photo: tnt
Unknown Trouble (Pilot)
Original Air Date: Jan 12, 2010
Farrah Kaye – Associate Editor
farrah@thetwocents.com
Okay, I know what you’re thinking: Uh, didn’t this show get canceled? Well, yes and no. When The Jay Leno Show went to 10 PM, Southland got the boot after only seven episodes, although they kept shooting. Thanks to the folks over on TNT, who loved the show so much, they picked up the original seven, what they had shot and ordered a full season. So now we have a brand new life to the show. The original NBC episodes are considered season one and after that will be considered season two. TNT is making us forget Southland was ever on NBC and calling this a “series premiere” which is why I am putting the original air date as January 12, 2010 instead of however long ago it aired on NBC. Honestly, as long as I get to watch this show, I’m a happy girl.
It starts with: Only 9,800 police officers patrol the city of Los Angeles, an area of 500 square miles and 4 million people…
We’re at a crime scene, bodies on the floor, someone being loaded into an ambulance and a hot Ben McKenzie looking frazzled. Oh my dear Ryan from The OC, what is the matter? He looks upon the dead body as the media swirls around him and the helicopter flies above and a member of the media keeps asking him if he’s okay. A voiceover tells us that Ben (yes, that’s also his name on the show) just finished phase 1 of his probationary training and had to have his daily book signed by his training officer. His training officer is named John. He’s rough around the edges and talks way too fast for me to type what he says. Ben looks nervous as John rambles about a story of one of his “code 203” (mayhem) calls as they drive by a little girl playing with a ball. Then we meet detectives Bryant and Moretta, one of whom is sleeping in their car. Ben and John are flagged down by a meth-head who says a friend threw a cat up on the roof. They drive off. Okay, there are a lot of people in this cast—MEN—and it’s super hard to keep track of them. I’m sure after an episode or two I’ll get the hang of them all. And I should probably start calling them by their last names, like cops (and men…) do. Ben’s last name is Sherman is John’s last name is Cooper. At the station, the detectives are talking about cases. Lots of men in this room I can’t keep track of. Then we see a kid get off a bus on a cell phone and he’s shot up by some gang bangers in a car, RIGHT THERE, IN FRONT OF THE BUS!!! He said “I don’t bang” before he was shot. Back to where the little girl was playing ball, she’s now missing. We finally have a woman detective (the amazing Regina King), Lydia Adams. At the “gang” shooting, none of the bus people or homeless will talk about what they saw. Sherman and Cooper pull over a hot yellow car and make the guy get out of the car and he says they had no just cause. The guy seems to know Sherman, asking him if he’s an actor. They find drugs in his car and he says he’s gonna hire Ben’s dad to come bail him out. Eh? The kid who got shot is being worked on in the hospital and he has no ID and it doesn’t look like he’s gonna make it. Detective Adams is working on the missing girl case and the entire neighborhood seems to have come out to help. One guy steps up and says the little girl looked weighed down when she was coming home the previous day, describing a malnourished kid. The cops are grabbing a bite to eat when they get the call for the missing girl. Cooper keeps saying Sherman is Canadian because he’s so quiet. Cooper also goes to the bathroom and pops a pill. Hm, wonder what it is? OH!!! It’s Tom Everett Scott! Wow, what a cast! He’s Detective Russell Clarke, and Det. Adams calls on him to help take care of the mom in the missing girl case. A newswoman does a report from the station about a “race war” and the head detective is not happy … it also seems they had some kind of affair in the past and he didn’t call her after. Cooper and Sherman get called to a house with a bad smell but they can’t go in until animal control gets there due to barking dogs in the way. Bryant’s wife keeps calling him to come home (he was the one sleeping in his car earlier in the episode) and she’s kind of nutso. Sharing Cheetos with their dog and says “come home and make a baby with me.” Eh, crazy lady, take your crazy somewhere else please.
(Side note: I just realized this must be on limited commercial airing because this has gone a long time without a break. SWEETNESS!)
