In New York City's war on crime, the worst criminal offenders are pursued by the detectives of the Major Case Squad. This is when the Squad has a bit of fun.
DUN-DUN!
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Season 1
- In “Art”, the slimy art dealer Rudy Langer tries (very badly) to flirt with Eames by saying how he loves being threatened by a beautiful woman. The cheesy line is made even more hilarious by a three-second shot of Goren rolling his eyes.
- In "Smothered", Goren finds a fish scale on the victim's body.note When Eames sarcastically says the killer is a shark, Goren tells her sharks don't have scales. Goren's absolute sincerity and Eames' epic "here we go again" eyeroll and head shake are what really make it.
- At the beginning of "The Faithful", Goren lights what appears to be a marijuana joint for a homeless man he's interviewing. The man then offers him a hit, and Goren takes a puff while quickly glancing at the other cops behind him to make sure they aren't watching.
- In "Poison", a brief crossover with Green and Briscoe has Eames and Goren giving information about cyanide tablets being slipped into legitimate medical products. Briscoe makes it clear that he doesn't like the commissioner's office ("Those idiots.") keeping this under wraps to prevent a panic, and Goren casually suggests that maybe they should leak it out. Apparently the detectives held up their end; the following scene has Captain Deakins complaining about "who opened their big yaps" when the media reports the story, and the camera cuts to Eames and Goren trying to play innocent really badly behind his oblivious back.
- From "The Pardoner's Tale", Goren and Eames are talking to one of Goren's "buddies" while he's working on a car. Eames casually looks under the hood:Eames: 351 four-barrel. Who are you trying to outrun?
Lewis: Whoa. I think I'm in love. - On one occasion, Goren and Eames are interviewing a prominent mobster — or, to put it more accurately, the mobster's lawyer is answering all the questions while the mobster stares at a corner of the room completely stone-faced, not even deigning to notice their existence. At the end, the two detectives get up to leave — only for Goren to suddenly pop up right next to the mobster's head:Goren: BOO!
[The mobster jumps, startled, and looks at Goren in astonishment]
Goren: Made you look.
Season 2
- From "Cherry Red":Stan Coffman (to Detective Goren): You know, you're awfully snoopy!
Detective Eames: A lot of people point that out.- Also from "Cherry Red":
(Goren is enjoying his time behind the wheel of the cherry-red 1962 Ferrari GTO)
Eames: You have to come out now.
(Goren turns to Eames with a pleading-puppy-dog look on his face)- Goren finds the suspect's stash of highly-detailed model cars, and he and Carver are practically drooling over them. Eames comes into the room and says, "You two having a play-date?"
- From "Chinoiserie":Eames: George Weems. That's what it says on your SAG card. You look familiar.
Weems: I played the plump-and-happy raisin in a snack food commercial. Am I in trouble?
Eames: You tell us. You checked into a hotel under an assumed name, forged documents were delivered to your room, and an associate of yours is suspected of murdering a woman.
(Weems looks shocked)
Goren: You don't look so "plump-and-happy" now, George. - In "Best Defense", Goren starts imitating a Camp Straight witness while standing next to the man. Somehow, Eames manages to keep a straight face.
- During the questioning of a witness in "Suite Sorrow," Goren casually snaps a picture of himself and Eames. What makes it even better is Eames' complete lack of a reaction to the photo being taken. As they're leaving, he slips the picture into his pocket.
Season 3
- In "Undaunted Mettle", Goren and Eames visit an archivist who shows them a book produced by a suspect in their investigation. Goren and the archivist engage in a passive-aggressive tug-of-war by trying to lightly pull the book away from each other. Then Goren tells the archivist that they will need to borrow the book, to which the archivist (reluctantly) acquiesces.
- "Unrequited" features both Goren dancing to samba music in front of Eames, and him imitating the bizarre warm-up exercises of a group of acting students— the latter of which leads to him raising his arm up and accidentally knocking his hand against a hanging lamp due to his height.
- Pretty much any time you see Goren dancing, like forcing a perp to tango with him in "Pas de Deux".
- Pissing off a suspect in "Sound Bodies" in the interrogation room gets Goren a resounding bitch slap across the face. In the following struggle as he grabs the guy's hands to keep him still, his delayed response is to stare the guy in the eyes and then say "Ouch!"
Season 4
- In "Collective", when faced with a toy store owner reluctant to reveal customer information, Goren picks up a massive toy gun for sale and starts counting off its seven different modes of fire, as his brother had one when they were kids. You can just tell he's having too much fun shooting plastic ammunition at the owner's various displays to get him to talk. Meanwhile, Eames keeps prodding for info as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening, and the local Philadelphia officers leave so they won't witness the ensuing destruction.Eames: You paid her $2,000 cash, the thing's worth 10. Nice profit margin.Goren: She wanted cash? And that didn't tip you off that the robot was stolen?Eames: [rolls her eyes and sighs in exasperation]Goren: Six, repeater rifle. [projects bullets from the gun]Goren: Well, don't get between a guy and his toys. [pulls out a pistol from inside the rifle] Seven, cap gun.
- "The Unblinking Eye" gives us three moments.
- The first has Goren and Eames interviewing a woman at the bar and while the latter is speaking with her, the former listens in while eating from the bowl of peanuts at the bar. The woman then says that she kicked the two underage suspects out and she had noticed that the girl had a type of salve on her hands with she reached into the same peanut bowl. To this, Goren then silently slides the remaining peanuts from his hand back into the bowl.
