S06.E06: Checkmate

[thewhiteowl]

When a cop on the verge of shutting down a major drug operation is abducted, Hondo and the squad race to save one of their own before it’s too late. Also, Luca grows concerned about sudden changes in Hicks’ behavior.

[Danielg342]

Maybe the writers were reading this forum because two weeks ago I wondered what had happened to Saint and here we are.

OK, probably not...but this still feels underwhelming.

Not to say that this wasn't a well-told story, nor do I think this story had a lot of legs left anyway. I just felt like the conclusion to the Saint story felt rushed, like the writers just wanted to be done with it so they could move on.

I mean, all throughout S5 we were treated to a character well played by Carl Lumbly who- albeit at times unbelievably- was always one step ahead of the police in catching him. To see his empire fall so easily- with much of the legwork in untangling his web occurring off-screen- is distinctly unsatisfying and underwhelming.

The episode's other subplots were more interesting. Street coming around to Powell after Deacon gave him sound advice- even if it took Street doing a double take when Deacon mentioned his kids have "four different fathers" (I knew right away what he meant). I don't know, exactly, how much more interesting Powell is now, but at least there are some signs of humanity and growth with her that we can point to going forward.

Then there is the always reliable Luca, who forgets that Hicks is still his boss. The relief on Luca's face when Hicks told him that he wasn't sick was immense, and then seeing Luca shift from concerned teammate to dating mentor was also gold. Whenever I need someone to steer me in the right direction, no one is better at it than Luca is.

[Snazzy Daisy]

I totally forgot about Saint until @Danielg342 mentioned him 2 weeks ago.

Saint was an interesting villain when he's first introduced but the arc has lost its momentum. His takedown felt hurried, easy and a bit out of nowhere.

Saint appeared in 3 episodes in total, with long gaps in between:

Quote

S05.E07 - Keep the Faith (2021)

Gap @ 13 episodes

S05.E21 - Zodiac (2022)

Gap @ 6 episodes

S06.E06 - Checkmate (2022)

What a waste of a promising villain.

Zoe Powell still sucks. I despise her attitude, the arrogance and the stubbornness. She should be sent to 50-Squad so Rocker can straighten her up, off-screen, since Hondo doesn't want to do it. Alternatively, can Dr. Wendy Hughes do something about attitude adjustment by addressing her trauma/fear etc.? 

Quote

"Does this mean I'm officially out of the armoury now? Come on. Rios and the laptop would be long gone if not for me. I am a good cop, which is why I don't need a mentor. I don't need you to hold my hand. I can make it on my own."

- Zoe Powell

At this point, Rodrigo Sanchez is more likeable than Zoe Powell. Geez.

🙄🙄🙄

Edited November 20, 2022 by SnazzyDaisy
Spelling! Ugh

[Danielg342]

20 minutes ago, SnazzyDaisy said:

Saint was an interesting villain when he's first introduced but the arc has lost its momentum. His takedown felt hurried, easy and a bit out of nowhere.

The main issue with the Saint storyline is that they never really explored Saint's motivations for his crimes. We learned how he set up his operation- by investing in local businesses so that he could have somewhere to hide his drugs- but we never understood why he got into the drug trade in the first place. I get that the writers may have been hamstrung by the choice to make Saint cagey, but I believe they could have gotten around the fact Saint couldn't talk about his criminal enterprises by having Detective Rios tell Hondo every now and then "I found this out about Saint...".

It didn't appear that Saint had a large operation, opening the question about whether or not he was beholden to- or trying to become- one the American cartels. However, the show never dug deep into the details of the operation, so I can't say that for sure. I believe we only met one dealer, we never met the one Saint got his drugs from and we never really understood his distribution channel in any way. We were just told he was this big drug kingpin but we never really saw it in action.

Worse, the show has had many "one episode wonders" who were drug kingpins and they were better fleshed out than Saint was.

Besides, wouldn't the whole "being a pillar of the community" go against everything you'd figure being a successful drug lord would be? The last thing you'd want is anyone to know who you are because then you can be tracked- which is not good when dealing in contraband.

If Saint was established as someone who was looking to make a run at Los Angeles City Council because he sees it as a way to establish a "Los Angeles Cartel" that would rival the Mexican ones, that could have been an interesting story to run with. It would at least explain why he chose to be a visible member of the community instead of hiding in the shadows. We could have perhaps learned that the motivation for his cartel was because he has a child or a friend involved in a Mexican cartel but they're stuck in the lower rungs and can't seem to move up the chain. This would at least explain why Saint wanted to have his own cartel in the first place.

As much as I criticized the Mexican episodes to open S5, we at least learned a few things about Arthur Novak (Timothy V. Murphy), who appeared in as many episodes as Saint did and was the key figure in Episode 100. We learned that Novak moved to Mexico to avoid prosecution for his crimes in his home country, and he used his money to get the Mexican police to turn a blind eye to his criminal enterprises. When Delfina's family wouldn't cave to him, Novak turned on them, and when Hondo intervened, stopped him and killed his son, it gave Novak the motivation to strike back at Hondo for Episode 100.

We can quibble about how much any of that worked, but at least we learned what made Arthur Novak tick. We knew none of that in the case of Hank Saint John.

[transitfan]

On 11/18/2022 at 11:12 PM, Danielg342 said:

Maybe the writers were reading this forum because two weeks ago I wondered what had happened to Saint and here we are.

