S02.E01: Bill Russell's Bedsheets

[preeya]

When an assistant U.S. attorney overdoses and ends up left for dead, Decourcy Ward suspects Jackie Rohr's involvement. Jackie, in turn, goes after the BPD for a questionable drug arrest at Braxton Summit, a federal housing project. Community activist Grace Campbell recruits Siobhan Quays to work on behalf of Braxton and its residents, but their efforts are subverted as tensions flare between rival gangs.

[LibertarianSlut]

That was...disappointing.  I don’t care about the housing project the way that I did care about the Ryan brothers and their bank robbing schemes last season.  I kept looking at the clock to see when it would end.  Way too much of the Rohr family.  I don’t care about the mother and daughter as main characters.  

This was such poor storytelling too.  Everyone was ignoring the fact that Decourcy had no good evidence that Jackie dropped that ADA off at the ER when she overdosed—it was a complete leap of logic, so therefore it made no sense to me that Jackie spent a healthy part of the episode going to bat for Decourcy.  It was also a huge leap of logic that Decourcy would make this college student with the drugs found in her car his cause because Siobhan told him to.  I don’t even think Siobhan would have made it her cause.  Last season, she was very selective in how, when and why she would back people, but this season, as soon as the lady from the housing project shows up (who I really don’t like) with Leon playing a priest (which was horrible casting; all I saw was Leon), Siobhan is all like, “yes, sure I can talk to my husband about that!!  Why not?!?”  

A huge part of what made last season great was the tension between Siobhan and Decourcy and their ambitions that often came into conflict, but sometimes worked together to advance both of their careers.  Instead, here we see Decourcy hearing his wife’s request to get in deep with the FBI and attempt to get them to give up on a possible CI, even though the update at the beginning of the episode told us that Decourcy was in DA purgatory for fucking the Ryan case so bad, but he was just like, “ok!”  Who is Decourcy and what did you do with him?  Because Decourcy doesn’t just listen to his wife like that.  

Oh, and how is that glass eye working for you, Decourcy?  Because there was at least one shot where he was entering the apartment in the project where the young girl took a stray bullet, and he looked right at something with his bad eye.  Nice continuity, show.  

I like Jackie a lot, but he was wasted this episode.  The quote-trading all fucking episode was so boring as was “I am woman...”. Like, ha?  I’m laughing?  And all the stuff about Eldridge Cleaver and “the price of” mixed up with Nixon, mixed up with James Baldwin just felt like it was trying way, way too hard to be clever.  I am also not a fan of Jackie being so fucked up that he can’t stand or communicate.  I like him when he is just barely keeping it together, but still making a ton of sense, the way he was at the end with Decourcy at that bar called “21st Amendment” (great name BTW), but not the way he was around his wife (who I don’t care about, if I haven’t made that clear).  

A lot of this just felt like Ben Affleck making a statement on race, which is the thing that will get me to stop watching the quickest.  I could not make heads or tails of Decourcy letting that kid off who made a racial slur at a black cop at the beginning.  Not only did he not have authority, he didn’t have a reason.  Decourcy doesn’t just do things to be benevolent.  It’s not who he is.  That was Affleck using Decourcy poorly to make a racial statement.  I don’t need any of that on a fictional TV show that I watch for entertainment.  Affleck can take his causes up elsewhere. 

The only exchange that worked for me was Jackie outside the courthouse with the new female Asian DA.  Those two can probably hang with each other. I loved it—loved it—when Jackie said he was going to be “self-referential” and when he said “dragon lady” was Chinese, and the Japanese hate them.  That is the Jackie I love, the hard-assed Boston Cop (I know he’s an FBI agent, but he is for all intents and purposes a Boston cop) who seems like a total fuck-up and waste of space, but he is actually someone who is really book smart and cunning and he will sell his mother down the river without thinking twice. The conversation between Rohr and the new female Asian DA inside the building just felt like a lot of racial politics talking, and it meant nothing to me, because it didn’t feel organic to the decade.  The 1990s had its own unique set of racial problems which didn’t mirror the racial problems 20+ years later.  

Ben Affleck does know this show takes place in the 1990s, right?  It looks like he’s weighing it down with a lot of 2020 problems, and it’s doing a disservice to the show.  

Siobhan loves herself some Siobhan, doesn’t she?  I mean, there is confident—which she was last season—and there is shimmying and dancing when she delivers every line, which is all I saw when she met that Boston politician in the back room of the restaurant.  It didn’t ring true to me for her character.  

