Okay. I'll give it this. Whatever my gripes with the series as a whole, it ended well. Let's talk about episodes 7 and 8. The final pairing.
Episode 7 starts with "Infidelity" and ends with the third strike and a separation between Jane and John. Michaela Coel has what is probably the best line of the series. Which is a shame because unlike say the best line in Ted Lasso it has nothing to do with the show. It's a throwaway line about how "We're not bonding you have a gun on me". It's brilliant. In a world where no one seems to care about telling anyone they are a spy, it makes it very confusing to care about things like when spies take people hostage. Oh sure this time she turned out to be a spy as well but in the next episode the same thing happens but not. The show very clearly doesn't have any conception of what a spy is. To the point where they get missions and pretend they have to keep a secret but then they ... don't. Ever. pretend or keep secrets. This was a solid episode where I liked the interplay between them because they had something to do while keeping up that interplay. Sort of like how YouTubers hold microphones no matter what type or style or situation because they need to do something with their hands. This show needs to do something with it's background plot or the interplay between the leads just feels weird and pointless.
Episode 8 Our finale of course is going to have a lot of big moments. You have your requisite dramatic irony as two character try to kill each other for the crime of trying to kill each other a crime neither committed. It goes on for way way way too long as an audience member but it's balanced well with all the action. It comes to a nice conclusion fight scene wise. We find out who was really pulling their strings as well as who was pulling THEIR strings. And then we have an excellent cliffhanger ending. Once again we have a spy taking someone to extreme levels of violence but this time it's not a spy posing as a civy it's an actual civy. In a show that played this sort of thing for laughs that could be funny but this show has a mise that's fairly serious but doesn't make sense. You can't do that. As a counter example I just watched Jason Statham's Beekeeper recently. That's a movie that's ostensibly about getting revenge on tech support scammers from someone who has never actually seen a tech support scam. What I actually think happened is because of the complexities of the optics and racism they needed to modify the villains so they made them into wall street traders. Which is fine because this is a fairly goofy movie. Contrast that to MMS where everything about it is goofy (Title, Concept, Synopsis, even the poster) except the actual episodes themselves. Those are played far too straight to take with humor. So when the FBI gets a case that involves oval office members and they tell the Secret Service to put it aside? I can take that in a movie where some dude gets strapped to a car and driven off a bridge. But when you hold a gun to a Sotheby's agent and threaten to kill them except "nah it's ok". That's a little harder to take. It's a good episode. Top 3 of the series even, but almost all of the good is due to finale shenanigans. Not literally all but almost all.
I'm perfectly willing to watch a second season. I naively believe now that we have a lot of the awkwardness out of the way there's no way the second season is going to have the same problems that plagued the first. We'll have a more focused story because there's not a lot of story floating. We have direct questions that need to be answered now. I actually need to rewatch the whole thing because I think there's a lot of ending interstitial I might have missed. The one in episode 7 foreshadows some of the discussion about Hihi in episode 8.
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. In real life, cops who do this are the problem. 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. Unless it's in writing you're free game. Half the time even if it's in writing no one will see it anyway to contradict if they decide against it anyway. 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, they are 100% right. 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 police work 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 arrest people for 24 hours and ruin them just because they want to do it. 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 and all of it makes them so hard they'll go home and give to the wife or 40% of the time take it out on the wife 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 and finally he 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.
In these episodes I often have issues with how the relationship works between the unwilling employee and the gangster. Especially when it's female employee and male gangster. One thing this opening does well if give us Thony as a character with agency. She actively seeks out and demands employment and conditions. It's a small thing that endears me to this character. Aside from that it's a typical sexually tense force working environment with a gangster situation.
This episode has one of the most brilliant lines in the entire series. Captain Stottlemeyer once again checks in with Monk to see if he's ok with another Trudy and he replies something like "Yeah, everyone should have a Trudy in their life." Written out this a powerful testament to his character on par with the many times he's given up love or failed to find love. A normal character might become bitter and resentful but Adrian carries bitterness as a facade. The fact that for him it's not even a consideration that more Trudys is a good thing even if they aren't his Trudy is just genius. It's why we love him.
