Newsreaders (2013) s01e04 Episode Script
CCSI: Boston
Tonight on "Newsreaders," an estimated Why are they all such dicks? And it's something that almost everyone has in their kitchen, and it could kill you, and, also, it's a knife.
All that and more, tonight on "Newsreaders.
" We begin tonight with childhood innocence.
You used to have it, but then something awful happened and it was taken from you.
But what if you still had it, the childhood innocence? You'd be much better adjusted, and you might be able to solve crimes.
Amir Larussa tells us how.
Murders, cold cases, forensics, ballistics, chalk outlines, other crime words.
Crime isn't exactly child's play.
Well, try telling that to six-year-old Noah Brayles.
In the last year, he has solved 30 crimes for the Fontaine, New York, police department, because the eyes of a child see things in ways adults cannot.
Detective landau met Noah the way he meets a lot of the kids he doesn't arrest.
Once a year, local school kids come in here on a school field trip.
We use it to identify kids on a power trip so we can recruit them when they're older.
But what detective landau found out was that Noah was on a different kind of trip.
I turned my back, and this kid's opened up a filing cabinet and is leafing through a bunch of old murder-scene photos, and he -- he pulls out a picture and he asks me about the unicorn in it.
At first, I tune him out, like I do all kids and women, then he says, "Unicorns don't have two horns," and it hit me.
Two shooters.
It turns out the two mobsters weren't whacked.
They shot each other! [ Laughs .]
[ Laughing .]
You guys say, "whacked"? [ Chuckling .]
Yeah.
What else would you say? The point is, Noah solved a cold case in minutes.
For the record, I think it looks like a, uh, a giraffe with two necks.
It's kind of weird that you framed it.
Really? We tagged along with Noah and detectives from the Fontaine police department as they investigated a homicide in an artist's loft.
Are you sleeping, are you sleeping? brother John I'm getting too old for this [Bleep.]
And he's getting too young.
I'm exactly the right age for this [Bleep.]
To Noah, it's all a game -- a game the police hope he plays for a long, long time.
Why is this dirt red? Is that Clay? Hey, wait a minute -- the racetrack.
If Noah hadn't found the Clay, we wouldn't have broken the case.
My tummy's starting to hurt.
Well, you need to poop? But what makes Noah so good at this job? Honestly, I don't know.
I could guess, or I could ask noted child psychologist Monica Collander, who has studied Noah.
If Noah's success can be replicated, we could make crime a thing of the past.
I noticed that the crime scene seemed to give him some kind of stomachache.
That's how they get attention.
"I've got a stomachache.
Look at me!" "Take me out of this gruesome crime scene.
" These kids have got to grow up sometime.
It's like finding out about Santa.
Or the tooth fairy.
Or losing your virginity.
In grad school.
Okay.
Noah may be a great closer, but some say a police department is no place for a child.
He's putting a lot of people out of work, and not just canine detectives like me.
Psychics, Indian trackers, obsessive-compulsive geniuses -- you name it.
Crime novelists who solve crimes on the side.
Yeah, those guys.
People who can talk to dead bodies.
Sure.
I whisper to dogs to get them to do my bidding.
He should do his job and let me do mine.
How many dogs do you have? I have 37 dogs.
What are their names? I don't name them.
They're numbered.
Numbered? 1 through 37? No.
Random numbers? Yes.
What kind of things can you make dogs do? You know, we do lay down, roll over.
We do -- I have one dog that can walk backwards.
I'm having a tough time picturing how they solve crimes with those -- No, those guys don't solve crimes.
But you know who does solve crimes? Noah Brayles.
Which is why he got the call to help interrogate a suspected serial killer.
And that idea, while adorable, turned out to be not such a good one.
You're only six years old and already ensnared in the trifling busy work of crime solving.
Quit with the games, Rousseau.
Tell me, Noah, you investigate death, but do you actually know what happens when you die? Youfall asleep? Your heart stops.