When Jimmy Ryan and his sister-in-law made their appearances at the end of the episode, was it supposed to be some kind of mic drop moment?  Because I didn’t care.  It felt like, too little, too late.  There are already a bunch of new characters with a whole lot of convoluted storylines with the housing project, and just as I was trying to get a hang of that whilst trying to keep my eyes open, suddenly the characters from last season show up and...I don’t care.  Not to mention that they were in the opening credits (since when does this show have opening credits?) so anyone who was paying any attention knew it was a matter of time until they showed up.  

That bank scene at the beginning was so stupid and contrived.  This is how we are supposed to learn about the housing project lady and her giant swinging lady dick?  A real person who is in charge of a housing project—and there is huge money in that—doesn’t just waltz into a local bank, see a woman crying, and threaten to pull all of the housing project funds from the bank if this crying woman’s default period isn’t extended.  That’s not how any of this works.  That bank probably got the housing project funds from a lot of back room wheeling and dealing, and housing project lady wouldn’t just be able to pull the funds unilaterally like that, nor would she be stupid enough to threaten same, because if her bluff was called, then what would she do?  Not to mention that the bank staff member didn’t ask her for ID before getting on the phone with the big boss to convey her request, and, of course, getting a concession.  Anyone who knew about that housing project could have claimed to be the person in charge of the funds—why the hell would the staff member just take her at her word that she was in charge?  Maybe I should try that—walk into a local bank branch, tell them I’m VP in charge of Wal-Mart, and they better give me favorable lending terms or Wal-Mart will stop accepting their credit cards 🤔.  Just very disappointing storytelling.  

This season opener just made me tired and disappointed.  This show can write compelling reasons to motivate its characters to act, but instead it did this.  Very lazy.  If this is a harbinger for the season, there is a chance that I will be out, the way I am so, so out of The Chi.  

[aghst]

I don't recall a lot of what happened in the first season.  Main thing was it was incredible that Jackie could continue to do his thing with impunity and that smirk which you would think would make enemies of people more than he has.  Not only that, he takes stupid risks and has avoided being put away or being thrown out.  In the first season, it was his massage parlor mistress.  Now, he's coking up an Asst. US Attorney.  He lucks out because she strokes out and can't speak.  But can she write?  Or does she love Jackie that she's protecting him?

He doesn't care about her fate, as long as he isn't caught for having given her the coke.  Yeah he's lucky but he's still a big POS.

I think the bank robbery plot is de rigueur for a story set in Boston involving cops and bad guys.  So there was no way they  could do another Southie plot in season 2.  Especially the way season 1 ended, with those guys willing to go out in a blaze of glory.

So this season, Jimmy is getting in bed with drug dealers?  Not sure that's his ultimate game but we will see.

Jenny doesn't seem as frumpy as in season 1.  And they got rid of the mother, who was a good antagonist for Jackie.  The daughter wants to talk but Jackie shuts her down just like he's shut down Jenny.  Why didn't she leave him?  Guess she's not going back to teaching or anything which would give her independence.

The problem is that as loathsome as Jackie is, he's played by probably the biggest name on the cast, so he isn't going anywhere.  So poor Jenny is stuck with him.

You'd think someone as ambitious as Decourcy would have moved on, not deal with the BS in the DA's office.  He was in the US Attorney's office so he'd have options.  But maybe the premise is that with Siobhan's ambitions, he is stuck in Boston and has to put up with the BS.  Of course we know he will stir up trouble for Jackie and the PTB -- he is not an Uncle Tom, despite what that kid said.

I have very hazy recollections of the Wards wanting to do something political in the first season, even though she's in some big corporate job and apparently a fast riser.

The reveal that Grace, who has some political clout, is the mother of the gangbangers, who got involved in the shootout that killed the young girl in her own room in those projects, should be interesting.  Seems unlikely she doesn't know what her sons are up to.  So is it a smart move for her to push her weight around and call in political favors?

 

As far as what the show may or may not be trying to say about race, it comes with this territory, the two main leads being a white man and a black man at each other's throats, the fact that the first season plot involved Southie bank robbers being pursued by a black DA.  

There is overt racial taunting like the charming story about Bill Russell's bedsheets.  Or Jackie tries to ingratiate himself to the new US Attorney by pretending to know about her ethnicity and how she has to deal with the BS of her white predecessors.  But he was talking shit about her behind her back.

However, it's not like there weren't racial tensions in Boston in its history.

