Where's the blood?

[janice]

When Jesse finds Elkins on the carousel, he immediately tells the other officer to call the coroner. He did not even check to see if he was dead. There was absolutely no blood anywhere. How could you tell he was dead?

The Kirksy brothers told Jesse whatever Elkins told them about the location of the money while another officer was in the interrogation room. Wouldn't the police have this info too? Wouldn't they be doing the same thing Norman did - find out what building was being demolished and go after Cannon? Where were they? Why did they not stop the demolition?

Jesse and Norman know they have very limited time to get to the theatre, why did they not use hyperthrust on the way there?

There is a shot of the front of the theatre before Jesse gets there. It looks like a different building in a different location than the one that actually falls. I agree that it is too tall for a theatre.

[hernesson]

More good observations.
I agree the theatre and the building that they demolished could not have been the same. I think it was apartment blocks.
If I'd thought I'd have asked Burton if he knew exactly where, but chances are he wouldn't have remembered and I also didn't want to seem too "fan boyish!" asking. LoL I think one of the Street Hawk novels actually names the name of the theatre and what street it is on in L.A

[janice]

Norman does say the name of the theatre and the street it is on in the episode. I just finished watching it and cannot tell you either. The theatre name started with an "M". Manson? maybe. Ok. Now I have to go look.

Monarch Theatre - Garland Ave.

[Stef]

I expect that the collapsing building footage is just stock footage.

[hernesson]

Did you read the Burton interview about this scene? Funny. Yeah, I'm assuming they had to find stock footage of a collapsing building, as production delays meant that the building they had rigged got dropped, yet they demolished it anyway without the usual safety precautions!!!

[janice]

One other thing that bothered me in this episode is when Norman discovers Cannon isn't Cannon, he calls the police department to give Jesse a message. He said it was life or death. How did he explain how he knew about Cannon when they didn't.

Jesse also never got the message. Couldn't they have radioed one of the patrol cars and given him the message? I have always thought that the officer that shows up when Jesse finds Elkins body should have been bringing Norman's message.

Why didn't Jesse at least have a radio when they were looking for Elkins? He could not even call for backup when he heard the shots.

What about Elkins standing spread eagle in that big window? He might as well have just shouted here I am. Come shoot me.

Did you notice where Jesse was when Cannon slipped away from him? He is in the background talking to a pretty woman. Cannon looks back at him then goes after Elkins.

I thought Rex Smith did some fair acting in SH, but anger was something he could not seem to get a grasp on. It never came off as natural. KWIM?

[hernesson]

I think that's fair criticism where Rex is concerned. I found his performance quite fresh and natural most of the time probably on account of the boyish nature of Jesse, the energy, the humour and wit seemed like it could have been similiar to Rex's own personality at the time.
I do think Jesse needed to be more angry though, like he was more driven to fight crime. Rex didn't get the opportunity to get angry very often. It was underplayed. I think that's where Burton says that he was thinking of a story where Jesse gets roughed up. He wanted to make him tougher, less of a boy and more of a man.
The police man and the vigilante personna didn't completely gel together I thought. One decides to take the law into their own hands because they believe the establishment has failed, and is not doing what is necessary so they do what is necessary. I found it conflicting to see Jesse clearly as one of the establishment and yet doing what Street Hawk does. Street Hawk didn't catch criminals, he actually KILLED them, let's not forget that. He blew away a lot of people.

[janice]

One more thing that was unbelievable: When Cannon is in the theatre gathering the money, SH shows up and Cannon pulls his gun. He tries to fire and it is empty. What professional criminal forgets to load his gun?! Can you imagine explaining that to the boss.

Boss: Did you get him?
Hit Man: Well, not really.
Boss: Why not?
Hit Man: I forgot to load my gun.

[hernesson]

Funny how often that happens in film and tv. The gun jams or it runs out of bullets. Most of the crims on Street Hawk were punks. The show needed a recurring, evil b*stard crime boss played by David Hemmings or Lance LeGault.
Corrido should have come back for an episode or two.