You stop breathing.
Every cell in your body screams out in pain, unwilling to give up life, but it's hopeless.
You fall asleepforever.
[ Weakly .]
I don't want to be dead.
That turned out to be Noah's last day on the job.
Now he lives the life of a normal kid -- except for the fact that he stopped speaking that day and now has constant, uncontrollable seizures.
Noah's retired, but some of his magic did rub off on detective landau.
I used to think I was too old for this poo-poo.
The truth is, I wasn't young enough.
What's that? Oh, that's a shark eating a house.
Noah made that? No.
I did.
Mm.
Detective landau may not be moving on, but the Fontaine police department is.
They've now turned to another master of the observational, local stand-up comedian Chuck P.
And what's the deal with this bloody earring right here? I feel like I'm in Lady Gaga's wardrobe closet.
Thanks a lot, guys.
LaFonda: Later on in the program -- gas prices.
Am I right? But first, Boston, Massachusetts, is known for many things -- Fenway Park, clam chowder, overt racism, quiet simmering racism, and racism that is meant as a joke but that is still racism.
But when we think of Boston, we only really think of one thing.
Alleyways.
Can't get more Boston than alleyways.
LaFonda: Yes.
In the great tradition of not placing buildings right next to each other, Boston is the leader.
And it is a rich history.
The Massachusetts Indians considered the space between two structures sacred.
They believed the spirit could soar to great heights while not being constricted by too-tightish widths.
And Boston has been cashing in on this resource ever since the very first structure was built not quite close enough to its neighbor.
Mike Sullivan's alley, located in Boston's financial district, is one of the city's most famous, and it's been his family's livelihood for generations.
Mike's great-great grandfather, an Irish immigrant, was the first Sullivan to have a go of it in the alley trades.
So, how did he come to own an alley in the first place? Bought it from a wicked-dumb Indian.
LaFonda: And how much did it cost? $12 worth of beads and trinkets.
It's all he had at the time.
The Irish were scurvy rich and trinket poor.
LaFonda: And what makes this alley particularly historic? Ever heard of the Boston massacre? LaFonda: No, but I get it.
The first man killed in that shooting, Crispus Attucks, used to run a dice game in here.
LaFonda: Oh.
Black guy.
LaFonda: Mike's great-great-grandfather ran illegal burlesque shows here in the 1870s.
His son, Mike's great-grandfather, followed him into show business.
As a child actor, Flannery Sullivan was a member of "The Back Bay Boys" -- early short films in which those lovable Boston scamps -- Sully, Sack, Black Sully, Shuli, and the Chink -- assaulted girls until an adventure came their way.
But it wasn't until Mike inherited the alley that he found a business model that would bring riches to the Sullivan family -- renting it to film productions.
Mike's alley has been the site of over 100 Massachusetts-based films, including legal thriller "Mass Appeal," horror movie "Midnight Mass-acre," Pedro Almodovar's "Mas Mass," and "Jurassic Park.
" Business was good for Mike Sullivan, and the future looked bright.
The Massachusetts bureau of tourism is shooting a commercial, and they want to center it around our Boston alleys.
So, I'm thinking win-win.
LaFonda: Well, I get the first win -- that you charge them to shoot here -- but what about the second win? What is that win? Unless charging them to shoot here is the second win, in which case, I'm more curious about the first win.
In other words, what is the win that I have yet to identify? Oh, oh, all right.
Okay.
I'm sorry.
It's a win-win-win-win.
LaFonda: Okay.
In that case, what is the second, the third, and the fourth win? The first win is the fee for filming, the second win is the alley itself, the third win are all the tourists flocking to the city, and the fourth win are the trinkets, which I'm already counting again, because I'm Irish.
LaFonda: But then the bomb dropped that would explode and turn Mike's dream into a nightmare -- the kind with a nondescript alleyway in it.
