Cole was a sub-par lieutenant throughout all his time in the Marines, but it doesn't take long for him to prove himself as the best case man in the LAPD. Makes sense for a couple of reasons. Firstly, his poor leadership skills don't matter as much when he's only working with one other person. Second, Cole's problem in the Marines was that he was a stickler for rules and regulation, and always doing this a certain way, which became a problem whenever his plans went awry and he still demanded that they be adhered to. His more analytical and slow-and-steady approach to matters would be much more fitting for police work than on a battlefield.
Why is there an E on the end of the word "Noire" in the title? Because "Noir" is a French word meaning "black", and French has both a masculine and feminine case. "Le noir" is the male version of saying "the black" (i.e. the black table), but if it's feminine, one says "la noire". The title is just being grammatically correct.
Adding to this, the French word for "city" (ville) is itself feminine. Since the city of Los Angeles is what is being modified in this case, the title is even more grammatically correct.
How is it that Cole is familiar with the trade embargo against Japan, and can speak some Japanese? It's mentioned that his family owns a shipping company, so it would be natural that he'd be familiar with such things if he was meant to join the family business.
Why are you locked out of a five star rating if you bring in the "wrong" suspect even if the evidence points to them and you obtain all the evidence and get all the questions correct? It's Da Chief writing his assessment of Cole's performance, not just the game.
"Upon Reflection" strongly hints at something amiss but its only if you pay attention that you figure out what probably happened: Detective Rose owed a large amount of money to Eroll Schroeder (his bookie), so he killed Eroll's employee, Scooter, using Eroll's gun that he stole. Rose proceeds to get two beat cops to find the gun and creates a paper trail leading to Eroll. This is the first case.
Frank Wilkey in "The Driver's Seat" is incredibly nervous approaching outright scared as the police talk to him, leading many players to assume he has something to hide. He does not. He's just a black man in the 1940s worried that they'll somehow try to pin a car full of blood on him after he reports it.
Why are the police so determined not to link the cases in the Homicide Desk? That's because they've already had a public and high profile humiliation by being unable to solve "The Black Dahlia" murder. They don't want to cause a panic by suggesting a serial killer is afoot.
Cole is an absolute utter disaster for the Vice Desk because he's a By-the-Book Cop that doesn't like selectively enforcing the law. Why did Roy Earle try to get him to join? Because Cole actually was very good in the press and thought he would bring some much needed good publicity to their corrupt division. He also assumed Cole's idealism was a facade or front.
Mickey Cohen is unintimidated by Jack Kelso's plan because the latter depends on their strength as a military unit as well as watching each other's backs. Mickey knows that they live in Los Angeles and aren't together 24-7. So, in "Manifest Destiny", all he has to do is pick them off one by one.
The Suburban Development fund movie in "House of Sticks" seems a very suspicious piece of evidence to have laying around. Except, it's abandoned along with the rest of the trash there. It seems like they were filming a newsreel and then realized the footage made them look like assholes. So they left it behind when they presumably cut together their actual movie. A bigger question is why they were using an abandoned movie lot to do their editing.
Leland Monroe, Doctor Fontaine, and Curtis Benson are the Fall Guys for the Suburban Development Project because they're the ones not involved in city government. Doctor Fontaine is already dead, Leland Monroe was the one actively involved in attempted murder, and Benson is a statutory rapist. Everyone else (barring Ad Vice's Elite Mooks and criminals) is only guilty of White-Collar Crime.
The public will never know about the real serial killer who murdered all those women, but at least those innocent men Phelps arrested are let loose with a few technicalities so all is right, correct? That is, until you realize that those innocents did not have their names cleared, and will always be viewed as murderers.
Specifically, the Golden Butterfly case. The public clearly wants you to charge Eli Rooney, a local pedophile, over the victim's husband despite the fact there is overwhelming evidence against the latter. Many players do indeed go against the LAPD's wishes and convict the husband, Moller. However, this unsung hero path is eventually revealed to be pretty devastating: you lose the opportunity to lock up a dangerous pedophile while ruining an innocent man's life with a permanently tarnished record.
In addition, while none of the suspects are as bad as 'The Werewolf', some are very dangerous and unstable individuals. Rooney the pedophile, MacCaffrey the man with a history of violence toward women and clearly unrepentant if pressed about it, Stuart Ackerman the violent and deranged hobo that has claimed to have killed numerous women before. All people that will get released into the public again.
Elsa says Cole convinced her to fight her morphine addiction. But he died by the game's end. And the last time she had someone close to her die, in her first appearance, you could clearly see her taking morphine to deal with her grief (albeit administered by Fontaine). Cole's death could drive her back to her addiction again!
During the war, the Marines had to deal with their enemy being holed up in caves and possibly being on their backs, preventing them from just moving past them. Cole insisted on having his unit clear out caves as ordered, while Jack instead had them sealed with demolition charges. The one in seen in a flashback with Cole ordering Ira to burn it out with his flamethrower turns out to be a cave full of civilians, which undoubtedly messed up Ira upon his realization of it. That being said, Jack's lead being followed means that cave full of civilians and other soldiers dying trapped and likely no one bothering to realize they were ever there... hardly a better prospective end.
Cole's death is played off as a Heroic Sacrifice, but consider everything that's happened to him over the course of the game. His life and his career has more or less been irreversibly shattered. His infidelity with Elsa costs him his family and the respect of the majority of his colleagues. The police force he dedicated himself to has been revealed to be near-universally in the villain's pocket. He's already aware that the morphine heist that drove the second act was a direct result of his cowardice in Okinawa. And he's just discovered that the crazed arsonist he's been pursuing throughout the endgame was in fact the soldier he traumatized by forcing him to torch a cave that turned out to be full of innocent civilians, meaning that he is indirectly responsible for everyone who died from the Suburban Redevelopment Fund's scheming. With all this in mind, it doesn't take a lot of effort to see his death as Suicide By Water.
Roy Earle is actually warning Cole throughout "Reefer Madness" that he's aware the latter is having an affair with Elsa. He mentions that Cole is visiting the night club often, that he should be home with his wife and kids, and that he's paying a lot of attention to the singer. He also makes numerous cracks about Cole checking out a secretary. This is while Cole is calling out Roy for his corruption. Cole completely misses this and could have possibly averted it.
Inverted for Roy's Karma Houdini status as he's now known as a cop who ratted out other cops to the police, lost every bit of money he might have invested in the Suburban Redevelopment Fund, and now has Jack Kelso, The UnfetteredPrivate Detective, as his own personal nemesis. Worse, any protection he might have had from his friends is gone as a lot of his friends are dead.
Courtney Sheldon's plans for his Marine unit depend on the view that they're going to be forgotten, discarded, and uncared for veterans once they return to the United States. Much of the game's plot depends on the GI Bill and the massive amount of changes being made to Los Angeles to accomadate veterans as well as provide for them. In short, Courtney's plan is even more Stupid Evil than before.
