#there are other things mark fidgets with as well! laura's keys for one

[whoslaurapalmer]

so I have Thoughts about mark mcpherson's little baseball fidget game in 44 laura

-it's one of those fun callbacks to the book that I really really like -- book!mark is a big baseball fan, and intended to go to a game the day he got assigned laura's case. and the only reason he DID get the case was because the commissioner was out and the deputy commissioner was the one assigning cases, and the deputy commissioner HATES mark and wanted to make sure he didn't see the game.

(-there’s a hilarious still from a deleted scene in the movie where mark still makes it to the game. he brings shelby and waldo.)

-book!laura is also a baseball fan!! she has an autographed dodgers ball on her desk, which mark is infinitely charmed by.

-mark says two important things about the fidget game -- that it "takes a lot of control" and, when waldo gets pissed off at mark for not 1) paying attention to the case 2) paying attention to waldo, "I know. but it keeps me calm."

-it's made explicit in the book that the "siege of babylon" took a greater toll on mark than the movie suggests -- he was laid up in the hospital for fourteen months, used crutches for a while, one of the other detectives who got shot in the lungs is still recovering upstate, mark walks very deliberately and carefully to try and disguise his limp and any stiffness but his leg still causes him discomfort, and, since then, he hasn't taken on another risky high-profile case, instead doing political crime or theft

-Local Traumatized Man Has To Put Up With A Real Fucking Cast Of Characters In A Murder Investigation On His Day Off Of All Things And Is Going To Fidget His Way Through It By God