Thursday, April 23, 2015

Character Musing - Jack's Back: Captain Jack Scofield (Riptide)


For my first character musing here, I decided I wanted to do it on this cutie, Captain Jack Scofield, from the Riptide episode The Pirate and the Princess. Throughout the episode, the writers do a great job of throwing both real and fake evidence at us concerning Scofield’s true nature. It’s up to us to figure out the truth, something not always so easy when there are so many red herrings being strung around the place.

The basic plot of the episode has the three Riptide detectives down in the Caribbean on vacation, visiting their friends the Guirilinis. They become involved in a search the Guirilinis are on for a pirate treasure rumored to be in the area. Meanwhile, a mysterious saboteur tries everything possible to ruin the expedition. The crew of Guirilini’s ship the Arrivederci has skipped out, certain that the entire expedition is cursed by the evil eye. Riptide offers to fill in.

Right away, things go wrong when they search for the missing remote-controlled mini-submarine and find it next to an eels’ nest. Tony Guirilini ends up bitten by a huge eel that swims out to attack the intruders.

Captain Scofield is meant to seem suspicious from the get-go, paying off a local official to spy on the Riptide crew and also engaging in a bit of that himself. It doesn’t help that while he sits on his boat and watches the crew on the Arrivederci, he’s wearing what must be diving gear. Could he have moved the mini-submarine so that it’s resting on the eels’ home? Or could he at least have seen it there and not bothered to move it?

That was one last question that persisted in my mind even after I established Scofield’s innocence in the main sabotaging adventures. The saboteurs were never after the treasure at all, but were only trying to protect their smuggled goods hidden in the nearby area, and by all indications, Scofield was not mixed up with them and really was trying to find the treasure. I believe, however, that I have also vindicated Scofield of that one last infraction. The real traitor in their midst, the boyfriend of the Riptide crew’s friend Giovanna Guirilini, seemed to be the only traitor aboard the Arrivederci. He was also a diver, so it was most likely he who moved the mini-sub. Scofield, I’m guessing, was diving either for fun or while looking for the treasure, but was not involved in any way with the moving of the mini-sub and probably didn’t even know it was there. Him showing up in the diving gear was a red herring, something else meant to keep the audience suspicious of him.

One frustrating thing about the episode is that it never clearly establishes Scofield’s real role in things. One is left to try to piece together who and what he is based on the final evidence.

The main characters are divided on what to think for most of the episode. Cody Allen and Nick Ryder do not like Scofield and are suspicious of how he was watching their ship and turned up right during the expedition, offering his knowledge of the waters for a share in the pirate’s treasure they’re all seeking. They remain suspicious and eventually insinuate Scofield’s involvement in a fire that happens on the ship after they find a rum bottle near the fire. Scofield always carries one and drinks from it throughout the day. Scofield is hurt and insulted by the accusations and accuses them of deliberately trying to frame him to cheat him out of his cut of the treasure.

Murray Bozinsky, on the other hand, seems to be perfectly alright with the man and believes in his innocence. He found Scofield’s records from the Maritime Association and learned that he was an upright freighter captain for many years and retired with a clean record. He thinks Cody and Nick should stop worrying. Scofield, apparently realizing that Murray likes him, and respecting Murray as well, later wants to work with him on sorting out the pirate’s charts. Most of the actual examining of the charts happens off-screen, but I imagine it was a very interesting conversation.

The climax starts when the Guirilinis and Murray are talking and fantasizing and suddenly hear a horrific gunshot and a thump. Running to the engine room, they find Captain Scofield shot and lying on the floor next to a bomb. Giovanna’s boyfriend Guido says that Scofield was trying to blow everyone up. But when Angelo Guirilini moves to radio for an ambulance, Guido realizes the gig is up. He can’t let an ambulance or the police come. Pointing his gun at Angelo, he reveals his duplicity.

We’re left to wonder, more or less, exactly what happened. Was Scofield involved and he and Guido were arguing, maybe with Scofield furious about being framed? More likely, considering the weight of the collective evidence and Murray’s belief in Scofield and Scofield’s insistence on his innocence, the truth is much more positive in Scofield’s favor. He was probably trying to figure out who really had framed him and had gone to the engine room looking for clues. It was his bad luck to have surprised Guido in the act of planting the bomb. Realizing Guido was the real enemy, Scofield tried to stop him and was shot for his efforts. Guido then decided to lie and put the blame for the bomb on Scofield, hoping that his one last frame would buy him enough time to set the bomb for real.

That isn’t the last we see of Scofield. He plays a very important part in things and through his efforts, manages to rescue the others.