That could have been worse. Subject matter wise it was a bold attempt. TV over all has been notoriously bad at handling this. Even Evil a show that is imo so well written i trust it could have done this poorly. In the classic refusing to answer fashion Evil does a pretty good job of having it's characters react in a pretty realistic way to a ridiculous situation even one that has a degree of merit in their world.
Easily the worst episode of the season so far. But considering how good this show is overall that's still better than so much else out there. I don't find the "inevitable jealous over the perfect replacement" storyline nearly as funny as tv executives think we should find it. But Harry does what he can. There's just not as much room for him to spread out and go fully geeked when he's focused on Dr. Perfect. Yet still I give this 7/10.
Wow what a whirlwind. This is not an easy show to watch. You really have to step into the culture and really handwave a lot of stuff as just being due to their culture. Not just the matching, but the dispassionate way in which they force the matching. The insistence on traditional aspects to the point where they don't make sense like hand writing your database rather than keeping them on a secure database. It's just maddening watching this woman scroll through hand written notes when a simple database query would be much more efficient. If you want to reduce people to number that's fine. But then what purpose does writing them down serve.. at that point just assign a number and use filters and queries.
That matches are all over the map. There's the villain girl, the secret gay, and the foreigner which in this case means East Indian from Guyana. There's definitely a degree to which some of this is just reality TV nonsense. Like without stepping on cultural toes. I think I can safely say that the last one has no business even looking to this particular matchmaker. She's very East Indian old school. Which doesn't even look close to what she wants. But hey it does get her on the reality show. Our villain girl is a typical rich kid but that's pretty much everyone here. She's not very friendly but I think that actually makes her super easy to match with. You find her a guy who doesn't mind being "bullied" by his wife and there are plenty of guys like that. There's so much to take in though.
Not bad I guess. Not really sure how you judge a true crime show especially not episode by episode but it was compelling. They do a lot to convince you this is "the real scoop" and two things stand up.
Subject director - There's a lot of scenes where the subject of the scene opens the scene by talking with the crew about what kind of shot they're going to make and what it will look like. This is I presume common in all reality TV. There's so much fakery in reality TV from people answering the door like they don't know a camera crew is outside to people wondering where people are when the everyone has their own personal camera crew. But typically they clip the part where the subject says something like "So I'll stand here and you can get me and the cat in the same angle". It's clearly supposed to make the whole thing feel authentic.
Both Sides-ism - Even though clearly the Tiger King is the "bad guy" and the Sanctuary lady is the "good guy". They keep enough ambiguity in some scenes. They point out that the Sanctuary lady also has people pay money to see her cats. I legit have questions about her operation. I mean I don't have any about TK's though that's just a bad spot but I am curious about some of the finer points of hers.
This is one of the funniest episodes so far.
I mean just such a delicate subject and then turned completely for laughs, successfully. A simple premise of Ryan getting fired leading to the passengers suspecting outer space might be fake. Oh it could have gone so many ways but everyone on this show is in three different levels of stupid so of course it takes the absolute worst result possible. In theory a show about passengers jettisoning themselves out an airlock is a pretty tragic event but this show manages to avoid even having it become black comedy and instead it's just barely blue. They're all so convinced they're on a reality show that one of them jumps out the airlock only to die IMMEDIATELY and become a frozen corpse. An event so shocking and honestly rather disturbingly depicted, that the only result for the level 3 stupid passengers is to of course double down and become even more convinced they can just walk off the ship. Which you wouldn't think would be possible. After all how stupid is everyone and yet it happens again. In the same "just disturbing enough to bother you" fashion, two more passengers airlock themselves. Including what was up to then one of the smartest "level 1 stupid" passengers. It's something that should make you feel grossed out or even teary sad and yet.. it's absolutely hilarious. I couldn't stop laughing at the sheer stupidity so much so I was practically shocked when it happens yet again for the third time. It's just.... so impractically stupid the scene works just because they don't quite hit diminishing returns. When the frozen bodies started bouncing off the shuttle :kissing_closed_eyes:. It does at least tell us the shuttle is very near by. That should introduce some interesting dynamics.
