We got to see a little more of John Cooper. His father, a rapist and murderer, had a parole hearing coming up. This upset Cooper. Also, he probably needs to consult a doctor about surgery for his back, which still hurts. Cooper arrested a guy who was on prescription medication for pain and was driving under the influence of said medication. Thinking that Cooper had arrested the guy in order to pocket some of the guy’s pills, Ben counted them as he put them into evidence. Cooper saw him and got pissed. Cooper and Ben also helped a dog owner free her pet from the clutches of a neighbor’s snake. We got to see that Cooper was a huge dog person. That made us like him more.
His softer side also came out when he took care of an abandoned preteen boy whose parents had left him. Cooper played video games with the boy at the police station and gave the kid his phone number, just in case he needed anything. The boy hugged Cooper and we all said, “Awwww.” But, because Southland is realistic, it didn’t end on a touchy-feely note. The boy ran away from his foster home and was hauled back to the station. He sort of begged Cooper to adopt him. Obviously an angry, gay, single, cop in emotional and physical pain can’t handle a delinquent black youth right now, so he said, “I did all I could do” and walked away. The boy shouted, “F*** you!” and we chuckled at the show even as we were a little heartbroken.
Another boy around that age called the cops and reported his mother for child abuse. The mother had spanked him with her belt because he ditched school. Ben and Cooper showed up. Angry at the boy for not appreciating his decent mother (after the abandoned black kid and Cooper’s own father rained on Cooper’s parental parade), Cooper reamed the kid and said that if the kid ditched school again, Cooper would come back and beat him with a belt too. The mother must have been thinking, “wtf?” Ben wished her a nice day and followed Cooper back to the car. Awkward moment.
At his parole hearing, Cooper’s father testified that he had completed college, gone through counseling, and learned that everyone is worthy of forgiveness. Cooper stood up and spoke for the victim, saying, “Someone’s daughter never got to go to college. Never got to get married. Never got to raise a family” and then talked about the victim’s last moments. He ended with, “I grew up with this man….and my father should stay in here until the day he dies.” You could feel the tension in that scene. Then Cooper almost got in a car crash and spilled some of his pain pills on the ground. He screamed and cried in frustration. Also, he had to go to Nate’s funeral that week.
Lydia and her partner had a rape case to investigate, and each cop didn’t care for the way the other cop was handling it. As it turns out, the victim was lying to cover up her cheating ways and had pinned it on a Hispanic gardener she didn’t like. We knew the gardener was innocent from the moment we saw him, because he was good-looking. This was an interesting case though.
We didn’t get to see Sammy, so we guess the show is saving his issues for later. Dewey is getting funnier, rather than just annoying. Also, no Chickie this week. The episode totally belonged to Cooper.
This is possibly the best cop show of all time.
Episode grade: A-
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