After Guido’s smuggler employer boards the ship and has Guido tie everyone up, he orders Guido to plant the bomb for real this time. Guido goes to do so and is immediately greeted by a wounded Scofield, who regained consciousness and struggled up with a knife. He will not let Guido plant that bomb. We later see Guido on the floor, apparently dead from a stab wound.

Scofield is barely conscious and probably doesn’t realize the bomb has already been armed. If he does realize, he knows that he can’t figure out how to stop it. He staggers down the hall, up the steps, and finds his way to the main cabin where everyone is tied up. He brings the knife, apparently to try to cut their bonds, but passes out again from the wound before he can do this. Still, they are able to get the weapon from him and cut the ropes. Thanks to Scofield and his knife, they are able to temporarily stop the bomb and then send it to the smugglers’ underwater cave via the remote-controlled mini-submarine.

We don’t see Scofield again, unfortunately, but the epilogue tells us that he will live. He’ll be up and around in a couple of weeks.

Seriously, that guy is tough. He has such a small frame compared to pretty much everyone else in the cast, and he can’t stay conscious for long after being shot, but not everyone could struggle up with a bullet in them, stab somebody, and walk around a large ship and up steps while being barely conscious in immense pain. You could see he was fighting for consciousness by the time he entered the main cabin, and although he couldn’t stay awake, he accomplished his mission by bringing the knife so everyone could get untied. If he hadn’t been able to do that, Guido would have set the bomb and everyone would have died. Rather interesting that they were all saved by a man very few of them even trusted!

The characters repeatedly tell us that Scofield is alive after the shooting. The writer clearly wanted the audience to know that information, perhaps because Scofield is a decent person and is someone the audience cares about. By all accounts, he is exactly what he presented himself to be, a retired sea captain just looking for a treasure, and not trying to harm anyone along the way except when he kills Guido in the defense of others.

Scofield is brilliantly played by Christopher Cary. There is no lie in his face or his voice; he is adamant that he is innocent and it is very difficult to disbelieve him. He freely admits to spying on the ship, but only to see what they were up to, and he believes in a firm and honest deal between him and Guirilini based on the trust of men and sealed with a handshake and looking each other in the eyes.

It’s interesting how non-objective Cody and Nick are. They don’t consider any other suspects, only Scofield. And some of the evidence itself actually points to another solution. When the mini-submarine malfunctions and Murray finds the source of the damage on the Arrivederci, presumably on the remote-control, it’s before Scofield is staying on the ship. Unless they think he sneaked onboard at some point, the more logical thing to think is that someone already on the ship did it. But they never discuss that.

Naturally they wouldn’t think the Guirilinis would be involved. By extension, they would trust Giovanna’s boyfriend too. But they could have considered other crew members, at least. And there really should have been some questioning of Guido, since they didn’t know him. Just zeroing in on Scofield as the only possible suspect they could come up with, not to mention not considering the possibility that the real saboteur was deliberately framing him, was not very good detective work!

I’m going to blame the writer for that more than the characters. The writer seemed to be trying to trick the viewer all the way along, presenting two sets of facts and leaving viewers to choose which was true and which was misleading. The writer clearly wanted it to be a surprise that the bad guy was Guido, so there was no suspicion cast on him beforehand.

I can’t be too annoyed at the writer, though, not when such a great character as Captain Scofield was first conceived in that script. I am absolutely thrilled with the character, his immense amount of screentime, and Christopher Cary’s interpretation of him. He quickly became one of my top three favorite Christopher characters.

As for the others, well, just keep reading. ;)

Sunday, April 5, 2015

Introduction

Hello! You have just stumbled onto a little haven to honor some of the great character actors, mainly of classic movies and television. Some names may be at least somewhat familiar to you, such as William Talman, Richard Anderson, Darren McGavin, and Christopher Cary. Others, such as Luke Andreas, may be entirely new to you. Perhaps you even know all of them by face, just not by name. I intend to correct all of that!

I love character actors and how they perfectly slip into whatever part they're given. I co-run a website for the awesome Simon Oakland, and I often post pictures of all my favorites on Tumblr, along with related musings, but I wanted a place other than Tumblr to post some things at times as well.

I think I mainly plan to use this blog for episode reviews and character introspection musings, as well as tales of my adventures in building the site this blog is going to be the companion to. That's definitely going to be a long, and I hope rewarding, adventure!

I may sometimes cross-post some of my longer Tumblr musings here, but I think for the most part it will be entirely original content. I'm looking forward to celebrating all of my favorite character actors with you!