'KIDNAPPED': THREE IN ONE

There will be a few spoilers in this essay regarding 'Kidnapped', so if you have plans to one day watch the series on DVD, (and I suggest that you do), then come back after you've done so.......

For me, 'Kidnapped' was one of the better series of the 2006 TV season, and it was a crime that it never got to play out its freshman year on the air. But at least the production was finished so that an audience could watch the entire storyline and not be left dangling - like those suckers who were watching 'Reunion'.

I like to think Mr. Knapp is still out there in NYC, with his sexy sidekick Turner and former FBI Agent Latimer King now working with them. And what if he crossed paths with Detective Cyrus Lupo this coming fall? That should prove confusing for Lupo's partner, Detective Ed Green! (And then if Knapp runs into the new Executive Assistant District Attorney, who's the spitting image of the late FBI Supervisor Andy Archer.....)

It was a very self-contained season for 'Kidnapped'. Had it gone into a second season, maybe we could have seen such a crossover with 'Law & Order'.

Here's an interesting pozz'bility for a theory of "relateeveety" in connection to one of the supporting characters. FBI investigator Vance, who worked for Internal Affairs, could have been the identical half-brother to Mike Giardello. Giardello used to an FBI agent as well, but he transferred out to join the Baltimore Police Department like his father, Lt. Al Giardello.

Here's my theory: Mike was Al's son in name only; let's face it, there didn't look to be much between them to suggest a similar DNA match. And in Toobworld, tele-genetics are strong enough to create nearly exact duplicates from one generation to another.

But Alphonse Giardello was the man who raised him, so in more than just name he was Mike's father. However, Mike was the result of an affair between his mother and a man named Vance whose son by his own wife also grew up to join the FBI. Perhaps their father was an FBI agent as well - his son joined to follow his father's footsteps, and Mike Giardello joined to rub salt in G's wounds over the affair once Mike found out. (It would at least give a clearer reason as to why they had a falling out years earlier.)

I have one final Toobworld pozz'bility to suggest: In the penultimate episode of 'Kidnapped', we met a shady operative named Kurso down in Mexico, who helped Knapp with information and a supply of guns.

It's my contention that we've seen Kurso before in Toobworld, but that's not the name by which we knew him.

A lot can happen to a man in fifteen years. That's a lifetime in which one can drop out of society in one identity, only to rise again with another a world away (in more ways than one).

I think Kurso was Jerry Horne, younger brother to the powerful Ben Horne of 'Twin Peaks'. For one reason or another, he had a final falling out with his brother, perhaps in connection with something illegal in nature. Going underground, he possibly dabbled in arms dealing and being an informant to the FBI, which is probably what brought him into contact with Knapp in the first place.

A search of Google for "Kurso" shows it to mean "course" in the designed language of Esperanto. Jerry Horne could have been the type of man who learned how to speak Esperanto; perhaps he took the pseudonym of "Kurso" to suggest that he had something to teach others. Perhaps it was even loftier, part of some grand design to suggest that he was the course, the Path to some goal. But his dreams of being some kind of Messiah must have gone awry and now he was a low-life on the periphery on the shores of Mexico. It wouldn't be too out of the loop for someone out of 'Twin Peaks'.....

Who knows? If Kurso really was Jerry Horne, it's not like we'll ever see him again in Toobworld, save in flashback. Kurso never survived Knapp's assault to find and rescue kidnap victim Leopold Cain.

So.

A Theory of Relateeveety, a Double Vision/Wishcraft combo, and a Nom de Toob. Not bad for a post about a show which lasted only one season....

BCnU!
Toby OB