Rogues Gallery: The Swells
Charles Jeunet
CSI: Miami ("Grand Prix")
Sophisticated, charming and urbane, Charles Jeunet travels in the elite circles of the wealthy and privileged few. Owner of Jeunet Champagne and his own Grand Prix racing team, he's also the largest sponsor of racing in the city of Miami, throwing lavish parties and employing only the finest drivers.
Despite his status as a "player" in the racing world, Jeunet is generally a moral man, but he's also first and foremost a businessman with a reputation to protect. When he learns that the crew chief of his new client's team was involved in a criminal conspiracy that resulted in the death of a pit crew member, he must be pragmatic, and smoothly but firmly extricates himself from the sponsorship contract.
Yet Jeunet can't resist a moment of pure self-interest as he steals away his former client's premier driver. And his triumphant smile indicates he knows exactly what he's done.
Carson Finch
Cold Case ("It's Raining Men")
It's 1983 and the AIDS epidemic is only just beginning and few know how far-reaching and deadly it will become. Rich and powerful gay men remain "in the closet" out of fear for their reputations, for their businesses and families. Carson Finch is one such man, a middle-aged conservative columnist for the Times, known for his vituperative wit and his angry diatribes. Arrogant and full of himself, he indulges in promiscuous parties and all-male summers at the beach.
Thought by some to be the "devil himself," Finch threatens an early AIDS activist with retribution in kind rather than have his sexual orientation revealed to the world. Yet he's not totally without conscience, admitting his willingness to hire a lobbyist to raise funds for combating the dreaded disease.
Twenty years later, Finch is an older, wiser and possibly more honest man, having watched AIDS take its toll among his friends, lovers and colleagues. If anything he's more ultra-conservative than ever, remarkably still in the "closet", and seems almost a bit embarrassed by the sexual excesses of his past. Now a suspect in a two-decades old murder, Finch is torn between keeping his secret, or "outing" himself and the other men involved by divulging information that may help solve the cold-case crime.
Captain Carlson - The Pilot
Catch Me If You Can
Captain Carlson of Pan American Airlines, is the epitome of the well-known, highly respected and glamorous airline pilot of the sixties. Arriving at his hotel in a limo with a bevy of beautiful stewardesses, he is greeted by name and given special treatment. Children ask for, and receive, autographs and he is attended to by a senior member of the hotel staff.
Strikingly handsome in his immaculate pilot's uniform, with an almost military bearing, this man exudes confidence and authority. Unknowingly the charismatic Carlson provides con-man Frank W. Abagnale, Jr. with the inspiration for his new "career."
Kingston Nickson
Point Pleasant ("Pilot," "Human Nature," "Who's Your Daddy?")
Kingston Nickson, wealthy New York businessman, single - if absent - father of a beautiful, but troubled young woman. Or is he?
Although Christina thinks of Kingston as her father, she is in fact the daughter of the Devil himself. Kingston has raised her to young adulthood, but he's now being forced to relinquish his place in her life before he seems quite ready to do so, as the dark prince begins to orchestrate his own sinister plans for the girl.
Ill at ease in the role of father figure, Kingston nevertheless has developed a modicum of paternal feelings for Christina as well as taking a certain responsibility for her future. Although he's been ordered to stay away, when suddenly confronted with the enormity of the role she must play in the war of good vs. evil, he finally responds to Christina's pleas for help and convinces the powers that be to let him see her one final time.
Kingston tries to at least provide for Christina monetarily and gives her a few awkward words of counsel and caution. It's both more than he's comfortable with, and less than she needs from this man she's known as her only parent. Clearly torn between serving his master and helping the girl who has been his daughter, Kingston fails at both, neither completely challenging the one, nor fully standing up for the other.