- They are later interviewing another witness, Johnny Santos, who is a real artsy type of actor and pretends that he's on an audition, even pretending that he's James Dean of all people and miming his actions, including smoking a cigarette underhanded and using a can of Coke to cool himself off. Even after Goren takes the soda from his hand, it takes a few moments for him to accept that he's no longer holding it.
- When at the vigil for his slain fiance, Michael "grieves" for her while dramatically attempting to read a poem before he breaks down in front of the cameras while his best friend Ed comes in to console him.Eames: There's nothing like watching a crocodile cry.
Season 5
- "Prisoner":
- Goren's little random dance when he pretends to be a mailman.note
- There's a subtle funny moment towards the beginning of the episode, doubly so if you view Goren as on the spectrum. He and Eames enter a prison warden's office to search for clues, only to discover that the man has absolutely nothing hanging on the walls from which Goren can glean info. Eames wonders aloud how he will amuse himself. She then attempts to speak to the deputy warden while Goren stands to the side awkwardly with his head down, shuffling his feet. He inadvertedly starts moving further and further inbetween Eames and the officer, unintentionally blocking their view of each other as they try to converse and earning a strange look from the deputy. After a few moments of this, Eames gestures towards a shelf in the corner of the room and simply says to Goren, "Books." He immediately perks up and heads in that direction, doing his signature body tilt once he can read the spines of said books. Eames and the deputy warden continue their conversation without any more interruptions.
- From "In The Wee Small Hours", as Goren and Logan leave, excited to go bust a poker game at one of Frank Sinatra's former hangouts:Eames (to Barek): There they go, Ocean's Two.
- She drops another one, also to Barek, when Goren and Logan can't agree on a piece of (relevant) Sinatra trivia, as she sits down to look up the information: "Let's put them out of our misery."
- "Cruise to Nowhere" features the immature poker prodigy Joey Frost, a prime murder suspect. When grilled by Goren and Eames, they push his buttons too much, resulting in a tantrum ("No! I'm not listening! Lalalalala!"). The clearly mortified detectives (wisely) back off for a bit.
Season 6
- In "Tru Love", Logan and Wheeler discover a murdered police surgeon was secretly taping his hookups. In order to discover clues to his death, Logan is tasked with combing through the over ten hours worth of footage. As Wheeler and Ross go to check his progress, almost every male cop in Major Case is outside the video room watching. We get this exchange:Wheeler: Something tells me it loses its charm after the si-...
Ross: (Interrupting) Wheeler, it never loses its charm. - Following a brawl between the NYPD and the FDNY in "Maltese Cross", Logan and Wheeler are called into a hearing before the Police Commissioner. Megan paces nervously as you see her paper-thin disciplinary file, with Logan standing around calmly, his own gargantuan file next to Wheeler's.Logan: Don't tell me you've never had a departmental hearing...!
- Also, during a chase scene between Logan and a teenage suspect, not only is Logan clearly no match in keeping up with the kid, but at one point both he and the suspect pass by a Jesus-looking witness who manages, completely calm and without a word, to point the detective in the right direction. Upon discovering him hiding high above, he says to him, out of breath, with an exasperated "Really?" attitude and in a thick Bronx accent, "Don't make me climb that tree!"
- In "Blasters", the victim was the star of a popular 90's sitcom. We get a clip of the show, in Stylistic Suck form with many implied catchphrases.AKAKAKAKAKAKAKAKAK (Wheeler pauses)Wheeler: That was (the victim) Skater's...skater noise.
- In the episode "Rocket Man", Goren describes the suspect, an astronaut, as 'angry and obsessive'. Captain Ross retorts with, "So am I, so are you." Afterwards, as Goren and Eames leave the observation room:Goren: [to Eames, in a quieter voice] Do you think I'm angry?
Season 7
- In "Vanishing Act", Goren and Eames questioned a drunk has-been magician who was on the stage when the other magician was found dead during his act. The detectives take the drunk to the drunk tank. When they come back later, they discovered that the drunk disappeared from the drunk tank and the station with a police officer guarding him.
Season 8
- After the opening credits, "In Treatment" opens with Ross and Nichols standing in the doorway of the crime scene, arguing about whether or not Wheeler may be pregnant. Nichols argues that it's obvious; Ross counter-argues that the last time he thought it was obvious was with his cousin Rita, and fourteen years later she still gives him cat toys for Christmas.
- When Wheeler's water breaks in "Major Case", Wheeler kind of stands there in stunned silence, not really making any noise. Eames walks into the room, notices the puddle on the floor, and quickly takes charge of the situation. As she's leading Wheeler out she glares at Nichols and Ross, rolls her eyes, and groans "Detectives!" as the two men stand around looking completely helpless and trying to figure out what to do next.
Season 10
- Goren's therapy certainly returned his sense of humor for the season premiere, "Rispetto". When he has to figure out how to entrap a suspect, he picks up a phone to fake his identity and suddenly puts on the most jovial and eccentric voice possible to lure them in about a clothing line investment. It's so Refuge in Audacity that it's preceded by such a hilarious line when the plan runs through his head all of the sudden. You can practically see the lights in his eyes in a true return to form, and both him and Eames have absolutely bemused smiles afterwards.Goren: Let's lie.
General
- Hell, Robert Goren in general is just a whole package of funny and awesome. From using a forensics guy's head as a ladder to get a better view of the body (in "The Faithful"), to explaining why he thinks "petite women are a tight fit for small guys" (in "Jones").
