Skip to content

zwolanerd

“I guess I just like liking things”

April 18, 2013 Wonderfalls S01E05: Crime Dog

SUMMARY
Jaye, Aaron, and Sharon are in a police station being questioned. In a series of flashbacks, the story unfolds about Yvette, the Tyler’s housekeeper, being deported to Canada after it is discovered that she was in the USA on an expired visa for 20 years. Aaron and Jaye go after her when Jaye is told by a cow creamer to “Bring her back”. Aaron begins to suspect that something is going on between Jaye and the creamer.
When the Tyler siblings find Yvette, she dissuades them from bringing her back to Buffalo, but on the way to a hotel, Jaye follows the cow creamer’s directions and ends up on the front lawn of Yvette’s — or as it turns out, Cindy’s — parents. Yvette/Cindy reveals that she ran away from home and her parents never bothered to look for her. She decides to go back to the Tyler’s, but Sharon has tipped off the border patrol and several officers meet them on their way back to the USA. Darrin Tyler has already made a call to some politician friends and the Tylers, plus Yvette/Cindy, head back to Niagara Falls, where they share breakfast together as a family.
The plot device where the central plot serves as a catalyst to develop the recurring characters is called The Client. The Client, in this episode, is Yvette/Cindy and her struggles with her family. The parallel is that Jaye feels out of place in her family, but Yvette was so out of place that she wasn’t wanted by her parents at all. So the happy fuzzies are when Jaye realizes that her family isn’t so bad. And, scene. I don’t recall this being so boring when I first watched it, but after looking at the previous episodes and seeing how formulaic they are, it is quite lame. It seems more like sitcom writing than an hour comedy-drama.
Other than that, the dynamic between Jaye and Aaron in this episode is great. He is starting to catch on that Jaye is acting strangely, and he correctly notices that it is because of animal-shaped objects. He doesn’t attribute it to her ‘sode, but is very concerned and/or interested in this development in his sister.
While the relationship between Jaye and Sharon is further explored here, I would say that it seems to be unfair that Jaye is portrayed as the “bad guy” in the relationship. She is pretty antagonistic and cruel towards her sister at times, but there’s also a very real lack of connection from the other side. Aaron noticed that Jaye was communicating with a porcelain creamer, but all Sharon noticed was that Aaron and Jaye had teamed up against her. The “me vs. them” idea gets reinforced by Karen too, as she says that Sharon is Darrin’s favorite, and then immediately takes it back. I still feel that the poor relationship between the sisters is not adequately portrayed. There is a lot of telling, but very little showing.
The muses in this episode are the Crime Dog and the Cow Creamer. The Crime Dog is at the police station where Jaye and her siblings are being questioned, and says “Hey, doll, I’ll talk to you,” to Jaye, and later tells her to say yes to Sharon asking to be her lawyer. The cow creamer tells Jaye to have a pancake, then says a few variations on “Bring her back”, “bring her home”, and “bring her back home”. At first, we are led to believe that the creamer wants Jaye to bring Yvette/Cindy home to the Tylers, then that the plan was to bring Yvette/Cindy to the home of her parents, with the frantic “right on red!”. At the end, we realize that the place that is truly home to Yvette/Cindy is the Tylers where, although she is the housekeeper, she is valued.
"Moo! Have a pancake!"

“Moo! Have a pancake!”

TRIVIA & REFERENCES
  • The BCIS agents are named Arnold and Donikian, which is a homage to friends of the creator.
  • During the commentary, when the officer asks Aaron about the cow and he says he hoped it was one of those “odorless cocaine cows”, Bryan Fuller says that it is a reference to the film Traffic.
  • When Aaron surprises Jaye at Wonderfalls with the cow creamer, he asks if her pupils are dilated. This is a symptom of drug use. He also brings up the pig shaped salt and pepper shakers, which is a reference to the previous episode, when he was talking to Jaye and Sister Katrina in the Tylers’ kitchen.
  • Sharon says in 1982 Yvette brought her to see E.T. and told her she had boobs. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial did indeed come out in 1982.
  • Darrin is wearing an elephant pin on his suit jacket, which is another reference to him being a Republican.
  • The car that Jaye is driving is a 1966 Studebaker.
  • Aaron says that Jaye wears her trailer park home and her “hillbilly-ness” like a ring of garlic, to ward off the family. This is a reference to vampire lore, where they are repelled by garlic.
  • When showing Yvette the bed they made for her in the trunk of the car, she exclaims over the cute “teddy bear” blanket. Aaron replies that they are Ewoks, and the blanket shows the title Return of the Jedi, the Star Wars film that the Ewoks are from. The linens were found on eBay by the costume department.
  • Aaron laments that they only have $144 to give Yvette for a hotel, but she says that since it is American money, it will go farther. In 2004, the exchange rate was 1.35. It is currently 1.02, although it dipped below parity in late 2007 and again in 2011.
  • The living room set at the Bradley’s house (Yvette/Cindy’s parents) later became Dr. Ron’s office. It was supposed to be Karen’s home office but never got used for that.
  • Jaye refers to her sister as The Smoking Man from the X-Files, which is a villain who appears in several seasons with a variety of aliases.
  • Karen is upset that Aaron broke the cow creamer, because it was a Limoges. That does not refer to a particular manufacturer, but to a collection of factories in Limoges, France, that produce porcelain items.
  • Fox, the network originally airing the show, hated this episode, and cancelled it right before it was supposed to air. They felt it was confusing. They also didn’t like the rewind effect in this episode, which the creators had wanted to use in multiple episodes, but decided not to because of the network’s dislike of it.
  • Unfortunately, the actress who played Yvette/Cindy does not make another appearance although the creators loved her. There wasn’t enough budget to bring her back.

Tags: ,

Written by: