Mars477

Remember when there were main cast members who weren't on the Intelligence unit and were part of a different story? I remember. Hell, I miss Chicago Code. At least those people acted like real cops more or less.

Can Quinn just walk off her post to moonlight with 5-0? Did she just fake an illness or something? And she's an enlisted soldier, not an officer, so why did the soldier she pulled over call her sir? Just show her getting off of duty instead of in the middle of it and problem solved. First alerting on explosives and then acting as a pro search and rescue dog? And then he changes hats to be a tracking dog. Eddie is quite the Renaissance Pup. The writers know that these are two separate jobs for dogs and require entirely different training sets, right? Still, he's a very good boy. I hope the dog(s) who portrayed him got lots of pets, since wearing all that gear was probably pretty tough. Quinn and Danny's snark was pretty great, actually. Steve telling the S&R crew to "work faster" and then grabbing a shovel when caution is the primary concern is Very Helpful. The final shootout wasn't very interesting. Guess they're saving their budget or good action directors for later in the season.

I know they have to get Junior and Tani in the tunnel somehow but their decision to go into the unstable tunnel with nothing but the clothes on their back and no lines of communication to first responders was just the dumbest thing ever. They weren't providing anything to those caught in the tunnel collapse besides moral support. Just put them further along in the traffic so they're in the tunnel and blocked in by vehicles behind them and problem solved.

They take care to show the guy’s gold tooth so it’s pretty clear that it’s Grey’s partner in crime and not the rich guy (who looks nothing like him).

Welp. Ansel's name is Ansel. It's pronounced like it's spelled. Seems like it was intended to fake the audience (and Dex) out because I was expecting her to be an ex-girlfriend or something.

I don’t think people typically kill themselves under freeways. Anyways it’s not explicitly stated, but given that his last words were that he was fleeing a dangerous criminal with his portion of the million bucks stolen from said criminal and then he ends up dead the implication is clear.

In big cities, there’s way too much going on for the boss to know every little thing happening in every department, especially short term undercover operations. Anyways there have been occasions in where one band of undercover cops have attempted to arrest another band of undercover cops.

Why would SWAT abandon a planned raid on a high threat individual to serve as first responders to an emergent incident in a completely different place? Especially when they have reason to believe their presence has been compromised, tipping off the target of their raid and allowing him to potentially escape. One of the things about the SRU in Flashpoint was that they were the cavalry, not the first responders. There were always patrol cops around to establish a cordon and detectives to interview witnesses. Not sure why they’d bring in a Hollywood Division Lieutenant to advise a SWAT team on tactical matters. If Farrington were another senior Metro Division cop that would be another matter, but SWAT team leaders specialize in dynamic tactical situations rather than having a job description similar to that of a detective. Again, the SRU doubled as a hostage negotiation unit and so could be expected to investigate subjects and interview witnesses, but SWAT is purely tactical. That scene where Molly Hicks is talking to Street about her problems at the beginning had some very bad acting on her part. Apparently the actress is more of a model, which kinda shows. This is a very dumb show. Now I just want to watch the early seasons of Flashpoint again.

I feel like we need more stakes. Turns out there's a Russian mob connection behind the SAT coach character, to supply the necessary bodies for a shootout. TV audiences love shootouts. And the main characters need to have their Thoughts Heard about this case that's ripped from the headlines with a long winded moralizing speech. (Who am I kidding, I'm a sucker for a good old shootout as well.)

Watching this show is kinda weird knowing that the real life Navy SEALs are the hot mess, unprofessional prima donnas of the US special operations world, committing war crimes, murdering other US special forces, sexually assaulting female personnel, and all that jazz. Not to mention constantly writing books about their service. I guess a Delta Force show wouldn't work (again, RIP The Unit and kinda sorta The Brave) since those guys are the quiet professionals of USSOCOM.

That's why the A plot was so good, though. How many procedurals allow that much ambiguity into their case of the week? Is this a happily ever after or is Katrina just going to milk Allen for all he's worth and disappear into the wind? That we don't have a concrete answer is a good thing IMO.

This show really doesn't hold a candle to Flashpoint, even in that show's later seasons where it was the most Hollywood. Season 1 Flashpoint was so, good, though. SWAT on the other hand has all the verisimilitude of a Michael Bay movie.

Man the changes to Grey are so good. Cut out the UST by having it been resolved in the far past. Introduce his ex-con past with its own plot arc that will need to be tackled down the road. Grey in the comics was a sad sap hopelessly in love with Dex who she consciously strings along for favors and Ansel-care. This dynamic where Dex and Grey hooked up back when they first met, but then made the conscious decision to roll back into a friendship because Dex is shit at relationships is so much better, especially since it doesn’t make her an asshole if she doesn’t notice that Grey might be blurring the line into romantic attraction on his end. I also really like that this is the kind of cop/crime procedural that allows for some degree of ambiguity instead of an unambiguous happy ending. Is Katrina really in love or is she still conning her mark? That coin is still up in the air.

