S01.E01: Pilot

[shapeshifter]

7 hours ago, Chit Chat said:

It was driving me nuts trying to remember where I've seen the male detective (Daniel Sunjata)

Same. I was sure I knew him from a specific role, but no, for me it’s just H!ITG!
https://m.imdb.com/name/nm0839326
 

[EtheltoTillie]

8 hours ago, CeeBeeGee said:

I was always taught that it was cathedrals that face east, i.e., the altar end is to the east, because that's where Jerusalem is. But even this varies--St. Patrick's and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine both face south-east.

They face east in the NYC street grid, but I guess that's not true east. 

[chaifan]

I'm a fan of Kaitlin Olson, so I tuned in.  (Loved her in The Mick, and in Hacks.)  I wasn't overly wowed, but I was entertained, so they did their job.

As someone said above, she was giving major Erin Brokovich vibes as far as outfits and attitude.  A bit too much, in my opinion.  They could have toned down the 80's era hooker outfits.  I don't think they add anything to the character, and in fact, don't seem to mesh with the rest of her personality.  If she's so harried with 3 kids, not sleeping, no car, how is it that her hair is perfectly blown out/flat ironed, nails are impeccable, makeup is perfect, etc.?  Can't anyone just thrown on jeans and a t-shirt anymore?  I feel like they just have to make her scream "I am not a cop!" as loud as possible. 

Other silly point...  no cleaning service would provide such short dresses for it's cleaning staff.  No cleaning company today would provide dresses.  The company that cleans our offices have no uniform. The most I've seen in the last decade is a company logo t-shirt or polo with the cleaning company's name on it.

And I agree that someone who watches so many documentaries because they can't sleep would have known about basic police search rules/laws.  Fruit of the forbidden tree, or whatever.  They could have found another way for her to get the same info.

I was hoping she'd negotiate for a new car from the forfeiture lot.  I like that she negotiated for child care.

I like the twist of the missing husband.  I'm guessing he's in some form of witness protection.  I know, they let you bring your family, but I'm handwaiving that.  There's going to be some mob/cartel connection, or something like that.

 

 

[ams1001]

1 hour ago, chaifan said:

Other silly point...  no cleaning service would provide such short dresses for it's cleaning staff.  No cleaning company today would provide dresses.  The company that cleans our offices have no uniform. The most I've seen in the last decade is a company logo t-shirt or polo with the cleaning company's name on it.

I thought of that, too. I figured she seems like the type who would hem her skirt to suit her length preferences. (A skirt seems like a less-than-practical option for the job but she could just prefer it to pants...if only to show off her patterned stockings. I was amused by her old-school velcro high tops. They were so cool when I was in middle school...)

The cleaning people where I work have company-logo polo shirts but that seems to be the extent of their uniform. Maybe black pants, but not a specific type (one wears regular Dockers-type pants but another usually wears leggings). 

 

[DMK]

3 hours ago, chaifan said:

I was hoping she'd negotiate for a new car from the forfeiture lot.  I like that she negotiated for child care.

This works for me because it seems like she has decent public transportation that she can work with. I can say for myself that if I had any sort of public transportation where I live, I wouldn’t bother with a car. But we don’t even have buses, it’s awful.

[preeya]

19 hours ago, ams1001 said:

It was driving me nuts trying to remember where I've seen the male detective (Daniel Sunjata), and then I realized he was once on an episode of Sex and the City. He played a sailor.  

He also played Paul Briggs in Graceland, recently he was in Manifest, and back a few years he played Reggie Jackson in The Bronx is Burning.

ETA: The show reminded me a bit of Unforgettable with Poppy Montgomery.

Edited Friday at 07:40 PM by preeya

[chaifan]

1 hour ago, DMK said:

This works for me because it seems like she has decent public transportation that she can work with. I can say for myself that if I had any sort of public transportation where I live, I wouldn’t bother with a car. But we don’t even have buses, it’s awful.

But for this job she will need to go to crime scenes, at all times of day/night.  She can't hitch a ride with the other officers all the time.  I think it would be funny if the department gave her one "on loan" that was confiscated in some drug deal or something.  (Yes, I know, they can't really do that, but hey, TV...)

[DMK]

1 hour ago, chaifan said:

But for this job she will need to go to crime scenes, at all times of day/night.  She can't hitch a ride with the other officers all the time.

I actually don’t see why not. Presumably, the police station is relatively close to her house, it can’t be that much of a hardship for them to swing by and pick her up.

[shapeshifter]

2 hours ago, DMK said:

I actually don’t see why not. Presumably, the police station is relatively close to her house, it can’t be that much of a hardship for them to swing by and pick her up.

Plus, this would create organic scenes for expository dialog.

[MerBearHou]

This show has some Psych to it as well.  Super observant and hyper glib; irritates the real officers; solves the crime.  

[Chit Chat]

6 hours ago, preeya said:

He also played Paul Briggs in Graceland, recently he was in Manifest, and back a few years he played Reggie Jackson in The Bronx is Burning.

