I hated shit like the running "gag" that her car always broke down.

I forgot about that. I thought that was ridiculous - she makes a decent salary, if she can afford that nice house with room for her mom and sister too; she can't buy a new car? Especially since being able to get places reliably was an important part of her job.

The one bit from last night's WC that I didn't get was Peter coming over to Neal's with a single piece of pizza in his hand, and then offering it to Mozzie.

It seemed so random that it threw me out of the scene, and there was never any pay off, like "no, this can't be the real bottle, because it has pizza grease on it."

Was last night new? Crap.

You don't have to have stereotypical inherent flaws to have an interesting character.

Peter's absolutely who I was thinking of to disagree with the point. Sure, it's fun to have a douchebag like Nathan Ford, but you don't have to go there. And for women it's too often framed like being kickass means you have to give up something (note, I don't watch IPS, so I have no opinion on the specifics) to be able to compete in a predominantly masculine world. Whereas the male protagonists often display nothing worse than obsessiveness and a bit of situational tone-deafness.

See "car always breaking down" equals "bad luck" to me, which seems gender-neutral, but I guess it would matter on how they played it. I've not seen the show.

They made it seem like her car was a POS, as opposed to it just being a run of bad luck.

I forgot about that. I thought that was ridiculous - she makes a decent salary, if she can afford that nice house with room for her mom and sister too; she can't buy a new car? Especially since being able to get places reliably was an important part of her job.

And the kicker is that as a US Marshal, THEY GIVE YOU A GOVERNMENT CAR!! I can't tell you how many marshals I knew who didn't even have jobs where they really needed to be running around who had cars.

Writer research fail. Can I be a US Marshal? Oh, wait. No, I can't. The government doesn't let people like me have badges!

Writer research fail

That's my point. I don't see it as a research fail, I think that it was a deliberate choice in order to give her a flaw.

I don't see it as a research fail, I think that it was a deliberate choice in order to give her a flaw.

Yeah. The breakdowns aren't played as bad luck - it's her having this crappy car and refusing to do anything about it to demonstrate stubborness or lack or control or something in a way that's really not necessary.