To save money, they were shooting Mike's Boston commercial in Los Angeles, and Mike's financial security quickly went from win-win to "the opposite of win"-"the opposite of win.
" That's because Hollywood producers like Bram Strunk started filming all of their Boston-themed movies in Los Angeles alleys.
Strunk first drew controversy with the decision to shoot "Lumpy Mass," the story of Babe Ruth's struggles with breast cancer, in Los Angeles.
Many have said that you don't care about authenticity, only money.
Well, I spend a lot of money on authenticity, okay? This, uh, authentic Boston graffiti -- it cost me $600.
LaFonda: Yeah, but you put that there, not an authentic Bostonian, like Sully or Sack or Black Sully or Shuli or the Chink.
Okay.
All right.
So -- so I can't make a movie about Babe Ruth's boob cancer in Los Angeles because Abigail Adams didn't take a dump here? What, do you think that Robert Zemeckis used an actual time machine to shoot the "Back to the Future" trilogy? LaFonda: Well, I -- news flash -- he did, and it almost bankrupted the studio, okay? That's why I do things on the cheap.
LaFonda: And cheap pays, as Strunk proved with the success of his box-office blockbuster, "Here We Are In Boston.
" What the Kennedy is going on here? We don't tolerate that kind of crap here in Boston! Because this city is wicked-pissa.
I'm hungry for some baked beans, and I'm thirsty for a tonic, which is what we call any kind of soda here.
Boston -- it's too cold in the winter, too humid in the summer, and too Irish all year 'round.
LaFonda: As for Mike, he's found a new business -- gluing broken bottles back together and returning them for their deposits.
He hopes to make many tens of dollars.
Coming up next week, is this mustache ironic or just a cry for help? And tune in for a new segment, "Would You Rather?" with Dan Rather.
If you had to, would you rather lose your pinky finger or your big toe? Would you rather be able to hear only consonants or vowels? Would you rather be stranded on a desert island with Megan Fox or Olivia Wilde? Would you rather never be able to eat chocolate or eggs? LaFonda: I'm Louis LaFonda.
Good night.
All that and more, tonight on "Newsreaders.
" We begin tonight with childhood innocence.
You used to have it, but then something awful happened and it was taken from you.
But what if you still had it, the childhood innocence? You'd be much better adjusted, and you might be able to solve crimes.
Amir Larussa tells us how.
Murders, cold cases, forensics, ballistics, chalk outlines, other crime words.
Crime isn't exactly child's play.
Well, try telling that to six-year-old Noah Brayles.
In the last year, he has solved 30 crimes for the Fontaine, New York, police department, because the eyes of a child see things in ways adults cannot.
Detective landau met Noah the way he meets a lot of the kids he doesn't arrest.
Once a year, local school kids come in here on a school field trip.
We use it to identify kids on a power trip so we can recruit them when they're older.
But what detective landau found out was that Noah was on a different kind of trip.
I turned my back, and this kid's opened up a filing cabinet and is leafing through a bunch of old murder-scene photos, and he -- he pulls out a picture and he asks me about the unicorn in it.
At first, I tune him out, like I do all kids and women, then he says, "Unicorns don't have two horns," and it hit me.
Two shooters.
It turns out the two mobsters weren't whacked.
They shot each other! [ Laughs .]
[ Laughing .]
You guys say, "whacked"? [ Chuckling .]
Yeah.
What else would you say? The point is, Noah solved a cold case in minutes.
For the record, I think it looks like a, uh, a giraffe with two necks.
It's kind of weird that you framed it.
Really? We tagged along with Noah and detectives from the Fontaine police department as they investigated a homicide in an artist's loft.
Are you sleeping, are you sleeping? brother John I'm getting too old for this [Bleep.]
And he's getting too young.
I'm exactly the right age for this [Bleep.]
To Noah, it's all a game -- a game the police hope he plays for a long, long time.
