Headscratchers / Kindergarten Cop

• So what if the sorry sack of crap is beating his wife and son? Kimble, unprovoked, punches him in front of a crowd of students and teachers. It doesn't matter if Kimble's a good teacher or not, he should be on suspension. And the principal evidently knew the abuse was going on, because she asks how good it felt to punch the guy. Why didn't she bring in services? Sorry folks, you fail law forever.
  • I don't think she knew. There was a time jump between the scene on the street and in her office, so it seems that only at that point did she learn of the abuse.
  • Try working with children that you suspect are being abused, but thanks to the law and various loopholes, you're essentially powerless to do anything besides informing the authorities. Given how the news is filled with children who end up badly injured or even dead because the authorities failed to act in time, even alerting people can't help. Even if the principal did know, her hands might have been tied by such loopholes; there's only so much she can do. Yeah, Kimble hit the man when he was unprovoked. Yeah, maybe he should have been punished for the attack. But for anyone who's had to sit and wring their hands as they try and help a hurt child? It's a freaking win.
    • Firstly it requires for the man to press charges. Kimble can't be suspended since he's not a teacher; he's just undercover. That would require an investigation. The principal could have elected to throw him out of his undercover job - which she didn't do. And he did demonstrate self-control, holding back when the children turned up.
    • He also didn't hit him unprovoked. He shoved him up against the car, but didn't punch him until the abusive dad took the first swing.
    • And the principal, while not being happy how it happened, she was secretly happy that the guy got what he deserved for beating his wife and child. So she wouldn't really say a word.
• Probably a stupid question, but in the "Who Is Your Daddy and What Does He Do" scene, what job was the girl describing where her dad "gives money to people who don't have money and they use that money and they give different money back and give the same amount of money back" to him?
  • I'm guessing a banker, since that sounds like a loan.
    • Ah, that makes sense. I was getting tripped up on the first part of her description, which sounded like philanthropy.
    • Well I coulda sworn it was a loanshark.
    • It could be both, as a banker as well as a loanshark both work with money and give out loans.
    • A loan shark is, in essence, a very unethical banker. Since she didn't describe him beating people up for failure to pay or anything along those lines, banker seems like the best bet.
• Why does O'Hara say she's Kimble's sister? Their cover story was supposed to be that they are husband and wife.
  • Because she senses the romantic tension between Kimble and Joyce and wants to encourage it. She says as much when he asks the same thing.
  • It may also be an attempt to repay him for doing so much of the work on their investigation. When she got sick and Kimble had to take her place, apparently their 'married couple' cover got thrown out the window ("He's not married, Mom!"), possibly because Kimble was having a hard enough time and a cover is easier to maintain when there are fewer lies to remember. So when O'Hara sees Kimble and Joyce being cute at each other, she finds minimal risk to their cover, and a great opportunity for her grumpy-but-good partner to find some happiness.
• Going off the above question: Kimble later introduces her to the class (including Dominic) as "my good friend Phoebe" (who has no accent), whereas Dominic had been present when she introduced herself as his sister Ursula (who had an accent). How exactly were they planning to explain this discrepancy to Dominic? Obviously they ended up not needing to, since they caught the bad guys the same day O'Hara visited the school, but they didn't know that was going to happen. Were they going to say that they were just kidding before or something? Dominic's a smart kid; I doubt he'd buy that.
  • Given that it happened after Phoebe revealed herself to Joyce and they saved Dominic from the tower, they likely revealed to him the truth.
  • That tracks for me. It seems like a good idea at that point to tell him, "You know these two people you met? They're secretly cops and you should run to them if you're in danger."
• Whay was Kimble not allowed to see his own son?

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