5x19 A Hole in the World

Oh man the copaganda is strong with this one. It hit me pretty hard in this episode. Had a bit of whiplash. I like Selena as a character but why is she allowed to be so close to this case? I think her entire character is written to be "gets too close to the case and flips out in appropriately so everyone can dress her down". It's silly. I don't blame this on the actress. Heck I don't even blame it on Selena. I blame it on everyone else who keeps letting her participate. It's ridiculous from the times she goes "I can handle whatever it is... tell me" and then right after finding out goes "NO... no... you're wrong". And then everyone dresses her down like "Hey Officer Juarez, be objective". Ironically they aren't being objective they're wildly speculating. Cops who do this are the problem IRL. But because it's TV their wild speculation is 100% on the mark with no errors. Her problem isn't not being objective. It's being emotional. Openly emotional. You could have an argument about the sexism in that scene but generally I don't think The Rookie has as big a problem in that area.

I like how this is the second cop show this week where I've seen cops threaten someone with rape. I don't know what else "or do you remember what it's like to be a pedophile behind bars" is supposed to mean. Oh maybe it just means assault. That's ... better?

This show and other cop shows want you to think if you just talk to cops and you're empathetic enough cops will believe the words coming out of your mouth. Never talk to the police more than required. Never volunteer information. Always get a lawyer. Cops will use what happens on TV to trick you. On TV the cops will just ask you to talk to them and just tell them real quick and they'll let you go and find the real guy. In real life if you say anything that can be used out of context to make YOU look like the bad guy they'll just do that. It's easier and they don't have to hunt down someone they might or might not find. After all cops love to talk about how many crimes they solve. Doesn't matter if they solve it correctly. That number doesn't get publicized. Cops will convince you that you don't need a lawyer and if you talk now it won't be as bad for you. It will be as bad for you. They're under zero obligation to treat you better because you were cooperative. That's just something cops say they do on TV. Like asking suspects to just confess.... because?

The cops find a convicted pedophile they're legally allowed to harass any time they want for zero reason (and yes that's harassment but because it's a pedophile we're supposed to think "well good. He deserved it. They need this power to harass scum like that" but IRL this get used against a single mother with two kids working three jobs who doesn't even have time to get sexually assaulted by a PO today but hey whatever). They find this guy. He's super cagey. He has mementos of the missing child. Then, when they bring him in, he acts shocked and they stop thinking he might be responsible. Now they stop looking at him for the crime because it has to be the stand-up cop who has no evidence against him. Nah couldn't be the pedo where the only evidence was found. And of course again, because it's TV, there is a super tight conspiracy where a cop does everything right and frames someone while committing horrific crimes repeatedly every year like a criminal mastermind. That's way more plausible than the guy who did it repeatedly and shows zero remorse did it again. The hidden message of this portion is that cop guts are how policework should be done. The cop suspected another cop based on gut instinct. The cop let go of the creepy man based on gut instinct. Honestly the irony of "We can't arrest him. That starts a 72 hour clock after which we have to let him go if we don't have a charge" and then they solve the mystery and find the girl in like 5 hours just baffles me. Cops do this stuff all the time. But because it's a fellow cop he "knows all the procedures". Cops don't have special procedures. Cops don't even have good procedures. What they have is money and numbers. LAPD Patrol isn't some silent hero-team doing elite work on the streets that no one appreciates. They do what they want, when they want and they have the legal authority and weaponry to get away with anything. On top of all the random legal corruption and illegal corruption, there are semi-organized gangs within law enforcement and no one has the authority or will to do anything about it. They rape, they murder, they kill pets, they steal but The Rookie wants me to buy that one of the most infamous beats in the nation dresses down their rookies for being "not being objective".

And that final showdown? I don't know what I supposed to take from this except that cops want to kill you. Because there's no reason to breach an empty abandoned house RIGHT AFTER the only hostage was freed. They keep talking about wondering if they could have talked him down and whether it was necessary and honestly. It wasn't. There was no rush. No urgency. no concern and yet they ran in as soon as possible. Who was he a danger to? Himself? Well lucky he didn't kill himself then. Oh he was suicidal guess we should bum rush him. And this is how they treat one of their own.

And Officer Juarez forgiving her mother saying it wasn't her fault it was her sickness when two episodes ago she was saying functionally how dare her mother blame this on her sickness and it was her fault. Pick a lane sugar (I'm trying to pick a pejorative to her age not her gender), either you understand addiction is a disease or you don't. You don't get to pick and choose when you care. More specifically you don't get to pick and choose and then dress down everyone else for not understanding when your understanding is conditional. You just know before this arc started she would have dressed down anyone just like every other TV cop who refused addiction as a disease. I mean how the mighty have fallen seeing Wesley talk about how he can "sell" a scenario where one person did the crime and not the other one in spite of zero evidence is gross. It's exactly the kind of prosecutorial overreach that Wesley used to talk about when his character was introduced. It's entirely the sort of thing that leads to people getting convicted for crimes they didn't do.

There are far too many people in /r/TheRookie who seem to love Schmitty. He's an awful character but he is everyone's favorite incompetent does something effectively and efficiently.

In another show these wouldn't be a big deal. Cop shows are cop shows and they're lies from the opening credits to closing credits. Everything about them is a lie from how much they hate IA, to how cops will lie to other cops about whether they're being investigated, to how cops will sit across from you in an interrogation room, to how cops won't lie and make up evidence to get you to convict yourself. We all know these are laws and every cop show since the dawn of the cop show in the 60s or 70s has been feeding us this lie to the point where too many people don't understand it as a lie until they're faced with the reality.