I didn't remember that it was you who said that, but when I saw Saint in the "Previously on SWAT..." preview, I was like "he talked him up!" (as my grandmother used to say) 🙂

[callie lee 29]

I still don't like Powell and I don't see that changing. The character is unlikeable and sadly the actress is either unable or unwilling to have enough of "it" to overcome that presentation. 

[jabRI]

On 11/20/2022 at 5:32 AM, SnazzyDaisy said:

Zoe Powell still sucks. I despise her attitude, the arrogance and the stubbornness. She should be sent to 50-Squad so Rocker can straighten her up, off-screen, since Hondo doesn't want to do it. Alternatively, can Dr. Wendy Hughes do something about attitude adjustment by addressing her trauma/fear etc.? 

Seriously, with how many people wanting to join SWAT, why are they wasting their energies on someone who is going off on their own, doesn't need them, and could get other people (police/civilians) hurt in the process?

[Snazzy Daisy]

On 11/20/2022 at 7:24 PM, Danielg342 said:

The main issue with the Saint storyline is that they never really explored Saint's motivations for his crimes.

Colonialism.

Colonialism killed Saint’s family. He left the island, came to LA for something better but still facing the same hardships. Panthers was his stepping stone.

He also said that he is the “do as they please” type of person. So, this helps.

On 11/20/2022 at 7:24 PM, Danielg342 said:

I get that the writers may have been hamstrung by the choice to make Saint cagey, but I believe they could have gotten around the fact Saint couldn't talk about his criminal enterprises by having Detective Rios tell Hondo every now and then "I found this out about Saint...".

The build-up of his takedown wasn’t done properly. The could get Leroy to play some parts in the takedown. Just to add layers to it and also as a continuity to Zodiac episode.
 

On 11/20/2022 at 7:24 PM, Danielg342 said:

However, the show never dug deep into the details of the operation, so I can't say that for sure. We were just told he was this big drug kingpin but we never really saw it in action.

We were also told that he was The Ghost who controlled the money laundering operations in the fashion district for years.

8 hours ago, jabRI said:

Seriously, with how many people wanting to join SWAT, why are they wasting their energies on someone who is going off on their own, doesn't need them, and could get other people (police/civilians) hurt in the process?

At this point, Zoe Powell is not redeemable and she’s dragging Street down with her.

Street shouldn’t be burdened and have to worry about team’s safety and her tendencies to go rogue every time they’re in the field. Way to go Hondo! 🙄

Edited November 22, 2022 by SnazzyDaisy

[Danielg342]

11 hours ago, SnazzyDaisy said:

Colonialism.

Colonialism killed Saint’s family. He left the island, came to LA for something better but still facing the same hardships. Panthers was his stepping stone.

He also said that he is the “do as they please” type of person. So, this helps.

The build-up of his takedown wasn’t done properly. The could get Leroy to play some parts in the takedown. Just to add layers to it and also as a continuity to Zodiac episode.

We were also told that he was The Ghost who controlled the money laundering operations in the fashion district for years.

Thanks. You remembered more of the details than I did...don't know why they didn't stick with me.

What happened with Saint is that the writers had an idea for the character- the "villain with good publicity"- and they intended him to be this "mystery" but they didn't spend any time actually showing us any of that. We were just told about all this. I think this goes back to a lack of development of Saint's character. So he moved to LA to have "a better life". Fair. We also knew he likes chess, which is a metaphor for how we are supposed to perceive him, which is also fair.

The problem is that this is all "scratching the surface" kind of stuff. What was unsaid was why he targeted the people that he did target and why was his drug empire so special. If you establish the "why" you can then proceed with the "how", because then you can construct a believable operation and, more importantly, you can create a puzzle we might actually care about deconstructing.

So he's a pillar of the community. So what? That means a lot of things. If, however, you establish that Saint targets troubled children because he believes his operation gives them "a second chance" then there's something you can work with and build upon. This is because troubled kids wouldn't just be less likely to report Saint and his operations, they would also be less likely to find fault in anything he's doing. You can then build upon this and figure out who Saint likes to pick for jobs deeper in his operation and those he just thinks are simply great as "front" businesses and then, after you have this framework of how the operation works, you can construct the puzzle about how it all comes down.

Granted, I shouldn't expect this show to have plots worthy of the most intricate mystery novels ever made, but I do think for someone like Saint, the show needed to do more than just build him as much as their usual "Case of the Week" antagonists (if the writers even got that far). Having someone who comes back in an episodic TV show means that the character has to mean more than the rudimentary character. The writers failed to grasp this simple concept, and, as a result, they wasted what could have been a great character.

[Sweet Tooth]

Let me say, for the record, I don't care if this was the crappiest episode this series ever aired. 

I've seen too many series where the omnipotent bad guy crops up season after season, terrorizing the team, and they have to keep ramping it up and ramping it up, until all of the families of all of the people involved wind up being victims.

In other words, the villain way outstays their welcome, until they become tiresome.

Getting the lead and taking him down in one episode? YES!

I think it was realistic so many people thought of him as a guy who helped people. I've watched some mafia documentaries where these kingpins in some really poor areas in brutal parts of the world, take time between the killings and their thriving drug trade to help build up the community. They give money freely, get them jobs and housing, etc., so when law enforcement comes to take him down, there's an uprising. 

And let me say again that even though Hondo had a minor backslide this episode where he let Saint get the better of him, he's come such a long way, and his character growth is impressive. I loved that last scene with the stuffed animal. It's nice to see the contrast between his job and then coming home, where he can shake it off.