Great episode this week, with great work by Dylan Baker, and a couple of interesting twists (he wasn't a molester, and he didn't commit suicide as he probably would have on other shows).
I liked it. I recognized Anthony LaPaglia right away under the makeup. Then Vivian was there, and the missing guy had two daughters. It was pretty clear what they were doing. It was fun to see Jack not going by the book. A nice change of pace.
I also instantly recognized LaPaglia as the old guy. But my wife and I agreed that this was an awful episode.
Some of my dreams would make for a much better prime-time hour of HDTV than this was. I was sort of hoping that it would end with a scene of his ex-wife seeing Jack step out of the shower.
I agree; terrible episode... Hopefully the season finale will make up for this one. The makeup they used for "old man Jack" was just awful too. Or maybe HDTV just made it look bad...
At least LaPaglia was playing a variant of himself. Like others here I immediately knew the acting identity of the old man. I then thought of the confusion caused by Cheech Marin's triple characters in 'From Dusk Till Dawn'. I spent most of the movie trying to figure out the significance of his reappearances.
Next season they'll have a very hard time explaining how one or even both of them survived - unless the car was bullet-proof, which would be unrealistic.
I thought it was a weak episode with a cheesy, melodramatic cliffhanger recycled from last year's Third Watch finale, of all places. I hope they don't dumb down this show with more violence and sex.