[janice]

hernesson said:

The police man and the vigilante personna didn't completely gel together I thought.

I think this is one reason the show did not work. Jesse continuing to be a police officer was not necessary to the show. It created two different story lines really and made the shows too choppy. I think they were going after sort of a Superman deal, only Jesse was not Superman. No human being could continue to burn the candle at both ends like that. If they had focused on Jesse being Street Hawk, you could have had meatier scripts.

[hernesson]

Yes, I found some of the police HQ scenes pretty boring actually, and like you say, not entirely necessary to the show. People are interested to see the crime fighter, and then maybe what he does in his spare time his life and loves. If he was a janitor by day I wouldn't want to see him mopping floors for example. That'd be dull.

[Pentastar]

hernesson said:

I do think Jesse needed to be more angry though, like he was more driven to fight crime. Rex didn't get the opportunity to get angry very often.

Yeah, I notice that too. You see it a little bit of it in the pilot where Jesse goes after revenge and even steals Street Hawk from Norman. But after he gets revenge he seems to be at peace again. I think it would have been more interesting if he'd still acted like he was running from his demons and trying to avenge the injustices in his life. Maybe if Corrido came back (as Dan suggested) they could have shown more anger or bloodlust coming from Jesse.

hernesson said:

I found it conflicting to see Jesse clearly as one of the establishment and yet doing what Street Hawk does. Street Hawk didn't catch criminals, he actually KILLED them, let's not forget that. He blew away a lot of people.

Street Hawk didn't kill all the bad guys he faced, and the ones he did kill were usually shooting at him at the time. There were times when Jesse would take a bad guy out and then pause remorsefully, and Norman would have to remind him that the other guy would have killed him if he'd been able to.

It is interesting to think of the moral dilemma going on within Jesse being a cop and a vigilante. As a cop, he had definate boundaries and procedures he had to follow, but when he was Street Hawk he could take the law into his own hands. It would have been interesting if the show had continued to see if they would explore that in later episodes. What would happen if Jesse reflected on some of his actions as Street Hawk from his cop perspective and started questioning if he was doing the right thing?

[hernesson]

I think it was curious that the government wanted someone with the "right stuff" a maverick, with a test pilot mentality. Isn't that a bit of a loaded gun? Would that person take orders so readily from Washington? How did they not know he would go psycho with revenge for his dead friend and start believing he was judge and jury?
Essentially there wasn't an awful lot of government control to the project. Norman and Jesse were left to get on with it more or less, or are we to believe that Norm got a lot more commands from Washington than we saw?
What of the project's ultimate goal? To have Street Hawk's in all precincts across America? A Judge Dredd series of States. Cops are already criticised for using excessive force. Was it a realistic goal?

I think the lure of Street Hawk for Jesse originally was that it was a cool bike, and he had the option to use it as a means to an end, a weapon to get Marty's killers. After he completed this there should have been a scene where Norm talks to Jesse about writing wrongs and making more of a difference than the conventional police force could muster.
Obviously as this is tv we never got to see this.

The question you raise is a good one Scott.
I think he would have had a crisis of conscience, more than once, and wonder really if Street Hawk's justice really was the right path and whether it might be changing him. Delving into the dark side of Jesse would make great drama, fighting demons in his mind, as you say.
I think if he was to continue being Street Hawk he would have quit the police force, eventually, but still kept the contacts. I don't know. I'm throwing ideas out there.

[janice]

I was sitting here trying to determine how many people he actually killed in the shows. Some of them you don't really know if they were killed or injured. He left a lot for the police to clean up. Times when he did kill someone, he always expressed remorse except in two cases. One was Corrido. The other was Burt Levine and his thugs. Both were retaliation for the death of a friend.

Norman brought up Washington several times. It would have been interesting to have more involvement from the higher ups. I still think giving Norman a female boss would have made the show very interesting.

[hernesson]

Yeah, would have been funny to have a female boss on speaker phone, ala Charlies Angels ... think of it... "Good morning gentleman!" (Norm and Jesse in unison) "Good morning ??"