S02.E02: The Night General

[WendyCR72]

To air on October 6, 2019:

Nolan teams up with new night detective Pablo Armstrong for a murder investigation case that results in an unexpected reunion with a former love interest. Officer Bradford reluctantly accepts help from Officer Chen as he prepares for his sergeant exam, and Officer West pursues an unconventional move after finding himself in need of a new home.

[break21]

This was way too blah to be a second episode.   The new Detective had no chemistry with Nathan and seemed just thrown in there.  I will give them this, they had to replace someone really fast but IMO, the Detective just didn't work.     The cop with the crewcut got way too much screen-time for nothing at the end.  I really liked the premiere.   I think this episode caught up to them.    See what happens next week.   I didn't like this episode but I think the BTS drama got the best of them..

[mxc90]

Armstrong shouldn't give patrol too much credit.  Soon they will complain why they aren't paid the same as detectives.

Last season, West's fear was an issue. This season it's a passing joke. 

So will there be a new partner of the week for Nolan? I liked Nolan working with Armstrong. He received a lot of valuable advice and they built some chemistry. 

In broad daylight, no one noticed the broken minivan glass, the blood, and the altercation?

Nico couldn't hear the phone echo all the way from "Florida"? For all of Bradford's teaching Chen of how to be aware in the field, they totally dropped their guard on Nico's apprehension. 

I hope Nolan isn't going to carry the dad's death with him. He seems to be taking these things hard lately.

Grey couldn't give West a week to find a new place? 

I hope they are not going to get Chen and Bradford together. It was nice of her to point out the way he learns and made the recording for him.

[rhys]

Pablo?? I thought his name was Nick. Anyway, I kept thinking he was going to be a dirty detective the way he was acting(or the way the script was written). Weird episode. 

Also cops living on site? Nope. That was done last year (?) when it was a bunch of pilots & it was funny (noisy--in the flight path).

[AnimeMania]

I liked this episode, they kept things busy so you didn't have to think, just watch.

[TWP]

I thought the season opener was great, but the silliness of last season is back this week unfortunately.  I rolled my eyes frequently, for starters at the rookie working freely with a detective? --  Wouldn't SARGE have an issue with that? -- but so many other times. Still, it was an entertaining hour if I check reality at the door.

Nathan Fillion is never better than when he plays a character in love.  His charisma sucks you in, which is much of why he was so good as Castle.  But please don't turn him into the  guy who falls in love with a different woman every other week.

I'm still in because I need pure escapism in my life.

Edited October 7, 2019 by TWP

[WendyCR72]

Yeah. I forgot the show was on last week. Then I forgot again this week. I think the universe is trying to tell me something. I wasn't that into it in S1 as it was (a lot blander than I thought it was going to be!), so...it is what it is.

[Sweet Tooth]

5 hours ago, mxc90 said:

I hope they are not going to get Chen and Bradford together.

Spoiler alert: That's totally happening, so gear yourself up for it.

I liked the chemistry between John and night guy. I felt the had instant chemistry. But maybe it's because the actor built up goodwill for me already from other roles.

Though it was unrealistic for John to work the case, I liked that they didn't make him a bumbling idiot. They did that so much on Castle, where everyone was his parent, so watching him be competent is refreshing.

I also like that they're keeping with him getting emotional when things happen but that he's not letting it affect his work. I like that Nick focused John and made his choices clear. 

[suebee12]

Big question! Would anyone have survived in the concrete? He was already in the concrete when the police arrived, then they talked to the father, then they figured out where the guy was, and finally they pulled  him out. Is it conceivable the man could be brought back and especially since they gave minimum CPR? 

[mxc90]

3 hours ago, Sweet Tooth said:

Spoiler alert: That's totally happening, so gear yourself up for it.

Ugh! Please tell me Talia will make a special appearance to remind her this is no good. 

At least Chen has a resource in Isabel to call for any info on him.

