1.5 The Pugilist Break But its biggest sin was the lack of any significant character development given the amount of screen time that both Henry and Jo were given here. We already know that Henry is a sucker for anyone being oppressed or downtrodden, and we also know that Detective Martinez is a rule-breaker, so playing those cards again seemed pointless. Only right at the end of the story, when Henry convinces her to come to dinner with him and Abe, did any true character work momentarily surface. In terms of the rest, New York seemed amazing to look at, but populated almost entirely with cookie-cutter characters. The young kid who idolises the boxer, the win-at-any-cost city developer, and the drug dealer who is just a businessman on the wrong side of the law. It was almost the complete set, missing only the prostitute with a heart. Obviously using stereotypes does enable less pedantic storytelling, but nothing in this episode moved with any great pace or momentum. So what did I like? Where the show works well is when it takes us back in time, overlaying past events with the present. If the writers want to do something really interesting with Forever, why not have an episode that’s almost entirely set in the past, where the crime is set in motion only to be revealed in the present? There isn’t any great cost to this, as it’s only costumes, and when we look back at Henry’s life it is significantly more interesting. In this story they did a very cool effect sequence where Henry’s torch glimpsed into the past, before it changed to a lantern. That was a nice idea, and very well implemented. However, as cute as some of these touches are, they’ve entirely forgotten about any larger story arc, and there seems a pitiful amount of character development. Presenting instead what seem like narratives that could have been Kojak episodes probably isn’t going to bring Forever a second season, or even an extended first one. Read Billy’s review of the previous episode, The Art Of Murder, here. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
