S07.E01: Something In The Air (1)

[thewhiteowl]

As New Orleans grapples with the effects of COVID-19, Pride sends Tammy and Carter to investigate a suspicious death aboard a humanitarian ship offshore, where they learn that some crew members are infected with the deadly disease. Also, Wade is overwhelmed by the high volume in the morgue due to COVID-19.

[immortalfrieza]

Really? A COVID show? Seriously? I'm hoping this was written and taped way back when the pandemic started, when everybody thought it was going to last like 2 months and nobody took it seriously. By now everybody and his mother already knows all the warning and crap they were trying to preach here and anyone that isn't already heeding that doesn't care anyway.

I thought fiction was supposed to be about escaping from reality.

Edited November 9, 2020 by immortalfrieza

[Raja]

Like when Third Watch, being about FDNY and NYPD decided to go with 9/11 and that season may have been the most depressing before the soft reboot as The Shield lite for broadcast NBC standards. They are now set with New Orleans in the here and now,  with however much relaxing of social distancing is going on in New Orleans. I didn't watch much of last season but as the first out of the box in a COVID era production I think they did better than their Los Angeles big brother show.

[HurricaneVal]

I kind of like that NCIS: New Orleans is taking this COVID-19 situation head-on.  Maybe a leeetle bit too head on, it was like the Covid hit parade:  Bodies piling up in the morgue?  Check.  Plague ship in quarantine?  Check.  First responders re-using and re-using PPE?  Check.  Overworked medical personnel?  Check.  Empty streets?  Check.  Closed restaurants, bars, businesses?  Check.  Death of first responder?  Check.  Restaurant, bar, and retail workers out of jobs?  Check.  Dire European situation?  Check.  NCIS guard pacing the door wearin ghis mask?  Check.  Stranded American?  Check.  But it all makes sense, New Orleans is a tourist town.  They make their money from travelers, and this virus has hit tourist economies hard. 

It is something that is happening, we all are dealing with it.  Might as well address it rather than ignore it.  However...I think they could have backed off the intensity of "All COVID, all the time!" in this episode but maybe they're trying to get it all out of the way in the season premiere.  Hopefully once the regular episodes start airing they will have backed off so that the handling of Covid will be in the background and just something that is there, but not featured.

I was amused by the interactions between Patton, his goddaughter, and Pride.  I don't mind that she's sassy, so long as it doesn't become a tiresome, repetitive schtick.  Frustration with having wings clipped due to Covid is a real issue with adolescents, and that ticks another box.  If she gets kidnapped in a later episode, though, imma taking all this back.  But you know that's going to happen....

[12catcrazy]

I liked the episode and the COVID-ness of it didn't bother me.  So much of the US is now going through what NY (where I live) went through in the Spring and so many people just seem as they are digging in their heels about wearing masks, social distancing, et all that maybe seeing it in a TV show that appeals to many people (especially older people) will uh, hammer it home.  

LOVE Pride's brother (that man could put his shoes under my bed any time, even though I'm old enough to be his mother).  And I hate Gregorio's bangs - they don't flatter her, make her look older, and she needs to ditch them.   She still looks like an unmade bed all the time, which is now nicely contrasted with the new guy who always looks as if he stepped out of a bandbox.  

[HurricaneVal]

I also like how Pride's brother is still kind of feeling out his place in Pride's life and business.  Crises such as pandemics and natural disasters can make us all second-guess our place and valuation in the world, especially if we have any sort of cause to question it.  Jimmy seemed all trepidatious about using the bar and the bar's resources to help the community of unemployed bar and restaurant workers, even though anyone who knows Pride knows that he would be allllll over that in a hot second.  But....crises bring about changes in people and relationships, so Jimmy was right to be cautious, even though he and Pride had fixed up boxes for their employees earlier in the episode.  I thought it was a nice psychological nod to how you can't take anything for granted when it comes to people's opinions and instinctive protectiveness these days.

I would like to see a throwaway line in the second part of this two-parter about toilet paper, and how Pride is having to bring TP in from the bar to supply the NCIS headquarters, which due to a logistics snafu didn't get the any toilet paper in the last supply order back in January.  They've hit all the other COVID checkboxes, so they can't miss the most obvious and talked about one!

[secnarf]

If they were going to include COVID in their show's world, they needed to do it properly. As if they wouldn't all be in masks 100% of the time at the office. And the two on the potentially COVID-infested ship would have been given N95s.