[Raja]

6 hours ago, TWP said:

I thought the season opener was great, but the silliness of last season is back this week unfortunately.  I rolled my eyes frequently, for starters at the rookie working freely with a detective? --  Wouldn't SARGE have an issue with that? -- but so many other times. Still, it was an entertaining hour if I check reality at the door.

I think that Sergeant Grey has gotten over his fear that Officer Nolan will just up and quit and he was the highest scoring Boot on the Chief's exam. He has switched from the Hollywood special forces Drill Sergeant Louis Gossett trying to get his recruits to drop on request to the real Drill Sergeant role of getting everybody through training. So while waiting for a new permanent training partner for the second half of the probationary year Nolan has to go somewhere.

A new detective and night supervisor needing an orientation to the divisional area is a place to stash Nolan for a shift as he waits for a permanent replacement for Agent Bishop to get a trusted trainer and not another partner that might retard Nolan's further development like the retired on active duty sub in the first season

[Netfoot]

9 hours ago, mxc90 said:

I hope Nolan isn't going to carry the dad's death with him. He seems to be taking these things hard lately.

He could have shot the guy in the foot to prevent him hanging himself... but then he'd have been crucified in court, because no good deed goes unpunished.

[Waterston Fan]

Meh... somehow I forgot to make sure this show was recorded and it wasn't. I admit, I'm not really into this show much anymore. I'll just watch it online. 

[preeya]

1 hour ago, suebee12 said:

Big question! Would anyone have survived in the concrete? He was already in the concrete when the police arrived, then they talked to the father, then they figured out where the guy was, and finally they pulled  him out. Is it conceivable the man could be brought back and especially since they gave minimum CPR? 

↑ THIS ↑   One of the most ridiculous scenes I've ever watched. The guy likely would have been dead in just water; but concrete????? Give me a break!

The scene ran for approximately two minutes before they got the guy out of the cement and started CPR and he was already in the stuff before Nolan & Armstrong arrived. Also, doesn't the victim need to be in prone position to do CPR properly?

Edited October 7, 2019 by preeya

[shapeshifter]

Parents, if you name your kid Bruno Winch hoping he will become an action movie star, he is just as likely to become a drug dealer.
  

A lot of poorly edited writing in this episode, IMO.
Would they have rewritten it last minute because of the cast change and not have had time to properly rewrite?
It just seemed like the plots were too deep to be cut to a few minutes without giving the viewers whiplash.

For example: The note Nolan left on Ali Larter's character's door 20 years ago? IRL, as part of the elevator apology,* there would have been some exchange about why he didn't feel like he could put the pregnancy info in the note, and she'd say she understood, blah blah -- all of which would have bored or annoyed the audience, so instead we're left with dialogue that doesn't quite work; so the writers should've maybe come up with an entirely different back story -- which would require more time on the script.

A lot of the plots were like that in this episode.

Anyway, about Nolan leaving a note on the door of someone he'd been knocking boots with for a few weeks when his ex showed up: Hey, at least he left a note. That's more than the scoundrels did in my very distant past.

____________________________

* Heh. "Elevator apology." A term which I may have just invented, but likely it's been written before, but is just a variation on the "elevator pitch," a short version of an idea that one person tells another person in the length of time that it takes for an elevator ride to finish.
Anyway, this episode was chock full of elevator-ride-length apologies, Elevator Relationship Explanations, Elevator Character-backstories, etc.

Edited October 7, 2019 by shapeshifter

[sempervivum]

11 hours ago, rhys said:

Also cops living on site? Nope. That was done last year (?) when it was a bunch of pilots & it was funny (noisy--in the flight path).

Are you thinking of the episode of The Closer, 'Layover' from 2010? Although it wouldn't surprise me if the same plot point was used elsewhere.

[rhys]

2 hours ago, sempervivum said:

Are you thinking of the episode of The Closer, 'Layover' from 2010? Although it wouldn't surprise me if the same plot point was used elsewhere.

No, it was a comedy about a flight from LA (?) to Vegas each weekend. The main pilot lived in an RV at the airport (I think -- my memory is crap).