The writers would have to shoehorn some kind of violent crime, because it’s not an episode of a cop procedural if guns aren’t being drawn. It’s super illegal if you’re dumb about it. If your parents donate a ton of money to the university you can get put in the “dean’s interest” list and get a second and third look even if there are more qualified applicants. If your parents pay money to fraudulently inflate your experiences and test scores than they can go to prison for a few weeks because they are white and wealthy.

I don’t mind the bad stunts when they’re something out of a Masters book, but the fact that they also happen in the real life of the show suggests the writers aren’t that self aware. I dunno, I feel like it was clear from the getgo that Higgins and Magnum were being set up for a will they or won’t they romantic arc. I don’t understand why they’re having Higgins drag out becoming Magnum’s PI partner for so long when she clearly enjoys the work and jumps to participate in it at the first chance she gets. Save the tedious back and forth for the romantic “will they/won’t they”, not the professional one.

Insane far right conspiracy theory. Remember that thing about Hillary Clinton and other Democrats running a child sex trafficking ring out of the nonexistent basement of a DC pizzeria, that resulted in a nut job taking an AR15 there to “rescue the children”? That was QAnon. These days it’s all about the “deep state” and how Donald Trump’s enemies will all be rounded up any day now. I’m sure the writers didn’t intentionally make an allusion to QAnon, but still it’s not a great look.

What’s really telling is you considering Voight to be an archetypal cop. Objectively speaking he’s the worst of the bad apples who spoils good cops he is placed in command of. But to a certain brand of cops he’s just one of the boys.

Ah yes, "cop hating" and "law enforcement restricting", because what is really needed is more Chicago Police Department torture chambers and black sites and boo hoo, the poor cops can't indiscriminately shoot unarmed civilians without scrutiny any more. Chicago PD has always been a paleoconservative's fantasy land. In the real world, which is by no means just, a cop like Voight was fired and saw some kind of jail time related to his crimes (just not the torture, because apparently there's a statute of limitations on beating confessions out of innocent, predominately black men). But in Dick Wolf's twisted mind Voight survives because he's less bad than those who would bring him down.

I may be explaining the joke but I'm pretty sure they meant she was overqualified compared to the lady who was kind of a cop or the quasi-retired Yakuza gangster. It's a pretty common Chinese family name. And if they're calling each other by last names Grover would be Grover. And "Liu" and "Lou" don't sound that alike at all. One is pronounced "Leeuw" and the other "Luu" after all.

It’s kind of weird projecting your own experiences and making blanket statements about what is “believable” for similar people in media to do. I don’t know many middle aged East Asian people who drink lots of alcohol, but that doesn’t mean I’d nitpick one in fiction who is a party animal or whatever. Sue-Lynn was knitting in that scene because she was knitting in the corresponding scene in the comics. As for Ansel, the pilot showed however briefly that he does have a personality of his own. It’s too early to write him off as a “prop”.

Voight is a corrupt cop who tortures confessions out of suspects. This is a fact. What’s unrealistic about this show is that the suspects in question are actually guilty. Those tortured by Voight’s real life counterpart, Chicago Police Lieutenant Jon Burge, were not. And in this fantasy universe where the crooked cop thugs are the good guys everyone who could threaten the corrupt thug hero is even more corrupt. Really, Halstead would be saving the city a hundred million dollars in restitution if he put a bullet in Voight’s head and everyone looked the other way.

Given that the boyfriend was in cahoots with the thugs it’s pretty clear that they weren’t following her to the motel room. Not to mention when you’re told to expect a runaway teen kidnappers are a pretty outside context problem.

Given that she was military intelligence it could have been work related.

As for the violence, if the comics are any indication Dex should solve most of her problems with her mind rather than her fists (although there are only three comic arcs and this is network TV). She’s not really the type to go all John Wick on baddies, no matter how much I’d like to see Cobie Smulders mow through a pack of bad guys like a scythe through wheat. At least, not unless you really piss her off. Speaking of which, I wonder if the show is going to get into the football culture of the city because that’s a huge part of the third comic arc as well as Ansel’s interests.

Most of what I remember about Longmire is the impending dread that I felt after I went “hey this show is pretty good, maybe I’ll check out the books” and realized that this was one of those wish fulfillment power fantasies where the fat 60 year old male protagonist hooks up with a woman half his age. I do vaguely recall that it was one of the few shows that portrayed Native Americans not as a vaguely sinister and amorphous group involved in organized crime/at odds with the white protagonists, though.