TO: Jon C., Ellen D., Chris K., Frank B., & 'The Collector' fan club members

Gang,

Here are my thoughts on 'The Jockey'. Care to chime in?

KJC

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The third season of the show kicks off with a story about a man who sold his
soul to the devil to win every race he enters with his long-dead brother's
championship race horse. Written by extraordinarily talented screenwriter
Frank Borg (The Eleventh Hour), directed by Anthony Atkins, and starring Ryan
Robbins (Smallville, Supernatural) as Morgan's latest client, Freddie
Grimshaw, this episode also saw the return of Ellen Dubin as the devil in the
guise of the now-deceased Jeri Slate.

Personally, I found 'The Jockey' to be a little disappointing -- irritating,
even -- as something Morgan said angered me so deeply I almost turned off my
TV. In this episode we see the devil raising/stealing the race horse's soul
while a horrified Freddie Grimshaw looks on. Moments later, during one of
Morgan's heated exchanges with his client, the soul collector blurts out that
the devil was playing mind games with him because, in fact, animals do not
have souls.

Now, I'm usually quite open-minded when it comes to people's religious
beliefs, and I'm not so judgemental of those who practice Wicca and Satanism
along with the more popular religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam etc.).
However, that line REALLY got under my skin, as it is so diametrically
opposed to everything I believe in, right down to the core of my being, my
own soul, as it were. I hated Morgan in that moment, then I hated Frank Borg
who wrote the line, then the producers who obviously wanted that line in the
script. But then I hastily reminded myself that this is just fiction, a
fantasy series whose characters have just as much of a right to their
opinions and ideas as 'real' people do. I'm still irritated by Morgan's
obviously flawed religious beliefs but I'm not going to let it spoil
our 'friendship', yknow?

There was also a flaw in logic in this episode. During a flashback scene of
ten years ago, we see the devil in the guise of Jeri Slate doing something to
a horse which resluted in the death of Freddie Grimshaw's brother, a famous
jockey. Well, earlier in this episode -- as with previous episodes over the
past two years -- Morgan states that the devil changes his identity rather
frequently, most often adopting the persona of those who are dead. OK, well,
Jeri Slate's dead now, so it makes sense that he would use her image, if only
to torment Morgan. But, ten years ago? Ten years ago Jeri was married and had
just given birth to Gabriel, her autistic son. So, why the Hell (pun intend)
would Satan adopted her persona in order to sneak into the stables and injure
a race horse? This makes absolutely no sense from a storytelling perspective.
However, I imagine it was a necessity from a production standpoint, as I
suspect it would've been a major pain in the ass to audition/hire an actor to
portray the devil for that 5 second long scene.

Overall, this was an OK episode and I'm looking forward to the rest of season
three.