Law & Order: Criminal Intent (TV Series) In the Dark (2004) User Reviews

Interesting

[zeniawulfe · 9/10 · 27 July 2016]

ccthemovieman-1 was a little confused in their review.

A homeless man went missing and in the search for him, the detectives discovered that another homeless man had been discovering the dead bodies (he didn't cause their deaths) and sold the bodies to research facilities.

Searching more into it, the detectives met Rose Cahill. An older lady that made sandwiches for the homeless people. She had been telling her husband that her daughter (his stepdaughter) was sick. The man had never met the daughter, but believed that she needed financial help. So he began recruiting homeless men to help in his auto mechanic shop. He'd get them credit cards and they would then get cars which the guy would strip for parts and sell for money to help with medical bills for his step daughter. Then he would kill the homeless men and dump them (hence the guy at the beginning finding the bodies).

As it turns out... Rose never gave birth to her child. The detectives talked to people that knew her 30 years ago and one said that she thought Rose had miscarried or had an abortion because she never carried to term. When confronted with this, it is discovered that Roses baby died in utero and instead of expelling the dead fetus, it calcified and turned into a "stone baby" (a real thing) and was still in Roses womb to this day. She had been talking about her daughter as though she were alive and well because she'd had series of mini-strokes that scrambled her memory.

All in all, it was a sad situation, but it made for a good episode!

unlikely

[Mrpalli77 · 7/10 · 12 September 2017]

I found this episode high unlikely. It's strange that an old man who looks like an upstate farmer could set a scam like this. Maybe the Wolf of Wall Street could manage this, but not the late Geoffrey Lewis. There are too many things to plan and you have to connect the dots just in time. At the beginning it is shown how miserable is the underground life for the homeless: a tramp told Goren "It's getting too damn bright out here". Living in the tunnel turned him into a bat-like creature.

Gross!

[dpasq-848-450917 · 9/10 · 29 July 2018]

A "stone baby" eeeewww! She was completely aware of this situation. No matter how broken or demented one is, to fake normalcy and live life knowing a dead human resides inside of you, is absolutely blastphemous and repugnant. Rose unfortunately had no support, where one would confront her macabre circumstance. Ewww!

Stone baby won't leave you cold

[mgl-92037 · 8/10 · 19 February 2024]

I highly prize originality, a quality which this episode has in spades. Starting with the most stunning revelation, this is the second time in my life I've seen the device of stone baby used in a story. The other time was in a fascinating novel by Philip K Dick, whose title I can't recall.

Next, the characters of Butch and Rose are truly fascinating. In their own ways each of them is a villain, although Butch was the overt criminal. I agree that the actual criminal scheme is highly implausible, and that Butch doesn't seem to have the smarts for it. But I can overlook that objection because the overall effect is so strong. In fact, Butch's low intelligence is key part of the story. A normal person wouldn't have believed in the existence of Jenny for so long. This is a tragic, dark episode which just misses being one of the best in the series.

In the bizarre dark

[TheLittleSongbird · 6/10 · 17 September 2020]

Season 4, following on from three solid previous seasons, started off so well, with "Semi-Detached" and "Want" being especially brilliant episodes thanks to very interesting killers and seeing a different softer side to Goren. So it was a shame that it went downhill with the uneven "Eosphoros", which had a good idea and interesting title but didn't completely work. So there was the hope that "In the Dark" would be better, as the premise did sound interesting.

"In the Dark's" execution sadly wasn't as interesting and it turned out to be a bit of an inconsistent potential waste. It started off very promisingly, so on that front it was well on its own way on being a big improvement over "Eosphoros". So it did frustrate me that it became increasingly bizarre and implausible, when looking at the premise it had the potential to be really quite chilling. "In the Dark" could easily have been one of the best Season 4 episodes with that premise, but ended up as one of the season's weaker episodes.

By all means it is not all bad and there are actually a number of good things. The slickness and grit is still present, complete with a moodier atmosphere that fits very well with the concept. The music is suitably haunting and doesn't make the mistakes of over-powering or overuse. The script probes enough thought, Goren's perceptions are entertaining and interesting and Eames' snappy one-liners bring a smile to the face.

Did think that "In the Dark" did start off incredibly promisingly, it held my attention, had me invested and there was a creepiness to it. Goren is such a big part of 'Criminal Intent's' appeal and he continues to shine, as does his chemistry with Eames. Although there is no doubt that it is them early on, the perpetrator is fascinating and creepy. The acting is very good, not just from Vincent D'Onofrio and Kathryn Erbe but also a sinister Geoffrey Lewis.

After such a promising start though, the more obvious and conventional the story gets the less suspenseful and such the episode becomes. Other than a surprising and quite bonkers twist concerning the truth about a character's condition things get pretty predictable. By the final act, "In the Dark" had not become too tame but it also had become really strange and confused from trying to cram in too much and not going into enough depth.

Found the perpetrator's motives for the crimes underdeveloped and implausible, and if the episode delved into his mind and explained further his psychological state that would have made more sense and been easier to swallow. The final solution had a lot to cram in and really struggles to do so, the ending felt very rushed and left too many things left in the air.

Bottom line, another disappointing episode. 6/10

Dementia Makes For A Disturbing Episode

[ccthemovieman-1 · 6/10 · 17 June 2008]

This is one of those 'Criminal Intent" episodes that leaves you with a bad taste, a frown on your face when it's over. To be honest, I didn't quite get all of the story, but I think I have it. Like an old Charlie Chan film, it was wrapped up with all the facts in the final few minutes and not easy to digest them all.

In a nutshell, it was about a middle-aged woman with dementia pretending she had a baby, or that it was still inside her (confusing) and a boyfriend she was with who apparently believed she had a now-32-year-old kid somewhere but also committed nine murders of homeless people, all to show her love for her (I didn't get that part) and to sell off body parts for money. Why all of this happened, you'll have to watch. Maybe you'll understand it all better than I did. The title to this episode is appropriate, because that's what I was: "In The Dark." All I know is that it's a very disturbing ending when everything is revealed.

Along the way we get another plug for abortion, something Law & Order does a couple of times each season. It's mentioned twice in here about the years before Roe vs. Wade being "the dark ages." Law & Order, and the spin off series such as this one, routinely inserting its Liberal political agenda. It's shameful they don't stick entirely to the crime story.

We also get to see an actor who was very visible in the 1970s and 1080s: Geoffrey Lewis, who was about 70 when he filmed this TV episode. He plays "Butch." Lewis played a lot of wacky characters in both film and a number of TV series. He was in several Clint Eastwood box-office successes back in the late '70s. Younger people might know his daughter, Juliette, who has played some sleazy-but-always fascinating role. She was the infamous "Mallory" in "Natural Born Killers." To her credit, she's turned to theater the last couple of years where she finds some of the best actors, actresses and directors.