Peter Guber once said, “Language is a more recent technology. Your body language, your eyes, your energy will come through to your audience before you even start speaking.” I like trying to tell body language and Professor Groom assigned us to basically do a scene where we Look, Listen, and Analyze it. I did the scene where McNulty and Brianna, D’Angelo’s mother, talk in episode 8 of Season 3.

Look

McNulty looked calm and knew what he was going to say to D’Angelo’s mother, Brianna Barksdale. He had his argument ready to claim that D’Angelo was in fact murdered. Brianna didn’t want to admit it and fired back at him calmly. McNulty looked really calm until she was about to leave. He was still calm as she got up and showed her the pictures of D’Angelo and the belt that was used of his murder. Brianna started believing McNulty because there was no way it was suicide. Her face expression could tell it all she believes him. She looked like she was stunned for a while that someone from the inside killed D’Angelo since his uncle, Avon, was there and was supposed to protect him.

Listen

From listening, I heard like phone ringing, McNulty and Brianna talking, chairs moving, and photos and files flipping. I couldn’t tell any facial expressions at all. I couldn’t see their body language to tell what are their expressions at all. It looked like McNulty held the argument and won against Brianna that D’Angelo, her son, was murdered. I only heard her crying at the end after McNulty said about her not basically caring for D’Angelo. She was in shock from the audio of what I heard. McNulty kept talking calmly and fought his argument to Brianna until he won and proven his point.

Analyze

The facial expression and body language tells it all. McNulty from right of the start, he was calm and Brianna as well. It showed it was going to turn into a heated argument. McNulty kept talking about how far the belt and door was from D’Angelo died and he was in fact murdered. It was no way D’Angelo could have killed himself like that. Brianna couldn’t believe it but she was stunned as McNulty told her more details about what he thought about D’Angelo and how he thought prevented to his death leading half of it to Brianna’s fault. Brianna thought about it and was stunned. The face of Brianna at that moment could tell she felt bad and was stunned that someone from the inside killed her own son. McNulty won the argument and I thought he would have done this afterwards: