Southland - Identity

Lydia is pregnant and she’s keeping the baby!  We don’t know about this, y’all. So far, it’s touching, but we’re not usually a fan of taking the main female character on a show and impregnating her. It makes stories screech to a halt. The father is yet unknown, but we bet it’s whoever Lydia called at the end of last week’s episode. We know. That tells you nothing. Tang advises Lydia to keep the pregnancy a secret as long as possible so the station doesn’t put her on desk duty.

Lydia is called to investigate the murder of a real estate agent, Brian Monroe. She finds out that Monroe let workers stay upstairs in his house for free. Lydia meets a worker, Melanie, and her daughter, Nicole. Nicole starts fighting with another worker and that worker audibly accuses Nicole of Monroe’s murder. Melanie steps in and confesses to the murder, obviously to save her teenage daughter. Lydia questions Melanie back at the station and finds out that Monroe and Nicole were sleeping together. Melanie and Nicole were living behind a 7-11 when Monroe took them in.

Melanie says that Nicole has always been a troubled child. Nicole has personality disorders as well as ADHD. Nicole’s behavior and the effort it takes to care for her cost Melanie jobs and apartments, but Melanie simply sees all this as a test from God and loves her daughter. It’s really sweet. Meanwhile, Nicole has run away and is on the streets. After evidence leads back to Nicole, Lydia finds and chases her through the street. Nicole cuts Lydia’s arm with a knife, jumps into a truck and tries to drive it away. Nicole hits a squad car that was blocking her exit, and Ruben shoots Nicole in the shoulder.

Nicole cries, saying that she ruined everything, as Lydia arrests her. Weirdly, even though this girl is clearly crazy, we felt bad for her. At the hospital, Nicole confesses to the murder, saying that she caught Monroe sleeping with another worker. Nicole is afraid her mother hates her, says she wants to die, and says that she doesn’t matter. Lydia assures Nicole that her mother loves her and her face lights up when Nicole comes up in conversation. The worker who slept with Monroe tells Lydia that when she has kids, they will be lucky. It’s a nice moment, but that worker is still a ho.

An off-duty Ben chases a guy away from his female neighbor after he sees the guy giving her a hard time. The woman thanks him and a police car pulls up. Ben tells the cops that everything is alright and they leave. The woman says that she hates cops and asks Ben if he heard about the cop who hit a girl for no reason. Ben looks uncomfortable and says, “That’s messed up.” Ben goes to a crime scene and stands with his partner over the dead body of Lupe, a victim who was well-liked in his area. They find the killer later. Sammy tries again to get Ben to move to his neighborhood. We also find out that Tammy has custody of the baby. Ugh.

Next, Ben and Sammy chase a purse snatcher. Sudden movement causes Sammy to pull his gun and shoot. He accidentally shoots a dog. This saddens us greatly. We hate when dogs are hurt or killed on TV and in movies. One of the things we liked about LOST is that they never killed the dog. Ben arrests the suspect while Sammy applies pressure to the dog’s bleeding wound. Sammy yells at the suspect for causing a dog to be shot. Sammy trades two Lakers tickets to get the dog a ride to the animal clinic. Sammy finds out that the dog needs surgery and it will cost $1,300. Sammy is willing to pay when the dog’s owners cannot, and everyone thinks he’s crazy. Watching the other cops make fun of Sammy (especially the card) was great. We also liked seeing Sammy not be a dick for once this season.

Sammy and Ben are called to a community pool where an Asian woman is threatening a man with a knife. She drops the knife when the police tell her too, maintaining that she can kill the guy with her bare hands. Ben notices a little girl floating face-down in the pool, jumps in, grabs the girl, and revives her. We’re not super-sure what happened there. Did the girl nearly drown because everyone was distracted by the fight? Was the fight over the girl? Either way, we like seeing Ben saving children rather than punching them, haha.

