Schadenfreude (202)



Season 1
Head Cases
Still Crazy After All These Years
Catch and Release
Change of Course
And Eye for an Eye
Truth Be Told
Questionable Characters
Loose Lips
Greater Good
Hired Guns
Schmidt Happens
From Whence We Came
It Girls and Beyond
Till We Meat Again
Tortured Souls
Let Sales Ring
Death Be Not Proud

Season 2
The Black Widow
Schadenfreude
Finding Nimmo
A Whiff and a Prayer
Men to Boys
Witches of Mass Destruction
Truly Madly, Deeply
Ass Fat Jungle
Gone
Legal Deficits
The Cancer Man Can


Johnny Damon: They won't let me sing War. That's why. It's my trademark song. I'm Edwin Starr. Good God you all.

Malcolm Holmes: Well technically Johnny you're not. Edwin Starr is dead.

Johnny Damon: But I'm his nephew! I've inherited the right to his lineage. What is Edwin Starr without War?

Tara Wilson: Why won't they let you sing it?

Johnny Damon: Well they consider it anti-American. And it's not just here. I'm getting it in Cleveland. In Detroit. Bakersfield. It's startin to happen everywhere. D' you hear that? They're singing it themselves. They still think I'm comin out to do it as an encore. Huh! And when I don't they're gonna go home disappointed. It's killing my act!




Judge Harvey Cooper: I warned you not to make a mockery of these proceedings.

Alan Shore: It was damaging testimony. I had to do something distracting. It was either accuse somebody or drop my pants. You've got a little froth coming…

Judge Harvey Cooper: I am doubling your contempt sentence.

Alan Shore: What about his mockery? They tried this case in the press. Totally contaminated the jury pool. He kept from us the information Ms Stadler so affectionately referred to as her nugget. What about your mockery? Not shutting any of this down. You psychotic punk!

Judge Harvey Cooper: You're baiting me to say something you can use on the appeal. Your contempt sentence is tripled.

Alan Shore: I move for a mistrial.

Judge Harvey Cooper: On what grounds?

Alan Shore: On grounds of you. We're not getting a fair trial here, on grounds of you.




Operator: 911 Operator.

Kelly Nolan: Yes. My husband has had a heart attack. Please send an ambulance? We're a 1622 Wiggum drive in Sudbury. As soon as you can.

A.D.A Todd Milken: That was your 911 call?

Kelly Nolan: Yes.

A.D.A Todd Milken: It didn't sound wildly distressed.

Kelly Nolan: I was trying to remain calm to communicate the information, in the hopes of saving his life.

A.D.A Todd Milken: Ah. You were trying to appear calm?

Kelly Nolan: Yes. At that time I didn't know it was a crime. Now I do.

A.D.A Todd Milken: According to Detective Richmond, you weren't crying. Your, your mascara wasn't even running.

Kelly Nolan: I suppose if I were trying to get away with something, I would have made sure there were some streaks. I might have also washed out the wine glass. Wiped it for prints. There are all sorts of things the innocent forget to do.




Tara Wilson: Alan!? Hey! Uhm. Alan Shore, meet Malcolm Holmes.

Malcolm Holmes: Ah. Pleasure. They shake hands. Tara's told me so much about you.

Alan Shore: Really? She's managed to be surprisingly discreet about you.




Denny Crane: Show over already? You look beaten.

Alan Shore: I just caught Tara laughing with another man.

Denny Crane: Are you sure they weren't just... kissing or something?




Alan Shore: I'm gonna lose the girl and the case all in the same week.

Denny Crane: You haven't lost this case yet.

Alan Shore: Did you listen to Kelly's testimony in court Denny? How can the jury see her as anything but guilty?

Denny Crane: All you need is reasonable doubt. When I was a younger man, long before Mad Cow, if I was losing in my closing I'd just keep going. I wouldn't sit until I was sure I had it. Just wear 'em down.

Alan Shore: Reasonable doubt.

Denny Crane: You just keep going till I give you the signal that you've got it.




Alan Shore: Shadenfreude. From the German words, Schaden and Freude, damage and joy. It means to take spiteful, malicious delight in the misfortune of others. We used to dismiss this as simply an ugly side of human nature, but it is much much more than that. Recently a Stanford professor actually captured Schadenfreude on a brain scan. It's a physiological medical phenomenon. When we see others fall it sometimes causes a chemical to be released in the dorsal striatum of the brain which actually causes us to feel pleasure. If you watch the news or read the papers, which of course you don't because the Judge said not to, but if you did, you would see the undeniable delicious joy of the media and the public over Kelly Nolan's plight. I have no doubt that you want Kelly Nolan to be punished. She married for money, she had an affair, she carried on naked in the pool with her boyfriend. She's cold, materialistic, unlikable, and it might bring you all pleasure to see her go to jail. But as for evidence to establish that she committed a murder beyond all reasonable doubt? It just isn't there. The only possible route to a guilty verdict here is Schadenfreude.




Alan Shore: Undoubtedly you're familiar with the concept of double jeopardy. You've been acquitted you can never again be tried for this crime, and of course anything you say to me here is protected by attorney-client privilege. Kelly? I absolutely must know. Did you kill him?

Kelly Nolan: No.




Denny Crane: She barely reacted when the verdict was read. Did you notice that?

Alan Shore: I noticed.

Denny Crane: How could a woman be so cold and yet so hot?

Alan Shore: One of her many mysteries.

Denny Crane: Never had my sex with her.

Alan Shore: There's no justice.

Denny Crane: Did we get justice today Alan?

Alan Shore: I don't know.

Denny Crane: I think she did it. Now maybe I wanna think that cause like you say, it could be shutterbug?

Alan Shore: Shadenfreude.

Denny Crane: Murder cases are fun. I'll tell you that. Let's get another one.

Alan Shore: I'm with you.

Denny Crane: I like the pathological. It's sexy. Let's get another one like her.

Alan Shore: My eyes are peeled.






1429