of the act, which makes his flounce even more inexcusable. If you're making a stand, make it and be willing to accept the consequences. Don't simultaneously set yourself up as the badass rebel willing to make the unpopular choice and attempt to insulate yourself from consequences by putting on a performance that would make Ed Wood facepalm. Be a man, or be a punk, but don't play at both and expect people to like you.
And on a totally petty and tangentially related note, Carmine is looking rather bloated of late. Either it's Danny putting on sympathy weight, or Carmine needs to lay off the tipple.
I'm getting tired of the excuse that Danny has a child on the way and therefore has more at stake than anyone else. Sixty percent of the PD managed to report for duty, and I'm sure some of them have children and families, too. Danny isn't the only cop with a sex drive and a working penis, hard though that must be to believe. Hell, I bet some officers even have multiple children. Or sick relatives. Or aging parents. They still did their sworn duty. Having a baby bump looming over your head like ten pounds of turd in a Ziploc baggie doesn't make you a special snowflake. It makes you a fertile human being.
No one told Danny to father a child before he was financially prepared. He stuck his cue into Lindsay's ball return of his own volition. He wasn't a teenage boy with more hormones than sexual experience who convinced himself that the girl couldn't get pregnant the first time. He was an adult in his thirties with vast sexual experience, and he knew damn well the consequences of unprotected sex. He did it anyway and came up short. Too bad for him. Lindsay has just as much at stake, and she clocked in.
I'm sorry that Danny doesn't feel respected, but no one deserves to die or be robbed or raped because Danny isn't getting the proper handjob from the NY public or the brass. This isn't a bus drivers' strike, which is inconvenient but largely non-fatal unless you're a commuter who relies on the bus for transportation to doctors' appointments. People depend on police and firemen and doctors to keep them safe and alive. A person who loses their loved one to a mugging isn't going to give a shit that Officer X was butthurt over their lack of respect and decided not to come in for work; they're going to be furious that their loved one died so he could make another payment on his Harley. It's not fair, but there it is.
If Danny had simply not reported for work at all, I could've respected him for it. I wouldn't have agreed with his choice, but I would have understood it. As Mac said to Dunbrook, he admired men who stood behind their convictions. But Danny chose to come to work for the sole purpose of making a show of leaving--a juvenile "look at me, rebel Danny Messer"--gesture that insulted his colleagues' intelligence. Lindsay's conversation with Hawkes made it sound as though Danny had made the decision well in advance of the act, which makes his flounce even more inexcusable. If you're making a stand, make it and be willing to accept the consequences. Don't simultaneously set yourself up as the badass rebel willing to make the unpopular choice and attempt to insulate yourself from consequences by putting on a performance that would make Ed Wood facepalm. Be a man, or be a punk, but don't play at both and expect people to like you.
And on a totally petty and tangentially related note, Carmine is looking rather bloated of late. Either it's Danny putting on sympathy weight, or Carmine needs to lay off the tipple.