Cooper and Tang are asked to remove a homeless man from private property. The man, Tom Smith, is a mentally ill ex-marine who did not have an I.D. and so could not re-enter homeless housing. Tang wants to get Tom an I.D. so that he can go back to this shelter. Tang spends most of the episode on her cell phone trying to get help for Tom, while her partner deals with the other police situations of the day. Even a mangled body, completely dismembered from being hit by a train, cannot distract Tang from her mission to help Tom. There’s some black humor there.

Tang walks around the scene of that crime, screaming into her phone at whatever incompetent person has the nerve to not care about a veteran. We’re pretty sure everyone was won over by Tang in this scene, if there were any hold-outs. We’ve been fans from the start. Tang tells Cooper that her father was a marine. Cooper asks if Tang is going to rescue every marine they come across, which reminds one of us of one of her favorite episodes of The West Wing ("In Excelsis Deo", in case anyone cares). Tang replies, “Never leave a man behind.” Tom’s mental illness  and other obstacles get in the way of Tang’s plan to save him, however, and the two cops are forced to simply move Tom down the street, away from the private property.

This episode was really sad, but it hit all the right notes. This was a strong outing, but we want Cooper and Ben to make up and love each other again.

Episode grade: B+

Southland - Community

What’s this? A lackluster episode of Southland?  The themes were too obvious. Of course, it’s just one part of a whole season arc and we can see that the show is trying to do something different with the characters. Also, even this episode is better than any other cop show we've ever seen. Ben starts the episode banging a badge bunny who loved the youtube video of him punching that girl. Even though Ben is not getting negative consequences for the punch, you can tell by his face that he’s not feeling completely proud of it. 

Lydia and Rueben are called to investigate the murder of a woman named “Maria Moboro" and find evidence leading them to a homeless guy, named Danny, who wanted revenge on Maria for making his daddy poor. When the cops find Danny, he tries to run away, but he’s too wasted and weak to do anything but hobble. The officers think it’s sad, but we thought it was hilarious. They walk after him, shaking their heads. Danny doesn’t make it far and eventually confesses to killing Maria. 

Maria took the shirt off his father’s back, he declares, so he took the shirt off of hers. Come on, show. That was lame. See what we meant about obvious? Lydia drops Rueben off and then calls someone, asking if she can come over. A new love interest, perhaps? NO. We don't care. Please, show. No Lydia's love life. The detective cases should be the most gripping of the show, but they are not. They are the most boring. Adding a love arc for Lydia will only waste more of our time. We love her, but man are they wasting opportunities here by giving Lydia cases like this. 

Sammy has a beef with Two Trey gang leader, Day Day Crawford and harasses him in the morning before going to the station. At work, Rucker yells at Sammy for stirring the pot with Crawford. Rucker then decrees that Sammy and Ben watch the Two Trey gang on their “Hood Day.” If there is a police presence to protect the gang members who are coming out of hiding for this most sacred of holidays, maybe everyone will make it out without bloodshed. That was such a horrible idea, Rucker! Send someone who doesn’t hate Day Day Crawford so much.

We never really got what “Hood Day” was, but it sounds just wonderful. Once there, Sammy sees the car of a rival gang drive by. Day Day Crawford comes up to Sammy, and they bicker again. Sammy then gets a call reporting a stranded motorist and decides to leave Hood Day to answer that call instead. He’s done protecting gang members and will not let old grudges die (with good reason). Ben protests, but Sammy wins and the two leave. After helping two young girls whose car broke down, Sammy takes Ben to get tacos instead of going back to Hood Day. Ben weakly protests.

Sammy tells Ben that Day Day Crawford kidnapped a 13-year-old boy from the rival gang, sodomized him with a garden hose, and packed him full of peanut butter. Wait. Was the peanut butter in the hose? Did he just shove the butter in the kid’s mouth? Wait, we don’t need or want to know these details. Sammy doesn’t want to get in the way of the rival gang’s payback, if today is the day. Sammy and Ben get a call. A mother is screaming at her kid’s coach for not letting him play enough in the game. She whips out her taser and zaps the coach. She is arrested. This was funny.