Which brings me to my biggest pet peeve - idiots wasting N95 masks by wearing ones that don't fit them properly. N95 masks aren't one size fits all, which is how they treated it in this episode. Certainly not unrealistic, unfortunately, but as someone who works in a hospital, it is quite upsetting when we are told there aren't enough N95s, maybe people who wear the sizes that are in short supply should try to get re-tested with other sizes to see if there is another one that might be "good enough", and we are not allowed to wear them for even certain aerosol generating procedures in order to conserve supply. Then, you have the general public walking around in N95 masks with huge gaps around them because it doesn't fit them properly, so it doesn't actually protect them any more than a surgical mask. There was ONE person wearing an N95 in this episode that looked like it might actually fit him properly - and that was just on visual assessment, not a formal fit testing obviously.

I was very hesitant about watching this at all, because COVID already permeates every facet of my life and I don't need to see it in my fictional TV as well. The N95 issue alone might be enough to make it completely unwatchable for me.

[CheshireCat]

15 hours ago, HurricaneVal said:

I would like to see a throwaway line in the second part of this two-parter about toilet paper, and how Pride is having to bring TP in from the bar to supply the NCIS headquarters, which due to a logistics snafu didn't get the any toilet paper in the last supply order back in January.  They've hit all the other COVID checkboxes, so they can't miss the most obvious and talked about one!

There was toilet paper in the boxes Pride gave to his employees.

 

12 hours ago, secnarf said:

If they were going to include COVID in their show's world, they needed to do it properly. As if they wouldn't all be in masks 100% of the time at the office. And the two on the potentially COVID-infested ship would have been given N95s.

Yeah, that whole mask business started to bother me halfway through. I started to wonder who was wearing which mask and why because it didn't make sense. Also, the masks Tammy and Carter were wearing didn't have nose clips and they kept having their masks on outside but not inside. Yes, it was just the two of them but still, they were inside a ship with what I would assume is not the best ventilation system and all of the scenes filmed with Tammy and Carter and someone else inside made me uncomfortable the longer they took. They also went to sleep with the door to their room (or whatever it's called) open. Considering that they're armed, I don't think they would have done that under normal circumstances. I found all of that distracting and probably enjoyed the scenes with Triple P and his Goddaughter the most.

[DavidWeis1]

I liked this episode. And yes, I am sick and tired of COVID, but there was something about the tone that was sort of Twilight Zone, end of the world kind of of thing. It was familiar but also eerie. It gave me chills. Any guesses as to what the coyote was meant to suggest?

I know this is a two-parter, so we’ll see more COVID next week. But then what? Certainly we won’t have a whole (albeit abbreviated) season with people wearing masks. But if not, how will the writers handle it?

[enoughcats]

On 11/9/2020 at 12:38 PM, 12catcrazy said:

Gregorio's bangs

I'm olde enough to remember my Grandmother and her friends talking about First Lady Mamie Eisenhower's bangs and how unattractive they were and how nobody was wearing bangs because of that. Perhaps, sixty some years later, that's the way to get rid of this bang thing.

[CheshireCat]

2 hours ago, DavidWeis1 said:

 Any guesses as to what the coyote was meant to suggest?

I thought it was a wolf. Wasn't Pride seeing a wolf in previous seasons as a result of some trauma?

[HurricaneVal]

Or it could just be another Covid check box.  When usually crowded urban spaces emptied out due to people staying home, there were lots of reports of curious wildlife hanging out in the peace and quiet.  Hell, dolphins etc. even returned to the Venice canals after all the boat traffic and associated effluvia went away!  What a sight to see...

[Raja]

22 minutes ago, HurricaneVal said:

Or it could just be another Covid check box.  When usually crowded urban spaces emptied out due to people staying home, there were lots of reports of curious wildlife hanging out in the peace and quiet.  Hell, dolphins etc. even returned to the Venice canals after all the boat traffic and associated effluvia went away!  What a sight to see...

I do remember a report on the rats of New Orleans specifically 

[enoughcats]

The rats of New Orleans have never left. We've been gone more than 20 years, when we were there the city population was much larger, but here are some very vivid memories:

Coming across the Mississippi on the Algiers Ferry, the water level was low and the area under the dock looked as if it were moving. It was dark there, and the movement was the rat population, out for their midafternoon hunt. 

I thought I knew most of the pets that lived with people on our street, and one night, coming home there was a dead animal in the street in front of the Stella Maris building. I thought it was a large black cat.  Nope, it was a dead rat the size of a beagle. Beautiful deep black pelt. 

[CheshireCat]

On 11/11/2020 at 7:55 PM, HurricaneVal said:

Or it could just be another Covid check box.  When usually crowded urban spaces emptied out due to people staying home, there were lots of reports of curious wildlife hanging out in the peace and quiet. 

I think an aligator crossing the street would have been more suitable in that case.