[preeya]

9 minutes ago, rhys said:

No, it was a comedy about a flight from LA (?) to Vegas each weekend. The main pilot lived in an RV at the airport (I think -- my memory is crap).

The show was LA to Vegas starring Dylan McDermott as Captain Dave. The episode was "Parking Lot B"

Here's a clip: 

[rhys]

Thanks! I actually liked that quirky show & thought of it immediately when West visited the other cop.

[Snapdragon]

Glad to see I'm not the only one who thought of L.A. to Vegas with the whole parking lot trailer park.  I freakin' loved that show and was sad when it was cancelled.

I liked this episode.  Yes, half the things that happen on it are unrealistic/kind of silly but it's fast paced and the characters are enjoyable to watch.

[TWP]

8 hours ago, suebee12 said:

Big question! Would anyone have survived in the concrete? He was already in the concrete when the police arrived, then they talked to the father, then they figured out where the guy was, and finally they pulled  him out. Is it conceivable the man could be brought back and especially since they gave minimum CPR? 

No.  But people mythically survive long water drownings on TV too. And in case you didn't know, the idea of CPR survival is very much a TV myth itself.  In real life, yes, paramedics can make the patient breathe again, but typically, they remain in a coma while their brain swells from the anoxic brain damage incurred from the cardiac arrest and they die.  And the few people who do survive CPR rarely live normal lives, but often instead have severe neurological impairment.  Yes, some people do make it fine, but it's rare, and frequently the survivors are children who for some reason can go longer without oxygen than adults can..... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-cpr-expectations/cpr-survival-rates-are-lower-than-most-people-think-idUSKCN1G72SW.

Thus, everything surrounding CPR, drowning, etc. is all mythical.  Why not extend the myth to concrete?  ::checking reality at the door ::

[Clanstarling]

9 hours ago, suebee12 said:

Big question! Would anyone have survived in the concrete? He was already in the concrete when the police arrived, then they talked to the father, then they figured out where the guy was, and finally they pulled  him out. Is it conceivable the man could be brought back and especially since they gave minimum CPR? 

When he spat out some concrete I wondered, how much is is left in his lungs, and would it harden in a moist environment. I went down that path for a while. I also thought - huh, I think they would have removed their guns before diving into concrete. But, as an old friend used to say "eez fantasy show."

It wasn't the most riveting episode, but I liked it. I like Perrineau, though I wasn't sure about his character. There were times I thought he was cool - and times I thought he was too cool to be a good guy, if you get what I mean.

I like the nod to different types of learning - it doesn't have to be a disability for people to learn better with different techniques. We all have ways that work best for us. Though recording the book in what could only have been a few hours seems a bit much *shrug*

[auntlada]

I thought the detective was going to screw over the patrol cops somehow after all the talk about how they do the real work. Is Harold Perrineau staying on the show, or was this a one-time guest spot? Maybe it will build up to something, either Nolan getting to detective really fast or the detective doing shady stuff.

[shapeshifter]

2 hours ago, auntlada said:

Is Harold Perrineau staying on the show, or was this a one-time guest spot? Maybe it will build up to something, either Nolan getting to detective really fast

This^ seemed to be what they were telegraphing. 

[AnimeMania]

9 hours ago, Clanstarling said:

Though recording the book in what could only have been a few hours seems a bit much *shrug*

I thought Lucy was enjoying/learning just as much as Tim when reading the book.

[shapeshifter]

26 minutes ago, AnimeMania said:

9 hours ago, Clanstarling said:

Though recording the book in what could only have been a few hours seems a bit much *shrug*

I thought Lucy was enjoying/learning just as much as Tim when reading the book

Yes, but most books take about 10 hours to read aloud/ listen to. 

[Clanstarling]

6 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

6 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

15 hours ago, Clanstarling said:

Though recording the book in what could only have been a few hours seems a bit much *shrug*

I thought Lucy was enjoying/learning just as much as Tim when reading the book

Yes, but most books take about 10 hours to read aloud/ listen to. 