Another call comes over the radio and this one takes them back to Hood Day. Sammy and Ben arrive to find MANY people dead and ho’s screaming, “Where were you people?” Thanks, show. We got it. We know lives would have been saved if Sammy wasn’t a douche on Hood Day. R.I.P. gangsters. It was actually sad to see all those dead bodies, even if they were baddies. Ben and Sammy find Crawford. Sammy catches Crawford and handcuffs him to a utility pole. Sammy and Ben chase another guy, leaving Crawford to his neighbors. By the time the cops come back, Crawford has been stabbed. Rucker shows up and does not yell at Sammy for leaving Hood Day. WHAT?!!!

Tang and Cooper respond to a burglary call. The woman who called, Rebecca, is the daughter of a strict Orthodox Jew. Rebecca’s father comes home and reams her for breaking the Sabbath by making a phone call. Rebecca agrees to ride along with Tang and Cooper to look for the suspect, against her father’s wishes. She spots him quickly. Cooper and Tang make a few jokes at his expense and then arrest the burglar. This does not lead to anything and we think it was only in the episode to show the diversity of the community.

Cooper and Tang come up on a guy with a bloody nose. Some other guy punched him for looking at him the wrong way. Bloody Nose doesn’t want the guy arrested, he just wants a chance to hit the guy back. The cops and criminal are ok with this. Bloody Nose gets a good hit in. This is really funny, but man, that can’t be good cop protocol. Can’t say it’s not fair though.

Later, a man in a hoodie runs up to Cooper and Tang, telling them that he’s been assaulted and he knows who did it. The cops tell him to lower his hood. His head has been badly shaved and someone wrote things like “child rapist” and “molester” on the bald patches. We will call him Chester the Molester in our heads. The cops drive Chester to the assaulter’s house. Cooper warns the guy to stay away from Chester, who has done his time, and lets the assaulter go with a warning. Chester yells, “That’s it!?” and the cops walk away. They go to lunch and discuss how all Chesters should be castrated.

Cooper and Tang get a call that night that takes them back to Chester’s neighborhood. His house is on fire. All of the neighbors are out, watching. Tons of them confess to setting the house on fire. Man, these people do NOT want Chester living near them. Tang says that she and Cooper should blame themselves, but Cooper doesn’t think it’s their fault. With this conclusion, there was no “happy, moral” ending to the story. It was a grey area. The cops on this show aren’t doing things by the book, but things are turning out badly for the bad guys anyway. This episode was called “Community” for a reason (to make us miss the show Community?). The community was driving the action and making the decisions. The cops were going along with it, letting things happen, because they fundamentally agree with the decisions of the community.

We like the new partnerships, we’ve decided. We didn’t before and we still lament that Ben and Cooper have spent all of five seconds together this season. Tang and Cooper work really well together. They respect each other and seem to agree and get along effortlessly. So far this season, their cases and calls have been the funniest and the most interesting. We are liking Lucy and respect her for doing this show, where she has to deal with funny and gritty, rather than glamorous stuff. She's not an untouchable Charlie's Angel here, nor is she O'Ren Ishii from Kill Bill with unrealistic fighting skills. She's more human and easy to relate to. Meanwhile, dunces Sammy and Ben are going to drive each other into the ground. We hope the show knows what it’s doing by turning these two previously likable characters into a couple of chodes. It’s exciting to watch and pretty ballsy. 

Episode grade: B-

Southland - Underwater

Lucy Liu’s Jessica Tang is still around, even though it still says “guest star” in the credits. How long will she be on the show, we wonder? And yet, we are too lazy to try to look it up. We are as lazy as Tang. Lydia Adams’ new partner, Reuben, is also still around, and we find him boring and forgettable. We’re surprised we know his name. We didn’t catch it last week.

