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Close Quarters, November 7, 2003 As Reviewed by Michele Blackburn |
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Harm's return, Great Lakes experience
and SARS make for this episode of JAG titled Close Quarters. The submariners weren't Japanese but North Koreans. That's why the North Koreans debated and argued when Lieutenant Yi wanted a confession out of them. Some of them wanted to know for sure that they wouldn't be sent back to N.Korea if they told them the truth. I'm proud that they casted people who actually could speak the language, instead of casting Asians to play the part. previous episode review//next episode review
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Harm's
return isn't exactly how he hoped it would be. His new office is now
Sturgis' office and if that wasn't bad enough a dead rat died in the walls
causing the smell to be horrible. That's not the worst of it. He has the
majority of Imes cases and loaded on top of that are the cases that Singer
had with Imes. Still that's not all. Harm meets Terrence Minnerly, a
retired Navy Seaman who lost his arm in an accident two weeks after he
left the Navy. 
Harm
gets involved with Terrence when he sees the man being arrested for
burglary. Actually, Terence had no gun; he just made a secretary think he
had one and then took her money. Harm houses him while trying to figure
something out about his case. 
When
his case load and Terrence Minnerly are too much to bear, Harm goes to Mac
for help using the excuse that the Admiral lets her slide whenever she's
been in trouble. She tells him to get out and then informs him that she'll
help Harm as much as she can after her case load dies down. 
Harm
introduces her to Minnerly who he had outside her office the whole time
they were talking. The two talk about his case until the Admiral
interrupts and informs Mac that she is late for a court case. Mac runs out
leaving Minnerly in her office. 
The
Great Lakes Experience began in 1942. President Franklin Roosevelt wanted
to integrate blacks into the Navy. For three years, five thousand
musicians were recruited into the Navy and trained at the Great Lakes Navy
Training Institute in Illinois. Clark Terry is the most recognizable face
of the Great Lakes Experience. He was a member of Duke Ellington and the
Tonight Show bands. 
After
Terrence left, the Admiral and Harm (with Mac in the room) had a good talk
about what Harm was supposed to do at JAG now and how he was to act. When
Harm informed him he had too many cases to handle, the Admiral handed
Singer's cases over to Mac. I thought I would die laughing when I saw
Mac's face and Harm's face. He was thrilled. Mac, on the other hand, was
stunned. 
Meanwhile,
the Admiral sent Sturgis to the USS Cathedral City hoping being back in an
old haunt would change his attitude. Sturgis' job was to figure out what
to do with several Japanese submariners who were taken onto the Cathedral
after their sub sank. What made the job worse was when the corpsman found
out that the men could possibly have SARS. If that wasn't bad enough for
Sturgis, he had an interpreter, Lieutenant Yi, that didn't get along with
him. By the time the SARS was found out to be a bad case of the flu,
Sturgis found out the reason why Yi didn't like him was because his father
was shot by a black man during a store robbery and even though he
recovered Yi's father was never the same. 
When
a very sick Sturgis returned to JAG, the Admiral informed him that charges
were brought against him by the interpreter Lieutenant Yi. Sturgis didn't
seem like it bothered him or surprised him and that made the Admiral angry
because he wasn't fighting back. 
Oh!
We saw Mattie Grace again in this episode. Harm called her (as she said
just like clockwork) to see how she was. We know that she doesn't care for
her neighbor bringing over dresses and food and that she really wants the
guardianship to go through. Harm told her it would take time. Personally,
I can't wait until Mac finds out about Mattie Grace and Catherine's
pregnancy. I'm getting tired of this whole Harm/Mac dance. If something is
going to happen, I want it to happen.