Cold Squad "Taggert Family" (1998), Tom Cavanagh

Laptop screencaps used in not for profit blog episode and character reviews and film study.
Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."

 

My Halloween countdown Creepy Tom Watch concludes with Tom Cavanagh's role as Spencer Taggert in season 1 episode 5 of Cold Squad, a Canadian crime show that ran in the late 1990s to 2005.

As deep dig actor watches go, sometimes you hit gold in youtube and find out things are a little mislabeled but still totally worth the time. Thank you, 👉hardcore fan (click)👈 who apparently joined youtube just to share really old Tom Cavanagh filmography. I got your back fixing this one. Here is the show if anyone wants to check it out. Comments there suggest other youtubers and Hulu if you are interested in a complete Cold Squad series rewatch.

Description on youtube-

This is the Tom Cavanagh Episode of Cold Squad from Canadian Television. The episode aired in 1998 Cold Squad was a Canadian police procedural television series first broadcast in 1998 that followed the investigations of a part of the Vancouver Police Department Homicide Division tasked with solving cold cases, the titular Cold Squad, as led by Sergeant Ali McCormick Episode description Ali revisits the case of Barbara Taggert, a mother who was killed in a house fire in 1995 that was ruled an arson. Her daughter Lisa disappeared that night and was presumed abducted.

clicks to imdb

Spencer Taggert's wife was violently murdered and his daughter abducted two years ago and he was cleared as a suspect. Here we see him still employed with his father-in-law. Spencer is a nice guy, by all accounts.

Two years ago, Spencer was in business with a compulsive liar named Bill Harris who came around to visit a lot before the murder, but he, too, was cleared as a suspect in both the murder and abduction. Because Bill showed back up in custody for unrelated charges, dominos got bumped and the cold case was reopened. Sadly, Spencer got dragged back into the questioning.

Since this is very early Tom Cavanagh filmography, I'm getting a ridiculous amount of screencaps. You're welcome. Imma randomly talk like this in between them. You get a lot of what I fondly call "classic Tom", but where some might inadvertently typecast themselves, Tom somehow manages to convincingly pull off the transition from crushing innocence to stone cold killer, which actually made me feel a little ill. (I can't help internalizing, I tend to steer clear of crime shows.) 

Even from one frame to another you can see the range of internal emotional responses in his eyes alone, like the surprise he suppressed when asked point blank whether he started the fire, which I think makes this creepy guy all the more convincing since I felt that lurch of don't get caught in the pit of my stomach as I watched it. Go watch it.

Tom is a natural chameleon in this very limited role where frame to frame convincingly locks the narrative into place, so watching this show as a film study is rewarding. All the acting is really good, and they have to be to rock out such a complex story so quickly.

Remember the distraught widower who brings in new evidence confessing he was cheating on his wife that night and has that other witness. If he'd really been guilty, surely he'd have used this card the first time around. Still...

Because it took an undercover officer to dig out his true colors. Makes you wonder how many other people can pull off living with secrets like this guy. It was touch and go and very tricky getting this guy to spill.

The lengths they went to just gaining his trust set my nerves off. I'd probably be way more trigger happy.

Lol, keeping an eye out for cops... Irony is fun.

You prove it, no you prove it, no you prove it first... Cop walking that edge over and over, winding up maced in the eyes, no wonder so many crimes are never solved. This was a LOT of work.

Progress creeped along, but it didn't stall. I couldn't believe this guy actually yapped out his intentions to kill again.

Time to put all that work to the test. Will he confess????

The intensity escalated to the point where I'd have broke, killed the guy, and run. I just can't trust.

Nearly there. *edge of my seat*

And without warning, we're going there, flipping the deck and demanding proof the suspect isn't the undercover cop, stripping naked. O_O Holy cow.

And he liked it. Mr. Exhibitionist started blurting all of it. While the team listened in, our boy hammered Spencer with question after question and Spencer was tickled as a naked man can be just blurting it all out. Total psycho. This calls for extra extra screenshots.

Yeah, that sad widower was waiting his whole life for this moment. We can only imagine the rush he was feeling. Naked. How dark is this show, srsly.

Can you just see it. "How was work today?" "I played a naked psycho. It was exhausting." 

The satisfaction of imploding fanfic authors into an all new frenzy.

Sorry, was going off track. I'm not a fanfic author, my work here is already done.

But the show must go on! "What about the little girl?"

Psycho sickos and their weird little trust games.

Tom gets a little shovel action in this script. Imma stop there because the rest is really dark, literally and figuratively, and screenshots aren't as clear. I've been pretty thrilled about being able to get so many pretty good ones for such an old film project.

That was fun! =D

It's even more fun to compare old Tom to new Tom, so here is a brand new upload from just yesterday. Tom is lending his voice to the LGS Foundation, "a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of individuals with Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome, a rare and severe form of childhood-onset epilepsy, through research, programs and education." Please check them out, sign up for news and events, and thank you very kindly if you are able to help with donations. There will be a charity auction tomorrow (November 1st, 2020) during the LGS Awareness Day, along with a concert featuring Noah Guthrie. Get a cool LGS Awareness tee, and please share this video to your social medias and help Tom spread this information! Thank you.