Tang, Cooper, Dewey, Rueben, and Lydia find a handbag with a severed arm still attached to the handle. Nice. Inside the purse is I.D. for a rich woman named “Meredith Williams.” Tang and Cooper are to notify the husband. When Mr. Williams is told of his wife’s demise, he laughs and the house’s butler says, “The witch is dead” in Spanish. The entire house seems to celebrate and the cops, weirded out, walk away. Lydia and Rueben look for the man who ran down Meredith Williams and find him in his garage. He had a few to drink the night before and though he hit a coyote. Oops! Also, how drunk do you have to be to think a person is a coyote or to not check. He is put under arrest, which is good, because if you are THAT drunk and you even consider driving, you deserve what you get.

Lydia and her boring partner are then called to investigate a homicide that occurred in a convenience store. The victim was a prison snitch named Mac Logan. He was a key witness against a man named Darrell Miller who spent 22 years in prison for a rape he didn’t commit. He was released when DNA evidence exonerated him. Lydia and Rueben go to Miller’s house, where he is uncooperative. When Miller leaves, they knock again and are admitted into the residence by Miller’s grandma, who has dementia. Wildly illegal. They find the evidence they need though. Rueben thinks Miller’s victim got what he deserved for getting an innocent man sent to prison and wonders if he and Lydia should just toss the evidence against Miller. Lydia disagrees. Hey, Rueben, just tell the court about how you guys got the evidence without knowing consent to search the house, and Miller will get off without you breaking any rules.

Cooper tries to find out about Tang’s personal life, but she is tight-lipped. Tang has to be the laziest cop on this show. Last week, she spent the day trying to get food from a taco truck. This week, she sees a naked jogger and, rather than arresting him, tells him that he can’t run around here, but he can run down the freeway. That way he will be busted by highway patrol and she won’t have to do it. Nice one, Tang. Jeez. Karma hits when Cooper and Tang spot a man running down the street, fully on fire. You give up an easy, disgusting case and you get a hard, disgusting case. Let that be a lesson to Tang. Also, the man got caught on fire while he was in a porn shop, so Tang had to go in there and investigate. Ha. We kind of like Tang though, laziness aside.

Sammy has a pool party attended by Ben, shirtless. Ben makes out with a cute female cop. Another cop comments that white boys get the hottest girls. Well…ok then. That was a random and weirdly racist comment. Ben and Sammy have a new captain, Captain Rucker, who is played by Carl Lumbly, Sidney’s partner on Alias. Hell yeah. His policy is that the cops will be hard-asses, cleaning up the streets, and for every mistake they make, they will have to fill out one line of a McDonalds application. He hands these applications out. We feel bad for all the people who work hard for a LIVING at McDonalds and get this crap from everywhere.

Ben’s sweet side is not on display as much in this episode, and we don’t like it. We guess it’s good to have a rounded character, but it’s weird to see Ben act like a saint last week and a horn-dog who punches women in the face this week. We’ll get to that… Anyway, Ben teases a female officer and Sammy suggests that he just ask for her number. Ben says the middle-school method is more fun. The sweet side makes a brief comeback when Sammy and Ben bust an underage hooker with a crack pipe. Sammy’s plan is to turn her into a C.I. so the cops can use her and Ben’s is to call social services or something and get her out of “the life.” Sammy names Ben “Captain Save-a-Ho” and the hooker lets them know where she got the drugs. We guess Sammy won that one.

They arrest the people at the stash house. There was a little drama where one of the suspects escaped, and that ends with Ben yelling at a woman for letting the suspect hide in her house. He’s all, “See if we ever answer a call down here again!” and the woman responds with, “No one asks you to come down here.” It almost gets ugly, but Sammy pulls Ben away.

We find out later that Ben is starting to get jaded. He says, “I wanted to make a difference. You know it's funny, I used to think about how these kids grew up. No parents, drug abuse, hungry. [Now] I ain't a social worker.” We hope Ben finds a happy medium between wide-eyed, too-trusting softy and the a-hole he’s becoming now. Next, he and his colleagues deal with a crazy cat lady and we have no time to go into that. There are just too many cases and incidences in one episode. It’s The Vampire Diaries of cop shows.