Why is this dirt red? Is that Clay? Hey, wait a minute -- the racetrack.
If Noah hadn't found the Clay, we wouldn't have broken the case.
My tummy's starting to hurt.
Well, you need to poop? But what makes Noah so good at this job? Honestly, I don't know.
I could guess, or I could ask noted child psychologist Monica Collander, who has studied Noah.
If Noah's success can be replicated, we could make crime a thing of the past.
I noticed that the crime scene seemed to give him some kind of stomachache.
That's how they get attention.
"I've got a stomachache.
Look at me!" "Take me out of this gruesome crime scene.
" These kids have got to grow up sometime.
It's like finding out about Santa.
Or the tooth fairy.
Or losing your virginity.
In grad school.
Okay.
Noah may be a great closer, but some say a police department is no place for a child.
He's putting a lot of people out of work, and not just canine detectives like me.
Psychics, Indian trackers, obsessive-compulsive geniuses -- you name it.
Crime novelists who solve crimes on the side.
Yeah, those guys.
People who can talk to dead bodies.
Sure.
I whisper to dogs to get them to do my bidding.
He should do his job and let me do mine.
How many dogs do you have? I have 37 dogs.
What are their names? I don't name them.
They're numbered.
Numbered? 1 through 37? No.
Random numbers? Yes.
What kind of things can you make dogs do? You know, we do lay down, roll over.
We do -- I have one dog that can walk backwards.
I'm having a tough time picturing how they solve crimes with those -- No, those guys don't solve crimes.
But you know who does solve crimes? Noah Brayles.
Which is why he got the call to help interrogate a suspected serial killer.
And that idea, while adorable, turned out to be not such a good one.
You're only six years old and already ensnared in the trifling busy work of crime solving.
Quit with the games, Rousseau.
Tell me, Noah, you investigate death, but do you actually know what happens when you die? Youfall asleep? Your heart stops.
You stop breathing.
Every cell in your body screams out in pain, unwilling to give up life, but it's hopeless.
You fall asleepforever.
[ Weakly .]
I don't want to be dead.
That turned out to be Noah's last day on the job.
Now he lives the life of a normal kid -- except for the fact that he stopped speaking that day and now has constant, uncontrollable seizures.
Noah's retired, but some of his magic did rub off on detective landau.
I used to think I was too old for this poo-poo.
The truth is, I wasn't young enough.
What's that? Oh, that's a shark eating a house.
Noah made that? No.
I did.
Mm.
Detective landau may not be moving on, but the Fontaine police department is.
They've now turned to another master of the observational, local stand-up comedian Chuck P.
And what's the deal with this bloody earring right here? I feel like I'm in Lady Gaga's wardrobe closet.
Thanks a lot, guys.
LaFonda: Later on in the program -- gas prices.
Am I right? But first, Boston, Massachusetts, is known for many things -- Fenway Park, clam chowder, overt racism, quiet simmering racism, and racism that is meant as a joke but that is still racism.
But when we think of Boston, we only really think of one thing.
Alleyways.
Can't get more Boston than alleyways.
LaFonda: Yes.
In the great tradition of not placing buildings right next to each other, Boston is the leader.
And it is a rich history.
The Massachusetts Indians considered the space between two structures sacred.
They believed the spirit could soar to great heights while not being constricted by too-tightish widths.
And Boston has been cashing in on this resource ever since the very first structure was built not quite close enough to its neighbor.
Mike Sullivan's alley, located in Boston's financial district, is one of the city's most famous, and it's been his family's livelihood for generations.
Mike's great-great grandfather, an Irish immigrant, was the first Sullivan to have a go of it in the alley trades.
So, how did he come to own an alley in the first place? Bought it from a wicked-dumb Indian.
LaFonda: And how much did it cost? $12 worth of beads and trinkets.
It's all he had at the time.
The Irish were scurvy rich and trinket poor.