Which was my point - but I'll can see that I didn't write it clearly.

[AnimeMania]

8 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Yes, but most books take about 10 hours to read aloud/ listen to. 

Maybe she just recorded the part that they didn't finish since they were already reading together through their "10 hour shift?".

[Orbert]

I was amazed that Bradford didn't go ballistic when Lucy said she'd talked to Isabella about his possible learning disability.  He's obviously very protective of her, and any breach of protocol, or any perceived breach, or basically anything at all, seems to set him off.  He didn't even blink.  Lucy talking to his (ex-? estranged?) wife "behind his back" I thought would set him off for sure.

What Bradford has going for him is that he's usually right and he is imparting some good advice and I guess he's overall an effective training officer.  But there are many approaches to training, and his harsh, very demanding style just makes him come across as an asshole a lot of the time.

Armstrong seemed very good at his job and a good guy, almost too good to be true.  I kept expecting some kind of issue to come up.  When he started teasing Nolan about Grace, how she's married but that's really a good thing and started giving reasons why, I figured we finally got it; he's about 100 years behind the times on male-female relationships and dynamics.  But then that turned out to be a "test" (as far as we know) which Nolan passed.

Maybe I'm too cynical.  I actually like it when there are truly good characters on TV shows.  Such people really exist; not everybody has some horrible side to them or some dark secret.  It's just so rare these days that I don't expect it.

[Madding crowd]

Being more of an auditory learner does not mean you have a learning disability. People have different ways in which they do their best learning. Also it would take a long time to put an entire book on audio tape. I like Tim better when he isn’t being such a jerk. 

[shapeshifter]

5 hours ago, Madding crowd said:

Being more of an auditory learner does not mean you have a learning disability.

That bugged me, but I think it’s just another example of mediocre writing in this show. 

[Dbolt]

On a shallower note: am I the only one that just doesn’t care for Ali Larter?  

[BlakesMomma]

9 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

That bugged me, but I think it’s just another example of mediocre writing in this show. 

[Whimsy]

3 hours ago, Dbolt said:

On a shallower note: am I the only one that just doesn’t care for Ali Larter?  

Nope.  I can't stand her. 

[mojito]

Quote

Still, it was an entertaining hour if I check reality at the door.

I give this show and 9-1-1 a pass on reality (though I still will pick things apart) because they're otherwise entertaining shows with engaging characters.

Quote

Is Harold Perrineau staying on the show, or was this a one-time guest spot? Maybe it will build up to something, either Nolan getting to detective really fast

Quote

This^ seemed to be what they were telegraphing. 

I thought what they were telegraphing was that Armstrong had moved to detective quickly and he himself wondered if it happened too fast. This made me wonder if he was going to return to patrol.

I hope Armstrong ends up being Nolan's partner. I found their exchange of thoughts somewhat compelling and liked that for once, Nolan can speak freely and his cop-intelligence is appreciated. 

[Brian Cronin]

I'm no big Ali Larter fan, but I'm shocked that they actually found a relatively age appropriate former college girlfriend for Nolan. Yes, Fillion is five years older than Larter, but fuck, this is Hollywood, actually casting a 43-year-old actress to play a 44/45-year-old is a huge win in and of itself!

[bros402]

On 10/9/2019 at 7:00 PM, Madding crowd said:

Being more of an auditory learner does not mean you have a learning disability. People have different ways in which they do their best learning. Also it would take a long time to put an entire book on audio tape. I like Tim better when he isn’t being such a jerk. 

yuup, having a different learning style is not a learning disability. I was expecting them to go "oh yeah he's dyslexic" but nope, just that he's an auditory-kinesthetic learner, which is not a LD

[kaygeeret]

I don't know about this series any more.

I thought for sure at the end of last season that this would remain must see tv.

Frankly now I am not so sure.  I don't know quite what it has lost for me, but I am pretty balse about the entire thing right now.

Maybe I'll watch if no other choices are available.