Ben and Sammy have to shut down a dance party in a parking lot when the property owner calls police to evict the hooligans. One of the teens girls pushes Ben, so he has to arrest her for putting her hands on a police officer. Her friend starts defending her, slapping Ben and then spitting in his face. Wow that is a) a good friend and b) a dumb friend. Ben punches her in the face. We were taught that men shouldn’t hit women, but we would have hit this bitch too. It was a huge overreaction and both Ben’s captain and Sammy chastised him for it. And that girl cop Ben was teasing? She handed him a McDonald's application. Zing. We guess. This episode brought a lot more humor than usual.

In other news, Dewey is a chubby chaser. 

Episode grade: B

Southland - Wednesday

This show is the most realistic and grittiest of cop shows. Another thing that puts it over the top in quality is its good character development and tracking of random encounters police have with people. Most cop shows track one case and then focus on people hooking up on the side. This show has one big case and a bunch of little encounters, always keeping us entertained. When people do…get together, we actually care, because there has been build up and we care about the characters’ personal lives. As always with this show, it’s time to settle down, pay attention, and shut down all open internet windows, because this is a show that you have to actually watch. It’s not background noise. You can’t follow it that way.

This Tuesday night, season four of Southland premiered with an action-packed episode and guest star Lucy Liu as Officer Jessica Tang. We like Liu, and her character isn’t even remotely annoying, so that’s good. She’s not a GREAT cop though. She spent most of the episode trying to get to a taco truck to have her favorite lunch. While a man was hanging himself with pantyhose, Jessica was checking her phone, tracking the taco truck. We can’t really judge her for putting food first though. We usually do.

Jessica is “famous” for a youtube video that sparked plenty of nicknames from the other cops. Jessica chose Cooper as a partner, as he recently returned from rehab. He got a back surgery and is better than ever, lifting weights, working out, and stopping runaway cars. It’s nice to see that. Things are still a little awkward between Cooper and Ben though. Sammy’s new baby, Nate, is six months old, and absolutely adorable. Six months might be the cutest age of baby.

An old CI of Lydia’s who grew up in Lydia’s neighborhood showed up on Lydia’s porch, wanting to be relocated for her own safety. Except that CI had already been relocated and got into trouble in her new area too. We are going to take a shot at spelling the CI’s name…Danell? Lydia was annoyed that the CI grew up in the same circumstances as Lydia and yet made nothing of her life. Yep, Lydia showed off her serious, judgmental side for a change, haha. Was that a water bed in the hotel Danell stayed in? In a HOTEL? After Danell was arrested in a drug bust, Lydia told her to hit the road. Of course, Danell ended up getting brutally murdered. The line, “I guess she finally got a chance to see the ocean” was overkill. We got it, Lydia.

Ben Sherman, now partnered with Sammy, tangled with a cop named Ferguson. A suspect was shot in a bathroom and Ferguson’s response was, “That’s a perfect resting place for that piece of shit.” Ferguson also taunted the man as he was dying. Later, Ferguson allowed a child to play with a dead body, saying, “Let the animals be animals.” You just knew that Ben was going to get sick of this guy before the end of the day. Sammy tried to calm Ben down, saying that Ferguson was a capable, street-smart cop. Sammy also tried to calm Ferguson down, saying that Ben was new and didn’t going how the job really was yet.

We were on Ben’s side completely. In every difficult job, there is a jaded cynic who has lost all will to do the job the right way, like Gandhi would or something. It’s the same thing with lawyers and even doctors sometimes. People lose hope that compassion and integrity actually make a difference. We think that’s wrong now. Ask us what we think after 20 years of working though.

Things escaladed between the two after they encountered an attempted rape. Ben chased the suspect back through the suspect’s neighborhood and we saw the suspect take out a gun. We were actually scared, because since Nate’s death, we’ve realized that anyone could die on this show and we wouldn’t hear about it first through either spoilers or hints. That’s the beauty of this show. The suspect was then HIT BY A BUS! On any other show, that would just be sensational, but on this one, it was really shocking.