LaFonda: And what makes this alley particularly historic? Ever heard of the Boston massacre? LaFonda: No, but I get it.
The first man killed in that shooting, Crispus Attucks, used to run a dice game in here.
LaFonda: Oh.
Black guy.
LaFonda: Mike's great-great-grandfather ran illegal burlesque shows here in the 1870s.
His son, Mike's great-grandfather, followed him into show business.
As a child actor, Flannery Sullivan was a member of "The Back Bay Boys" -- early short films in which those lovable Boston scamps -- Sully, Sack, Black Sully, Shuli, and the Chink -- assaulted girls until an adventure came their way.
But it wasn't until Mike inherited the alley that he found a business model that would bring riches to the Sullivan family -- renting it to film productions.
Mike's alley has been the site of over 100 Massachusetts-based films, including legal thriller "Mass Appeal," horror movie "Midnight Mass-acre," Pedro Almodovar's "Mas Mass," and "Jurassic Park.
" Business was good for Mike Sullivan, and the future looked bright.
The Massachusetts bureau of tourism is shooting a commercial, and they want to center it around our Boston alleys.
So, I'm thinking win-win.
LaFonda: Well, I get the first win -- that you charge them to shoot here -- but what about the second win? What is that win? Unless charging them to shoot here is the second win, in which case, I'm more curious about the first win.
In other words, what is the win that I have yet to identify? Oh, oh, all right.
Okay.
I'm sorry.
It's a win-win-win-win.
LaFonda: Okay.
In that case, what is the second, the third, and the fourth win? The first win is the fee for filming, the second win is the alley itself, the third win are all the tourists flocking to the city, and the fourth win are the trinkets, which I'm already counting again, because I'm Irish.
LaFonda: But then the bomb dropped that would explode and turn Mike's dream into a nightmare -- the kind with a nondescript alleyway in it.
To save money, they were shooting Mike's Boston commercial in Los Angeles, and Mike's financial security quickly went from win-win to "the opposite of win"-"the opposite of win.
" That's because Hollywood producers like Bram Strunk started filming all of their Boston-themed movies in Los Angeles alleys.
Strunk first drew controversy with the decision to shoot "Lumpy Mass," the story of Babe Ruth's struggles with breast cancer, in Los Angeles.
Many have said that you don't care about authenticity, only money.
Well, I spend a lot of money on authenticity, okay? This, uh, authentic Boston graffiti -- it cost me $600.
LaFonda: Yeah, but you put that there, not an authentic Bostonian, like Sully or Sack or Black Sully or Shuli or the Chink.
Okay.
All right.
So -- so I can't make a movie about Babe Ruth's boob cancer in Los Angeles because Abigail Adams didn't take a dump here? What, do you think that Robert Zemeckis used an actual time machine to shoot the "Back to the Future" trilogy? LaFonda: Well, I -- news flash -- he did, and it almost bankrupted the studio, okay? That's why I do things on the cheap.
LaFonda: And cheap pays, as Strunk proved with the success of his box-office blockbuster, "Here We Are In Boston.
" What the Kennedy is going on here? We don't tolerate that kind of crap here in Boston! Because this city is wicked-pissa.
I'm hungry for some baked beans, and I'm thirsty for a tonic, which is what we call any kind of soda here.
Boston -- it's too cold in the winter, too humid in the summer, and too Irish all year 'round.
LaFonda: As for Mike, he's found a new business -- gluing broken bottles back together and returning them for their deposits.
He hopes to make many tens of dollars.
Coming up next week, is this mustache ironic or just a cry for help? And tune in for a new segment, "Would You Rather?" with Dan Rather.
If you had to, would you rather lose your pinky finger or your big toe? Would you rather be able to hear only consonants or vowels? Would you rather be stranded on a desert island with Megan Fox or Olivia Wilde? Would you rather never be able to eat chocolate or eggs? LaFonda: I'm Louis LaFonda.
Good night.