How did I miss all the totems? I thought I was watching for them.
Death row episodes are the worst. It's a barbaric practice and everything about it just screams how immoral this country is. It's exceptionally gross. The idea that "Oh hey we killed someone for the crime we're never going to open the case again even if we get evidence" is so horrific it makes me gag and it's the central premise of this episode as Jane and the FBI have to get a confession before the execution or else no one will care what the real killer has to say. The irony of someone in this episode pointing out how it's about justice when they end up being proven that the death row inmate isn't the killer. Which we know from the episode construction had to be true from the start. All this and that's ONLY the ethical consideration. Not even accounting for the physical and fiscal considerations that of course aren't the purview of this show.
Lucy is being written as a bit bubbly this season. It feels weird. I mean I don't mind her being bubbly but it feels different from last season. Which I haven't seen in a long while to be fair.
This is a bad cop episode so it's going to make the ACAB section a bit harder.
HAHAHHAHAHA when Nolan kept her in the back of the car even during lunch. I'm still laughing about that.
Shame they had to end it on a terrible note. I mean wow we finally get a permanent cast member and that's good news for the show. But wow do I hate that last line. After revealing that her purpose for going backwards is to be in a steady 9-5 job so she can see her daughter, which is super relatable and commendable, she ends the scene saying "I'm going to get her back." A sentiment which doesn't apply when she left her family to go undercover. I presume the white man is the child's father and I fully supported her trying to get 50-50 custody and I even liked that he didn't freak out about that, but that last line hit all the wrong and unsympathetic notes that the entire scene was building.
ACAB
Ok so in the ACAB corner I think I'll highlight all the ways the show tries to make cops look better than they are. This is not normally a reflection on the show or it's quality. My only thought is that a gun runner who is escaping a busted buy is probably hyper sensitive to cop cars behind him. It strikes me a little unrealistic that they could just follow him and he wouldn't know. Or that his front gate people wouldn't notice the giant cop car under the overpass.
As an aside I noticed it in episode 2 and wish I had made the comment then but The Rookie really pushes this bodycam thing to a point where it feels silly. At least it's not as bad as last year when body game footage was at the wrong height.
The pace stagnates here. Number Five is hilarious but he is such a dick that it slows the plot. So it's entertaining but frustrating at the same time. But overall it's great.
Sheehan does a fantastic job being wacky. But Aidan Gallagher (No 5) takes the major plotlines which he does a great job with but again he's a dick generally and he slows the plot by being selfish.
Today's action scene is the shootout in the department store. Which was good but again because of the lack of knowledge didn't feel the proper weight.
A solid episode of Manifest though flawed. Everyone is acting like Real_Dad attacked someone without provocation but mysteriously ignoring the fact that 828_Racist actually threatened his son.
This episode our new character Zeke (which will be the name of my future first son by the way). With his lack of desire to return there was a while when I thought he might be a serial killer or something. After all so far we haven't really had any 828 passengers who are bad people. We had a domestic abuser who lost his memory. We have the Spy_Passenger who I still don't understand.
So by the way 828 racists are a thing apparently. I don't know how people who write TV think hate groups work but these are Alex Jones like conspiracies and you see them in every show like this, Manifest, The Event, Flash Forward and each time it's just silly. No one would buy this. Much less successfully start an entire movement on it. After all there are people who think they're saviors where are they? Why aren't they debunking the livestream which should clearly show that 828_Racist threatened a child. Why don't the police know that matter of fact. Why isn't Real_Dad pointing this out. This is TV writing. People do things for reasons and then when asked about what happened they stutter "uh uh uh.. i just lost control". No you didn't. You had a reason for what you did. Oftentimes a mitigating one.