A crowd gathered to look at the suspect, upset that the cops weren't helping him. Ben started trying to stop the bleeding. Ferguson thought this was ridiculous, and the suspect ended up dying anyway. Back at the station, Ferguson and Ben almost got into a fight when Ben gave Ferguson lip about doing the job right, because citizens don’t see people, they just see a uniform and attach one man’s bad behavior to all cops. True. 

As if this episode didn’t have enough going on, a random guy came to the police station and started shooting. (Might it have been someone in that crowd watching Ferguson’s behavior?) The guy shot Ferguson through the face and in the vest, just as Ferguson shot him. Poetically, it was Ben who sat over Ferguson, telling him he was going to be ok and checking his injuries. We like that Ferguson wasn’t a flat, villainous character, especially if we are going to continue to see him. He was very brave in charging the gunman at the police station.

The show made us wait the entire episode to see Jessica’s youtube video. It wasn’t funny like we thought it would be. At all. It showed a big guy beating the tar out of her. We are amazed that the other guys in the station would joke about this. This episode kept our attention and got us viscerally. Lydia’s plot didn’t really grab us and we disliked her attitude through it. Overall though, this was a good premiere.

Episode grade: A-

Southland Renewed

It's official. TNT renewed Southland for a fourth season! Yay.

Southland Season Three

We know we’re a little late on this, but let’s talk about the Southland finale. We didn’t watch it right away, because we wanted to have one more episode to watch before the break. Southland seasons are short, but sweet. Well, not sweet. Gritty and awful. In a good way. This review is going to be short, because there’s never much to say about this show except “it’s really good.”

The finale had John Cooper finally going to get the help he needs. Ben got him to that point, right before he graduated and got partnered with Sammy. Lydia and her partner’s son were busted, and Mommy is not happy. Sammy got his revenge….sort of. He didn’t shoot the gangster who killed Nate, but he was there to whisper Nate’s name in the guy’s ear as he was dying. Then Sammy had a baby. He named him, what else?, Nate. The hooker was hilarious. The acting was good in the finale. There was closure. There weren’t any cheap things like a cliffhanger. There might also be room for a new character. John Cooper needs another guy…or girl…to train.

Now is a great time to just jump into the fourth season when it airs. Let’s get this well-written, engrossing show the ratings it deserves. It's our favorite cop show ever. If you're not watching it, you're wrong. Southland is probably going to be renewed, and if it is not, we are going to scream and throw things.

Season three grade: A

Southland - The Winds recap/review

It was going to be rough following last week’s gut-wrencher and shocker, but Southland delivered yet another weekly punch in the stomach (and we mean that in a good way). We expected a big, sad funeral scene for Nate, but that’s not what we got. The funeral was mentioned and pictures of Nate were hung around the police station in some scenes, but the show went on with the struggles of other cops. This episode featured the Santa Ana winds. This is just windy weather that the cops find foreboding and that causes fires to spread quickly.

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-

Southland - Code 4 recap/review

Whoa. Holy Moly. Sadness. Amazingness. Wow.

Yesterday, Southland shocked us by killing a very main character in a pretty brutal fashion. It started with Sammy sitting in a hall (later revealed to be a hospital, but we had guessed that), looking depressed and then hearing a woman’s scream. You would think it would be Tammi having baby trouble, but it wasn’t. We were completely unprepared for the actual death. There weren’t any spoilers, the episode didn’t hint at it, the season didn’t hint at it, they didn’t do a whole cheesy episode focused on just that one character (like, say, LOST would have). Meredith Grey didn’t do a voiceover. It happened quickly and we actually didn’t believe it for a few minutes. It was just like when someone really dies (only it’s on TV, so we are a little less sad).

Even without the shocking twist, this episode was fantastic. Sammy moved in with Nate and his family to get away from the cheating Tammi and the restraining order. He lost his temper a lot in the episode. Lydia worked on a murder case, but when she found the killer, the guy claimed that he was working (and killing) for the dead guy’s 14-year-old nephew. Apparently, “Gizmo” is already a crime lord, and he still lives with his mom. In a great scene, Lydia knocked on the door and confronted Gizmo, telling him that the police were onto him, even though they couldn’t prove it yet. LOVE Lydia. Love the absence of her annoying partner.