Three girls come in to talk about what they saw earlier in the morning at the shooting. Only one girl will talk because they are afraid of having to go to court. Det. Clarke takes Ms. Davis (mother of the missing girl) to get some coffee and calm her down and promises it will all be okay. Cooper and Sherman enter the house with animal control and are overcome with the smell of the apartment. They enter and come upon a mess of a place and a dead, rotting body. Holy hell, thank you make-up services for making me—and Sherman—sick to our stomachs. The dogs have been eating at the body and because of that, the dogs have to be put down. Bryant is talking to one of the girls, asking her if she’s affiliated with one of the gangs, which she is (it’s called Grape Street, so she’s wearing purple). She’s had thoughts of being a cop before. Det. Adams searches the house of the missing girl’s father and finds porn magazines.
SUPERSHORTBREAK WITHOUT COMMERCIALS. YAY!
Adams sees a line of ants crawling on a red substance. Blood maybe? Cooper and Sherman are driving through the area with prostitutes and one of them comes up to the window…but she’s a cop, trained by Cooper. Seriously, who is this guy? He knows everyone, everywhere and has stories about everything but he’s a mystery. Cooper tells Sherman if he can’t handle what he’s seen so far to get out now and quit. The mother of some of the girls who saw the murder is upset over the fact that the girls were questioned without her being present. Det. Moretta goes to the bus driver’s house to question her and she is retracting her statement from earlier in the day. No one wants to say anything. The girl from the station calls Bryant and gives him the license plate number of the car from the shooting. She kept it a secret earlier because she didn’t want the other girls to find out. Cooper and Sherman are called to a “trouble” call and their car is attacked upon getting there so they call for backup. Cooper tells Sherman sometimes “trouble” calls are just to mess with the cops. Bryant and Moretta find the guy who owns the car in the system and put out an APB for him. Cooper and Sherman get some backup and they all start slowly going in. Dogs are barking like crazy and there’s a girl puking on the front steps. Oh look, it’s the shooters from earlier in the day! A few guys try to make a run for it but there isn’t enough backup to get everyone. While Sherman is searching a guy, one of the officers tells him to take him to the car and he says he didn’t finish the search yet. The officer pulls him off the guy and says to not question a superior and takes the guy down towards the car. When he puts the guy against the car and goes to walk away, the guy pulls a gun out and shoots the officer and Sherman shoots at them, killing the guy. Should’ve listened to Sherman!! The boy that was shot is not doing well and his family is around him and Bryant and Moretta tell them they found the shooters. His sister comes in and says she doesn’t hate him, referring to a fight they had earlier in the episode. Back at the shooting scene, Cooper tells Sherman to sit down and questions him about his shooting. He’s upset about shooting the guy and Cooper tells him to tell the truth when they ask him about the incident. Cooper reminds him he took a bad guy off the streets for good, and that is god’s work. I wasn’t really a Cooper fan until then because he gave some good words of wisdom. Det. Adams goes to visit her mom and the kitchen is infested with ants. This reminds her of the father’s house and she goes back to check on something. She follows the source and someone knocks her out from behind. Hello, CALL FOR BACK UP!! All the time. Even I know that, and I just watch this stuff on TV! She comes to in the exact place she was knocked out to one of the nice neighbors, holding a gun. He’s crying and admits to taking the little girl. She calls for backup, finally. While she’s waiting, her and the man go in to the apartment together. He looks at the closet and starts crying. When Adams opens the door, his wife comes out and sees what’s in the closet, asking what he did and crying with him. At the hospital, the officer the was shot has survived and will be okay and Sherman is sitting in the waiting room with the sister of the boy who was shot from the morning. He’s in his street clothes and they talk.
Everyone ends their day by going home, even Bryant who goes home to his nutso wife. Adams goes home to her mom (they live together), whom she seems to take care of. Cooper goes to a bar, and overhears a guy say he had a day from hell because he was arrested. It was one of the guys the vice cops caught in the prostitute area. At the hospital, Ben reads Cooper’s write-up of Sherman’s day. It was glowing. Go Ben!
So that was the first episode of Southland, in all its awesomeness. I’m so glad to have a gritty cop show back on television. This is one of those goodies like NYPD Blue, only with a younger cast. I love that Ben McKenzie dropped the “jamin” from his name for a new look and I love the mystery around everyone. I can’t wait to find it all out! What did you think? Leave your two cents below!
Also, considering the format of the show, I think I’ll have to go with a character by character review. Thoughts?
TheTwoCents 