Another thing I don't understand. Why is it so hard to remove spray paint? that must be the most ingenious invention ever created because NO ONE can solve it. They just all use water and scrub uselessly. Why doesn't ANYONE go out and buy some solvent. There are pages and pages and pages on how to remove spray paint but all you ever see is a bucket of water and a scrubbing brush. It's my understanding that if you get it while it's wet, maybe that'll work but considering how long that X was there you're going to need more than that.
But look how minor my complaints are this episodes. Spray Paint and super effective "racism". Like the one where-- that was last episode. Like Last episode this was pretty good, even with my nitpicks. I didn't mind Olive_theDaughter even though there was plenty of potential for her to insist that she should have been filled in earlier. The whole "everyone who knows dies" thing kinda feels contrived. They're drawing conclusions with barely any evidence. Correlation is not causation. People who know have died but that doesn't mean knowing is what makes them die.
Oo ooo oo.. Also. they played Bananagrams. As a board gamer I like to see fun games being played. not boring family games like monopoly and connect 4. Bananagrams is an excellent family game. it's exactly the sort of family game modern families should be playing.
Wow, what an episode. The slow paced tension that's the characterization of the show and yet it doesn't have the agonizing drag of Hannibal. Still there were a few twists, a jumpscare, and the first major mistake. All things that pushed the forward momentum. Our subjects get a lot of characterization between Peach and our love interest and more information about Joe's backstory.
One of the things I like about this show is how, unlike Dexter, Joe is fairly human and flawed and prone to mistakes. Seeing him struggle with a concussion was interesting.
It kinda says something about jail, that, in this show, this dude is facing being imprisoned. Having already been there, he decides he'd rather blow his brains out than go back. This is presented casually. The show doesn't see this as exceptional, barely noteworthy. The average viewer just understands this. It doesn't need to be explained. That says something kind of terrifying about our society. His crime to go back was kidnapping. It's not like he hurt the kid or killed someone.
It's fine. Nothing special yet. Justin is ruggedly handsome enough. The secondary team is compelling enough to meet minimum standards. We have his weekly tropes of fighting for money now and "Contract becomes legally binding upon success" etc.
If you have a gap in your line up this is competent enough to fight for a spot. We'll see how it looks three episodes in. Right now could go either way.
Ugh. I didn't want to watch this. I thought it was a movie when the trailer started but I hit play by accident and it was effective. I got sucked in. A nice bob and weave with the story telling. Obviously a lot of mystery to come up with and a murder that might or might not be.
I can't say know to a locked room mystery. One of us did it is just my jam so hard. I don't have a handle on Darby yet what kind of detective she is going to be but I do have a rough grasp on what kind of person she's going to be and I like her intensity. I think it's going to serve her well though out the series.
Quantum Leap (2022) has at times struggled with what kind of show it wants to be. I would have preferred something a lot more intimate, very much like the original Quantum Leap. I've given up on that as no one makes TV shows like that anymore. Every show has to be an ensemble cast, every TV show lead has to have an entire team, not just a buddy.
I was willing to buy into that and I set aside my expectations for what Quantum Leap means and how much I enjoy the original. My personal preferences aside, it has mostly worked. I have issues with one episode but you can check my review on that. It's not like every episode of the OG was perfect either. This Season 2, however, has failed to spark anything within me (so far). I'm just not interested in a three-year time skip on a second season of this show. I don't know why it's there. I don't know what I'm supposed to be taking from this. It feels like in the TV world having someone move on so harshly in 3 years is wicked fast. Maybe it's not but regardless, I'm not an invested in their drama. This is weird because I like Ben and I like Addison. I weirdly never just cared about them as a couple. Unfortunately it looks like that's the only drama that is going on (at least right now). At first I thought this was just a ploy to make Ian the person in the imaging chamber and I was actually interested in that. I think Ian's an interesting person and it would have been fun to see Ian as a hologram. At this point, I'm not sure that's what they're doing.