Cooper thinks Ben is being careless because he thinks he has a handle on this cop thing now. Ben made tons of HILARIOUS mistakes in the episode, causing Cooper to haze him in front of other cops and make jokes. Ben told Cooper that it was getting old, and Cooper came back with something like, “You’re more dangerous now than when you first got out of the academy. Now you are more likely to get someone killed. In 90 days, you won’t have someone to watch your back and the guy who draws the short straw is going to be relying on you to stay alive.” Youch. The picture, by the way, is one of the consequences of a Ben mistake.

Nate and Sammy spent most of the episode trying to get a young, female witness to identify some suspects who murdered a dad on his way to buy his 5-year-old son a birthday cake. They did it for street cred, natch. Nate showed her the victim’s children and wife standing in the yard, told her a little about himself, and finally cracked her. Sammy and Nate were riding home in their car and chatting when someone in a big bunch of gangters threw something at their car. They got out of the car to handle that, and Nate Moretta got bashed in the head, and it looked like he was killed instantly. It took a long time for Sammy to drag Nate into a cop car, because he had to fend off the rest of the gangsters with his gun. Other cops showed up, and Sammy and Nate rode away. The episode cut back to the hospital scene, and Nate’s wife was screaming and crying. She walked out in the hallway and hugged Sammy, and they both just kind of crumbled to the ground. It was really, really sad.

It seemed like it was just going to be a normal episode. So, so wrong. It was totally entertaining, and every storyline and case was right-on and interesting. And then they topped it off with that ending, and they executed it so perfectly and surprised us so much. Southland is going to get the best grade so far of the new year. Sad though. Nate was one of the best characters on the show. He was a really good and funny guy. He will be missed.

Episode Grade: A+

Pure Laziness + Crazy Day = This

Southland recap:
http://www.afterelton.com/tv/recaps/southland/303

V recap:
http://www.ology.com/screen/v-recap-laid-bare

As for what we thought, Southland was good and V was better than last week, but still not good.

Southland: B, V: C

We will be back to writing our own tomorrow.

Southland - Punching Water recap/review

Yeah, yeah. We know it's Thursday. Well, better late than never.

Remember Chickie’s old partner, Dewey? Well, he’s out of rehab and in some 12-step program and back on the force. The bad news is that he’s more annoying than ever. It’s making Josie look like the best partner in the world. In the first scene, we saw the cops walking around at night at a crime scene, and Dewey was talking about how it was a blessing that a poor kid from a bad area was shot. Lydia screeched something like, “That was someone’s CHILD” and pushed/hit his face with her hand. Oh, snap. Yeah, this guy is still a jerk. And Lydia is still passionate. According to the voiceover, passion is part of being a good cop. The episode cut to the past.

Ben was still dating that redhead, Sally. Chickie informed him that Sally had a thing for cops and that Sally had even asked Chickie to join her in a cop threesome. Poor Ben is just being used, but he and Sally are still on.

Dewey got partnered with Cooper and Chickie was partnered with Ben. Cooper was annoyed. We would be too. Lydia and Josie investigated a murder-suicide. Lydia sympathized with the daughter of the dead couple, but Josie seemed happy-go-lucky and concerned with shopping. During this episode, we found out that Josie had been shot in the wrist and married twice, all three experiences deemed “overrated” by Josie.

Cooper and Dewey pulled over a van with 11 people in it. The van was only supposed to hold seven people. It was a Mariachi band late for a restaurant opening. Dewey was actually cool with them, making friends and offering to give some of the members a ride to their gig. Cooper was still annoyed. Then the two were called to come to a hotel to attend to a guy who was tied to the hotel bed. His wife and his two girlfriends had held a gun to him, tied him to a bed, wrote curse words on his stomach, and superglued his penis. Niiiice. That’s a serious tort there, but worth it.

