The Irrational
Mondays 10:00 PM on NBCAlec Mercer Quotes
Phoebe: The airline discovered the pilot had been in treatment for depression.
Mercer: Not depression. A depressive episode. There's a difference.
Our eyes and ears take in electrical signals, which our brains interpret based on our expectations. We don't see reality; we see our reality.
This retrospective framing. Let's say you go out to dinner, and it's amazing, the best meal of your life. Then someone tells you they served cat food. Now, your experience is ruined even though you thought it was fantastic at the time.
Mercer: The truth is, everyone has an incentive to blame the pilot. That's because he's dead, and he can't defend himself.
Marisa: We've got some new evidence.
Jace: Hey, Alec. We've been going through the pilots, credit card, and bank statements. Are you familiar with the Mastery?
Mercer: They teach classes on how to be attractive to women. I've seen better advice on bathroom stalls.
Gene thought that he'd committed the perfect crime. It had all the elements of a perfect murder story. Pride. Revenge. A virtually invisible murder weapon, but couldn't stand the fact that no one knew about it. Some of the world's most notorious killers might not have ever gotten caught if it hadn't been for their fatal narcissism. But rarely do their victims get a chance to talk.
Professor Mercer
CJ: I need your help solving a murder.
Mercer: Oh yeah. Whose murder?
CJ: Mine.
Marisa: That ability you have to completely divorce emotion from reason is both why I married you and...
Mercer: ... why you're longer married to me.
Marisa: Did you see his face? The plates?
Mercer: No, nothing.
Marisa: Whoever they were scared Benett so much that he would rather stay behind bars.
Mercer: He wasn't a lone wolf.
Marisa: Someone else is pulling strings, and whoever it is is still out there.
People are irrational. But predictably so. They're more afraid of flying than driving, and the fact is, driving is much more dangerous. We know we should eat healthy food, but then we give in to temptation. Buy things we will never, ever use. We assume people are making rational decisions, weighing the pros and cons. For most of the time, we're not. Instead, we rely on instincts, which are almost always wrong. Sometimes, dangerously wrong. One error in judgment leads to another.