This episode features a sort of modernism that I find really pretentious. There's a point where Ian is the hologram and Ian is standing in a desk. Ben notices and gestures to Ian that Ian should step aside. Ian looks down and screams in shock, but why? It's the silliest scene and it doesn't make any sense and it feels like it completely is there for modern weird jumpscare short attention span tick tock sensibilities. It would have been much more interesting to see Ian casually step aside. I'm pretty sure Al did that in the OG.
In general Al was a lot more "cool" about being a hologram than the people in this show are. It gave the sense that the hologram technology itself was so old hat. They didn't send a scientist or a specialist. They just sent his buddy. After all in the future holograms are just the way we do things. Except here where people get amazed and shocked at being a hologram. I suppose that's the effect of telling Quantum Leap that takes place in the future vs Quantum Leap that takes place now.
Holy balls. I remembered that the trailer for this season had me halted at just how bad the geopolitics was, but I wasn't prepared for it to jump into this inane plot where the government, of the United States of America, is in utter throat-clutching terror of Venezuela gaining nuclear power. It's utterly ridiculous and it jars me out of the verisimilitude of the show.
What a horribly titled episode. ZERO payback at all. Zero results from previous payback. It really gives a distorted perception of this episode which imo does a lot of things well. The Will/Carlton relationship starts off finally where it should have been as far as I'm concerned. Will trying to make Carlton cool. It even ends with Carlton not being black like Will but being black like Carlton, with that actually working for him. That was a great arc to watch even when you include the fact that Carlton throws a hissy fit when someone gives him the honest feedback when he claims he "can take it". Yeah this relationship ends the episode in (it makes the TV better Brand of) tension but not nearly as bad as I feared. Even Will has a small arc where he learns a little bit more about the struggle that Carlton has had to go through being one of few black kids.
Then we have two relationships getting into their own conflict. Hilary/Jazz and Philip/Vivian. Both of them end up in sexist positions but my stance on both is not the same. Philip overstepped. In every stage of their issue he went too far. He didn't consult for the finances. He was too open about his jealous concerns. He didn't respect Viv's grind. Hilary/Jazz has a similar dynamic though Hilary is in the wrong for pretending she didn't completely collapse on her principles for some money from a brand that isn't even in her wheelhouse. I will note that Jazz (I would even go so far to say) is gaslighting when he says "I get all that but I just didn't think you'd sell your soul". When you recontextualize and reform that he's saying "I understand, but I don't understand". Still every point Jazz makes is basically right. It just sounds bad because he argues like someone on a Jubilee video. Hitting the point but so badly it has that classic foul ball ding. I kinda wish he would have pushed back more on not the fact that what she's doing offends HIS morality but that it offends HER morality. Without that it does make him sound like he's trying to (as she put it mockingly) be her Dad.
Title aside I think this is a good episode for a dramatic intense reboot of Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
I got nothing.
Haddish looks good with short hair though.
I like her insistence on empathy even though in the end it still only serves the same typical miracle policeman role but at least that makes sense in the role of a detective in a murder mystery rather than a police procedural. She's fun.
A great episode that finally fills in a lot of the dots. It also shows that even before instagram people will misunderstand perception vs reality
Sharon Stone was fun and I missed the answer but to be fair I apparently stepped out of the room and assumed I had enough information. I did not.
Holy wow. I did NOT sign up for this but Kim's Convenience can go toe to toe with The Office (US) for cringe. They be ruining one of my top 3 characters (Janet) with the cringe nonsense she does.
Tucci is excellent a very fun casting choice.
Honestly one of the worst episodes to date and that includes the Kill Bill 'Buried Alive' episode. This episode completely lacks heart. The most interesting part is Monk getting better only to backslide at the end. This entire episode was based on making a great trailer where you think Trudy might be alive. In the end there's no real mystery, the murderer isn't revealed and everything sort of collapses again just to re-traumatize Monk.
