In its episodes, Cold Case frequently presents a historical survey of selected time periods....the issues, trends, consequences and resulting aftermath that led to the next time periods' reactive changes in response...and is seen through the life philosophies of those who lived in that time....in this episode we have the Swinging '70s....as one who was a young person then and in the 80's that followed, I have to say that the portrayal was quite accurate in many ways....
...Swinging burst on the scene sounding like a heck of a lot of fun at the time...a way to be freer as an individual and not tied down by rules of the past...here it is portrayed as a response by men to the women's liberation movement of the '60s...and there was some truth to that(BTW I'm a man writing this)...however it didn't take long before some reactive consequences reared up...the children were the first to show how uncomfortable, bewildered, and eventually contemptuous they were about actions of their elders which destabilized their families...then the swinger participants themselves realized how a lack of expectations led to a lack of the security, comfort, and stability in their lives which after all things considered they really couldn't do without....and then finally some couldn't handle the emotionally crushing psychological devastation that resulted...one because she was too naive to know what had really been happening around her and the other because he was too young and too full of adolescent libido to really process what an older, more experienced person would have realized was a reactionary flirtation, not a demonstration of genuine sexual interest....
....yet just like the 70s, the aftermath led to some favorable changes in one's awareness....our once repressed schoolteacher finally comes to realize that she had spent her whole life following others' footsteps and that true self actualization was realized not by holding on to someone else but within her own self, and she had to do this on her own. This reflected the change in thinking that occurred from the 70s to the 90s with many people in the USA.
As in previous episodes, the music really set the stage....again here I would have used a different song for the end, however..."Landslide" by Fleetwood Mac would have been a better choice although it was already the closing song for another episode (Fireflies)...another good choice would be "Songbird" again by Fleetwood Mac (a band which made a career of making record-selling albums dealing with individual instability from failed relationships)....Or for a really unique music application, try "Winter" by the Rolling Stones....a little known track off the otherwise mediocre "Goat's Head Soup" album of 1973... a song which takes a wistful look back at the mixed results of the past and a dimly hopeful wish for the future...
...Swinging burst on the scene sounding like a heck of a lot of fun at the time...a way to be freer as an individual and not tied down by rules of the past...here it is portrayed as a response by men to the women's liberation movement of the '60s...and there was some truth to that(BTW I'm a man writing this)...however it didn't take long before some reactive consequences reared up...the children were the first to show how uncomfortable, bewildered, and eventually contemptuous they were about actions of their elders which destabilized their families...then the swinger participants themselves realized how a lack of expectations led to a lack of the security, comfort, and stability in their lives which after all things considered they really couldn't do without....and then finally some couldn't handle the emotionally crushing psychological devastation that resulted...one because she was too naive to know what had really been happening around her and the other because he was too young and too full of adolescent libido to really process what an older, more experienced person would have realized was a reactionary flirtation, not a demonstration of genuine sexual interest....
....yet just like the 70s, the aftermath led to some favorable changes in one's awareness....our once repressed schoolteacher finally comes to realize that she had spent her whole life following others' footsteps and that true self actualization was realized not by holding on to someone else but within her own self, and she had to do this on her own. This reflected the change in thinking that occurred from the 70s to the 90s with many people in the USA.
As in previous episodes, the music really set the stage....again here I would have used a different song for the end, however..."Landslide" by Fleetwood Mac would have been a better choice although it was already the closing song for another episode (Fireflies)...another good choice would be "Songbird" again by Fleetwood Mac (a band which made a career of making record-selling albums dealing with individual instability from failed relationships)....Or for a really unique music application, try "Winter" by the Rolling Stones....a little known track off the otherwise mediocre "Goat's Head Soup" album of 1973... a song which takes a wistful look back at the mixed results of the past and a dimly hopeful wish for the future...