No doubt Affleck and Damon get a say, maybe the final say, in the direction of the series.  But I see Tom Fontana's name on the credits.  Guessing that he runs the day to day and even the direction of the seasons.  Chuck McLean is listed as the creator of the series but apparently this is his first major project, either film or show.  Not clear how much Affleck and Damon are involved.  Maybe they just helped facilitate this show being sold to Showtime.

 

 

[Bluesky]

I liked it.  There was a ton of local stuff that might have been missed by non-locals. They finally got a Dunkin Donuts in there!  
I do wish it stayed focused more on the jobs and less on family.
 

They went from the Charlestown robbers to JP / Roxbury drug dealers while mentioning the heroin problem in Southie.  That was the 90’s in Boston. And they finally mentioned John Connolly, the crooked FBI agent and Bulger, murderer and FBI agent.  I hope they get into that more.  

[MrsRafaelBarba]

I miss Jonathan Tucker.

No way in hell Grace doesn't know about her gangbanging spawn.

Drug $$$$ is probably funding that project she  was crowing about at the 

Bank.

Saying prayers for the little girl at the family dinner table.

Sis is a cold, hard piece.

 

[tennisgurl]

On 3/29/2021 at 8:39 AM, Bluesky said:

They finally got a Dunkin Donuts in there!

When I visited Boston a few years ago, I just couldn't get over how many Dunkin Donuts there were. At least four on every block! 

I am glad they reminded us what all happened last season, I had forgotten a lot more than I thought I did. Who is allying with who, who is talking to the feds, who is trying to take down who, I really needed that recap. This opener was fine, I think the focus on the rising heroin sales to be interesting, although I preferred the story with the bank robbers more last season. Decourcy vs Jackie has potential, but its hopefully more than them just throwing quotes at each other. I am not sure how Jackie will keep on going at this rate, he is making enemy after enemy and many of them are very dangerous

Between this and SnowFall, period piece crime shows have had a real flood of little girls getting killed as collateral damage in gang wars. 

Edited March 30, 2021 by tennisgurl

[kathe5133]

6 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

 

Between this and Snow Fall, period piece crime shows have had a real flood of little girls getting killed as collateral damage in gang wars. 

I think that may be based on a true story....  I went to Google, but it's truly sad how many hits came up when I put in "little girl killed by stray bullet......."  I'm from Boston and I do remember hearing about this, but don't think the kids who did it were the children of a community leader so, they could be cherry picking the past.  Or, sadly having little girls killed by stray bullets is way more common than I would have thought!

[DoctorAtomic]

I liked the quick style of the previouslies. It feels like the show hasn't been on since 50 years. 

I liked, 'do you want to be right or happy?' I always say, 'If we lose on principal, we still lose.'

I don't mind Jackie being out of control. They already said a bunch of times last season that because he put away the crime family years ago that he could basically do what he wanted. Obviously, that account isn't limitless and it should be fun to see what happens. 

On 3/29/2021 at 7:39 AM, Bluesky said:

There was a ton of local stuff that might have been missed by non-locals. 

 

9 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

When I visited Boston a few years ago, I just couldn't get over how many Dunkin Donuts there were. At least four on every block! 

Fleet Bank too! It was my first account. 

[DoctorAtomic]

I liked the quick style of the previouslies. It feels like the show hasn't been on since 50 years. 

I liked, 'do you want to be right or happy?' I always say, 'If we lose on principal, we still lose.'

I don't mind Jackie being out of control. They already said a bunch of times last season that because he put away the crime family years ago that he could basically do what he wanted. Obviously, that account isn't limitless and it should be fun to see what happens. 

On 3/29/2021 at 7:39 AM, Bluesky said:

There was a ton of local stuff that might have been missed by non-locals. 

 

9 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

When I visited Boston a few years ago, I just couldn't get over how many Dunkin Donuts there were. At least four on every block! 

Fleet Bank too! It was my first account. 

I'm actually hoping they don't go down the Bulger route. That's been done enough. 

[Bluesky]

4 hours ago, kathe5133 said:

I think that may be based on a true story....  I went to Google, but it's truly sad how many hits came up when I put in "little girl killed by stray bullet......."  I'm from Boston and I do remember hearing about this, but don't think the kids who did it were the children of a community leader so, they could be cherry picking the past.  Or, sadly having little girls killed by stray bullets is way more common than I would have thought!

Do you remember the little girl who was sitting on the mailbox in Roxbury and was killed in a drive by shooting?   So sad. 

[ketchuplover]

Can't they just fingerprint that bag of drugs?

[DoctorAtomic]

I'm not sure that was common practice for a run of the mill drug case with local police at the time.