Well, as they say it's an ending. Considering how hard they pushed back against the inevitable romance between Shade and Angie this ending was always going to be a disappointment. They should have gotten together at the start of the season not the end of it. Instead this season has been filled with one guest star or another just casually remaking how good they are together.
This episodes features no less than three characters saying the obvious. The mystery featured some classic backwards twists and a half turn culminating in some blocking I can only call slapstick. People get knocked out too often on TV anyway but this was a bit silly in the end half.
Still I'm going to miss this show with it's classic downtown Toronto establishing shots. There's too many unsatisfying story bits in a show where someone won a political election. I'm still headspun from Zoey breaking up with Maz who left the show and then came back for a guest spot and at no point mentioned Zoey. Just a lot of weird decisions but a lot of fun Canadian guest stars. Jules and her boyfriend in the starter relationship that's going all the way just gets left hanging like the first Mrs Shade.
I have issues with cop shows. Mostly in the form of generalized copaganda but I also now have issues in the post BLM era attempts to respond to BLM. The Rookie is one of the few cop shows I've watched consistently and I've had this issue since Season 1. What I will say is that even with that context. This might be one of the best episodes I've seen of this show. Even in terms of copaganda and post BLM response its mostly reasonable. Across pretty much every story line this episode worked. Most impressively I finally care about the Brandon Routh storyline. I definitely give them points for bringing him back as a racist cop who was unfired now THAT is true to life. Even if everyone being against him from all the chiefs to everyone in whatever department Jackson and Nolan are in and yet he's still "just a cop" didn't. In this episode he comes back and it's such a good plotline that it almost makes up for the random "new cop is racist" storyline that preceded it.
These stupid stupid kids. It hurts so much how stupid these kids are. From Arlo the son who texts his father's undercover contact because he assumes... his father cheated on their mother and it's the mistress? Why would you text the mistress? Confront your dad bro, don't catfish her. To Stella the pouty brat who ... to be fair is semi relatable here.
But let's go back to Arlo the idiot son who steals into a secret box and sends out a random "You up" text. We find out this week that he thinks it's a "go-box" aka a buggout bag. Which is so dumb I don't want to spend 100 words on why a change of clothes and a phone does not make a buggout bag make. As someone who lives a country/ranch life he should know better. Does anyone else remember that Arlo was the good son? The one who stayed out of trouble because he missed his daddy. I mean there's room for the kids to swap roles as they process their long lost father coming back into their life but this is silly.
Speaking of the other kid Stella wants Daddy to come to a random soccer game with 7 other people in attendance or else it proves Daddy doesn't love her. I feel like when your Daddy is a cop maybe this is kind of a weird ultimatum.
Micki, who looks way too hot to be a Texas Ranger but honestly carries the role so well I often forget that I have that objection. She's earnest and loyal and she gets to spread her wings in a way that feels real here. Unlike Walker who for reasons unknown goes back undercover and tells NOONE. I understand going UC to settle the issue but why not leave a cryptic message for Micki your partner to solve if something goes wrong and you have to stay UC. Which is exactly what happens.
All this and I forgot to mention the hackiest scene in the episode. When boy-child Arlo somehow tracks down his father who is undercover and confronts him about leaving in the middle of the operation. HOW does he track him? WHY does he choose the middle of clearly something to confront him? Why not use his camera to take pictures and then demand to know what's going on later. That would make more sense. It would keep Arlo as smarter to gather proof. It would allow Walker to actually TALK with the kid (i know crazy idea). But nah he just shows up randomly.
The show has potential to be something new if they can just get these kinks out. Honestly they should do what they did with Supernatural and go monster of the week while we build up some relationships. I love Monster of the Week arcs.
This was a rather dull episode as far as The Boys goes. It had an explosive ending but that's about it. As always it's a pleasure to see John Noble but his tough accent was a bit weak less subtle than his normal work. But we're probably not going to see a lot of him anyway. Shame because his acting itself was fine.