[TAG42481]

Walt!  WALT!!!

Harold Perrineau did that scene so vigorously I literally cannot see the guy on the screen for ANYTHING without that going through my head.  A little outputting at this point, actually.  Although he did okay here.

[SnarkySheep]

On 10/6/2019 at 11:18 PM, rhys said:

I kept thinking he was going to be a dirty detective the way he was acting(or the way the script was written). Weird episode. 

Same! Unless they wait a few episodes to divulge something hinky about the guy...

[ctlady]

On ‎10‎/‎8‎/‎2019 at 12:39 AM, shapeshifter said:

On ‎10‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 10:34 PM, auntlada said:

Is Harold Perrineau staying on the show, or was this a one-time guest spot? Maybe it will build up to something, either Nolan getting to detective really fast

This^ seemed to be what they were telegraphing

But......then he'll no longer be 'The Rookie', which is the base premise of this show.  Even if he remained a cop, after several seasons the title of the show will be irrelevant as all 3 of them will no longer be rookies.

Unless, Nolan does leapfrog to detective where he'll start as a 'rookie' all over again?

[Black Knight]

It wouldn't be the first show to move beyond the title and initial base premise - see Jane the Virgin, The Good Wife, Ugly Betty...

[Raja]

1 hour ago, ctlady said:

But......then he'll no longer be 'The Rookie', which is the base premise of this show.  Even if he remained a cop, after several seasons the title of the show will be irrelevant as all 3 of them will no longer be rookies.

Unless, Nolan does leapfrog to detective where he'll start as a 'rookie' all over again?

1 hour ago, Black Knight said:

It wouldn't be the first show to move beyond the title and initial base premise - see Jane the Virgin, The Good Wife, Ugly Betty...

The Rookies 

[Clanstarling]

2 hours ago, Raja said:

The Rookies 

Blast from the past. That was around the same time as shows about young doctors, young lawyers, and young US revolutionaries, wasn't it?

Edited October 17, 2019 by Clanstarling

[Raja]

7 minutes ago, Clanstarling said:

Blast from the past. That was around the same time as shows about young doctors and young revolutionaries (US), wasn't it?

That I don't know but the original S.W.A.T came from the Metropolitan police department. Before the married rookie's wife became a Charlie's Angel. And that Triumph sports car two of the roomate/patrol partners "rookies " drove off duty was one of my dream cars. I wish that they were still around when I started driving 

Young Revolutionaries, maybe the undercover rookies of the Mod Squad, may have been just before

Edited October 17, 2019 by Raja

[ctlady]

2 hours ago, Raja said:

The Rookies 

Yes - I did think of that show prior to originally commenting on it.  Maybe this show will show Nolan's gradual ascend from rookie, to veteran cop to detective....maybe sergeant.  Them's a lot of seasons!

And speaking of The Rookies - who else had a mad huge crush on Michael Ontkean??

[The Ringo Kidd]

39 minutes ago, Raja said:

Young Revolutionaries, maybe the undercover rookies of the Mod Squad, may have been just before

I remember that show about Young Revolutionaries. 
 

It as called the Mao Squad.

[Clanstarling]

3 hours ago, ctlady said:

And speaking of The Rookies - who else had a mad huge crush on Michael Ontkean??

Raises hand.

[WendyCR72]

I swear I created such a thread when I requested the forum, but as I did not find one on my search, there is now an official Small Talk thread! So please take all further off topic chatter of the '70s series, The Rookies, and such chatter there and talk about it as much as you'd like!

Please keep on topic in terms of the episode in the episode thread. Thanks and carry on!

[ctlady]

On ‎10‎/‎10‎/‎2019 at 8:29 AM, Dbolt said:

On a shallower note: am I the only one that just doesn’t care for Ali Larter?

Nope - not the only one.  I don't know how to say this without sounding mean or shallow, but something about her mouth bugs me.  The only role I liked her in was in Legally Blonde,  I can't help but associate her with Heroes now