Once my head stops spinning from having typed that quick succession of quotes and apostrophes, I'll offer up a review of last night's episode, after the jump....
“Learn to play with pain” - Jarek Wysocki
The emotionally tied-in case is an old convention in television, not only with cop shows, but legal shows, supernatural shows...basically, any show with standalone elements. While some shows can pull this off, and in fact excel in this regard (Terriers, Fringe), most shows that do this end up going into territories that are tired and staid, picking on some of the most obvious emotional triggers and just assuming that the audience will pick up on the emotion, instead of actually putting the work into making the storyline truly affecting. (Think of just about every police procedural ever made.)
Tonight's episode of TCC walked this line on a very thin rope, occasionally threatening to fall into right out treacly territory. Eschewing the ongoing narrative almost completely (why did the show think that was a good idea?), the focus was instead on three cops, each confronted with a case that spoke deeply to them and made them tear up a little bit. (No, I'm not kidding.) Luckily, the show respected these stories enough to ground them in true emotions, and that made them (mostly) work.
Jarek's plotline was perhaps the most troubling, as it dealt with the biggest cliché. The whole “cop seeking justice for a past case” angle has been done to death, and the show didn't really do anything new with it here. But what it did do was to give us basis for the emotions involved; the first scene between Jarek and Daniel, where we find out more specific details, and see how Daniel's sadness affects Jarek went a long way to explain why Jarek was acting the way he was. And the closing scene of the case, which provides closure for both Daniel and Jarek, took the emotions seriously enough , which kept the overly simplistic wrap-up from feeling like a complete cheat.
The other thing that this story did, at least for the show as a whole, was briefly bring Gibbons into the action. While a return to Gibbon's emotional ambiguity was welcome – here we weren't sure if Gibbons was involving himself because he saw moral injustice in the boy's death, or it he just wanted to save his own ass – what really made it interesting was the parallels set up between Mayor Lao and the Gibbons. Both run their own little sections of Chicago in corrupt ways, and even if one was easier to take down that the other, if Jarek busted him, that provides hope for catching Gibbons. But what if Gibbons, like Lao, finds a loophole, and is able to escape a majority of the punishment he's got coming?
Teresa's story was the most emotionally affecting tonight, if only because it dealt with the tricky issue of family. Though it was obvious from the start that Robert was in someway involved with the parking garage he was acting on behalf of, I honestly didn't expect that he was channeling bribe money. From there, it was a well told, if unoriginal, story of Teresa choosing between saving her family or sticking with her moral code. Again, we see echoes of the ongoing narrative: What makes Teresa different that she can withstand corruption, even in the face of a somewhat worthy cause, but Gibbons is unable to? After last weeks entry, which softened Gibbons a bit, does this week's episode increase his relative villainy once again, or is Teresa now the one in the moral gray area?
Liam finally got his own story tonight, instead of being on the periphery. While I for one haven't been bothered by how little we know of Liam (much like Gibbons light appearances in the first two episodes, I chalk it up to the nature of the show), Noel Murray over at the AV Club has stated previously that he doesn't buy Liam as a character, and I think the show took some steps to correct this. Having him accidentally kill a man finally gives his stories the weight that they've been missing, and the narrative momentum to make them more interesting. However, I can't get over the fact that this was introduced through the actions Isaac, a character who is so unconnected to Liam. (And why even bring in Isaac and Vonda for so little screen time? It seems like a waste.) This only pushes Liam further from the central action, and makes him seem like more and more of an afterthought. Even with tonight's fairly significant development, it's not certain that he'll be in the spotlight again within the next couple of episodes.
There was one other plotline tonight, that of Caleb and the alluring nurse Natalie. (Note: From this point forth, she shall always be referred to a 'nurse Natalie.' Always.) While slight and without consequence (yet), it was cute enough to be endearing (never thought I'd say that about anything on this show), and brief enough not to feel like a distraction.
I have no idea where TCC should go from here, but I would recommend that they don't do a repeat of tonight's episode. While not especially bad, it is disheartening to see a show with which such creative potential behind scenes churn out something so average and unoriginal.
What did everybody else think?
Additional Thoughts:
Tonight in notable guest stars, we had Rockmond Dunbar, from that other Ryan/Minear collaboration, Terriers, playing Robert, and Franois Chau, who you undoubtedly recognize as Pierre Chang, playing Lao, the “mayor” of Chinatown. This of course made Jarek's accusations of the video being erased via electromagnet stand out more than it should.
“Detective, isn't it your job to make sure your partner doesn't go around strangling the citizens of Chicago?”
Daniel works at the May Flower Chinese Restaurant. HA!
“Oh, yeah? Better cops have this smile?”
The owner of the parking garage was named Nick Andopolis. A Freaks and Geeks reference, or just a coincidence?
I like to imagine that Gibbons would wax this philosophically even when he doesn't have an audience.
“Is it my dedication to a wide rang of children's charities? Because say the words, and I will cut those little bastards off.”
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