Sammy and Nate investigated the shooting of a guy named “Frosty,” and a witness kept telling Sammy that “Nobody shot Frosty.” Nobody turned out to be the name of an actual person (or at least his street name). Nate found out that Frosty’s cousin was having sex with Nobody, and this started a gang war. The cops were called to another scene, and it turned out that Nobody had been shot. The gang war led to a shooting of a four-year-old. Lydia and Josie were called in to help with this case too. Then just about everybody joined in. The guy who shot the four-year-old did it from the safety of a dark Chevy suburban, with an AK-47. Then we saw the origins of the opening scene. After Lydia and Dewey were pulled apart, Dewey got back in the car with Cooper and ranted about how much he wanted to beat Josie and Lydia, even though they are women. While stopping for coffee with Chickie and Ben, Cooper grabbed Ben and took off, leaving Chickie with Dewey. Someone gave up the name of the guy who owned the AK-47 and the killer was caught in a pretty satisfying/funny scene. We’re foggy on the details of this case (hey, give us a break. We don’t recap as we watch or re-watch anything. We just remember what we remember), but it was entertaining, if a little sad.

The episode ended with Sammy coming home to find Victor, the guy teaching Tammy photography, at his house. Victor informed Sammy that he is in love with Tammy and that everyone needs to be an adult for the baby’s sake. Sammy turned around and saw Tammy. Tammy apologized.

This was a good episode of a good show. Lots happened, and it moved faster than a lot of episodes of this show. It would be a good one for people to start out on, if they haven't ever seen the show. So roll on over to amazon video on demand, pony up two bucks, watch this, and then start watching the show on Tuesday nights on TNT. If you like cop shows, that is.

Episode grade: A-

Southland - Let it Snow recap/review

Yay! Southland is back. It really is a good show. Southland is one of those shows that you have to sit down and watch. You won't get into it if you are surfing the web at the same time or if you just have it on in the background. It is a procedural, but there is a lot of character development. You can jump right into the story, but don’t expect the show to just repeat the same ground like most procedurals.

In the season three premiere, Lydia is still dealing with her new partner, Josie. We think Josie is pretty annoying, and we wish she’d get shot or something and go away. Lydia and Josie investigated a missing person’s case and found the missing woman’s body inside the bathroom ceiling of the office building where she had worked. She had been duct taped and strangled. Yikes. Evidence pointed to the building’s security guard, but all of the victim’s friends were immigrants and didn’t want to talk to the cops (the victim was a cleaning lady, by the way). Lydia and Josie turned to DNA evidence, but before they could get the arrest warrant, the suspect fled to the airport. The two cops followed the suspect’s car and Josie spun the cop car out to get the suspect. Lydia caught the baddie and the DNA came through, but Lydia was angry with Josie for her crazy actions. We kind of like Josie’s recklessness, but her personality is irritating, so we are on Lydia’s side for this one.

Sammy and Nate investigated the deaths of two gang members whose bodies were found under a highway with bullets in their heads. A homeless man let the cops know what type of car the victims were dropped out of. The victims had been investigated for a gang rape, but they got off, because the victim had been drinking. The victim was a gang leader’s daughter, and the gang leader had just the kind of car that had dropped off the victim’s bodies. Even though Nate felt bad for the guy who was just sticking up for his daughter, when blood was found in the trunk, the gang leader was arrested. We felt for the gang leader too.

Chickie, Chickie’s partner, John, and Ben’s job this week was to go to the scene of a bank robbery and help out Sarge, who had been shot. They rescued Sarge, and Ben chased after one of the robbers. The robber shot himself in the head rather than let Ben catch him. In this episode, John was still suffering from back pain and was having trouble getting pills. Ben had to help him to his car at one point. Ben asked John to get help, but John wants to keep handling this solo. Ben, we’ve got this show we think you should watch. It’s called Intervention. “Millions of Americans suffer from addiction. Most need help to stop.”

This was an action-packed, classic Southland episode. It was also decently bloody (the bank robber shooting himself in the head was on-camera). We just wish we weren’t so annoyed with the new character, Josie. That needs to pan out or get less aggravating. Good premiere.

Episode grade: B+