The Most Annoying Flashpoint Ever

[billroper]

daisy_knotwise and I rather enjoy Flashpoint, which is a TV series about a SWAT team set in Toronto. We started watching it as a CBS summer replacement and followed it onto the ION cable channel this fall. I have no idea exactly when the particular episode that's the subject of my annoyance came from (at least a season ago), but it's really annoying. (And I try to remember that many stupid and unjust things are done to set up a situation for TV.)

So here's the situation: a pregnant woman with a three year old daughter is in an automobile accident that kills her husband, crushes her pelvis, and requires an emergency C-section at seven months. She is in terrible, terrible pain from her injuries and becomes addicted to pain killers. Her doctor cuts her off. (It's not clear whether she's still in chronic pain at this point or whether she was offered any rehab after the medicos managed to get her hooked.)

Desperate for pills, she attempts to rob a pharmacy and is arrested and sent to jail for eight years, serving five. She has no relatives who can take the kids, nor any friends who can manage it, so they go to foster care.

Apparently without telling her or allowing her representation in court, her parental rights are terminated and the kids are adopted by the foster families. It's mentioned how "adoptable" the kids were.

She gets out of prison, is getting her life back together, and then is told that she can never have her kids back. Not surprisingly, she goes nuts and kidnaps the two little girls who certainly appear to have been judicially stolen from her.

Many not good things ensue, with the lead actor intoning that this situation is the result of the choices that the mother had made.

In the end, we're told that one of the adoptive families will remain in some contact with her, so that's a good thing. And perhaps the kids will want to see her when they turn eighteen.

And who knows, perhaps by then, the compassionate Canadian judicial system will have let her out of jail for her latest crime spree.

Yeah, I know. It's just a TV show.

But a really annoying one last night.

Usually, they do better.

Comments

[sexybass.livejournal.com]

We haven't seen that one yet but they are usually based on real occurrences. When we lived in the condo we watched the shooting an episode below us. Our new favourite shows shot here in Toronto are Lost Girl and Warehouse 13.

[daisy-knotwise.livejournal.com]

Every time they do a cityscape shot I wonder which was your building.
Toronto is a very pretty city.

GHR

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

I switched on Person of Interest last night for about five minutes, and this week the Schmoe Who Must Be Protected was being played by Enrico Colantoni, who has also played Veronica Mars's Father and Sergeant Joe Flashpoint.

[samwinolj.livejournal.com]

"...with the lead actor intoning that this situation is the result of the choices that the mother had made."

Too bad they didn't make the much more valid point that the situation was due to moral panic over drugs. Now that would have been some good TV.

[mbcrui.livejournal.com]

I know nothing about Canadian law. I do know something about foster parenting, my sister has been a foster parent for many years.

My sister had a foster-daughter whose mother was in federal prison. The girl was NOT eligible for adoption, as "jail" isn't a reason to terminate parental rights. My sister brought her to visit her mother (and grandmother) at the prison a few times, and within 5 months after being released, the girl was back with her mother.
My sister has adopted one of her foster children-- whose parent's rights were terminated for neglect and failure to protect and a host of other issues and which took more than 3 years to accomplish. And her biological father still comes to visit her when he get here (which is my sister's choice, tho).