The last thing I saw him on was The Devil Wears Prada.  I'm not familiar with the shows you mentioned.  🙂  I'm fairly new to the streaming world and it's very overwhelming to me, so I just stick with a few shows. 

[Raja]

On 9/18/2024 at 2:57 PM, anniebird said:

I was confused by the "all churches face East" thing. In my town, all the churches, no matter the denomination, face North or South because the major streets all run East/West. Did I miss something in her explanation?

 

 

On 9/18/2024 at 6:30 AM, ams1001 said:

 

I just assumed that she knew exactly what she had to spend and didn't have a lot of room for extras that day. Obviously she and her daughter both use makeup so she must make room in the budget for buying it on occasion.

OMG, this is adorable!

 

 

I just took it as because mommy said so moment. She is quirky but still has to instill some discipline.

On 9/18/2024 at 6:03 PM, callie lee 29 said:

The church thing is not correct. The one I grew up in faces north as do quite a few in my town. It kind of seemed like they were maybe amending that the East thing was more Catholic so.... Who knows.

I messed up the multi quote order. But they did go further with the "all churches" they did go further to at least the older churches with the classical architecture style so that the sun will shine through the stained glass windows in the morning and highlight the priest. The house internet detective even pulling up the wiki on the subject as our consultant was talking.

On 9/19/2024 at 7:21 AM, AnimeMania said:

How likely is it that Morgan would be completely alone working at night in a busy metropolitan police station. I would have guessed that the majority of crimes happen at night and the place would be very busy.

I can only think of the Baltimore shows, Homicide: Life on the Street and The Wire. "Green" meaning overtime on breaking cases make "red", unsolved cases turn "black." In this case a single section was not working overtime on the case so the special section office was shutdown. If anything happens during the night the local regular homicide detectives like Bosch in his Hollywood Division office would handle the case before a decision was made to approve the overtime to call in the Robbery Homicide Division special Major Crimes section to take over.

13 hours ago, DMK said:

I actually don’t see why not. Presumably, the police station is relatively close to her house, it can’t be that much of a hardship for them to swing by and pick her up.

Well if it supposed to be "real LA" working for Major Crimes of Robbery Homicide Division she would be out of the police headquarters building downtown. Buses and trains will get you close for a single mother on a cleaning crew. Of course she would be a risk taker to be that close to skid row walking and waiting on public transit at zero dark thirty. In any case there would be a police station relatively near her home to play Uber, but probably not the downtown HQ using their own officers.

[shapeshifter]

42 minutes ago, Raja said:

Of course she would be a risk taker to be that close to skid row walking and waiting on public transit at zero dark thirty. 

— which reminds me of another deal breaker of mine for show watching:
Having the crime fighters be the objects of depraved criminals stalking.
There's too many other, more satisfying (to me) shows to watch.

[Raja]

3 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

— which reminds me of another deal breaker of mine for show watching:
Having the crime fighters be the objects of depraved criminals stalking.
There's too many other, more satisfying (to me) shows to watch.

I'll just wait to see with what seems to be the unneeded find out what happened to her daughter's father overlay on the case of the week stories.

[iMonrey]

20 hours ago, DMK said:

This works for me because it seems like she has decent public transportation that she can work with. I can say for myself that if I had any sort of public transportation where I live, I wouldn’t bother with a car. But we don’t even have buses, it’s awful.

She has a car. It needs a new carburetor. Now that she's making a decent salary she should be able to afford one.

[chaifan]

32 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

She has a car. It needs a new carburetor. Now that she's making a decent salary she should be able to afford one.

I'm just glad they didn't make her the "genius" type who can do everything, watch a youtube video for 5 minutes and go and replace your own carburetor. 

[Raja]

1 hour ago, iMonrey said:

She has a car. It needs a new carburetor. Now that she's making a decent salary she should be able to afford one.

Like the teen's father the not driving bit seems to be the sort of quirky that survives pilot episodes 

[DMK]

2 hours ago, chaifan said:

I'm just glad they didn't make her the "genius" type who can do everything, watch a youtube video for 5 minutes and go and replace your own carburetor. 

A carburetor is actually not hard to replace, she could probably do it. But a various array of tools would be needed and likely doesn’t have that.

[Featherhat]

I just watched it and I enjoyed it. I thought I was going to find it completely annoying from the trailers and descriptions. Oh, really, she's a genius who can't possibly hold down any job but night cleaner? Really? But KO made it work and it's nice to see a character who is fairly happy with her life and situation even though it's definitely imperfect. Way too many shows would get bogged down in the angst of her circumstances. 

It reminds me of Castle and those USA procedural dramedies, which isn't a bad thing when there's so much to worry about generally. I guess she's quite like Shawn Spencer another under achieving genius who gets hired as a police consultant. 

I really loved seeing Judy Reyes again and it was nice to see that the Captain took her seriously and owned up that she also missed the clues that Morgan picked up. 

I actually liked her new partner ok. It was tropey but it's not surprising that he was so sceptical at first, I think most people would get frustrated at having to deal with her on a case when she goes around breaking into offices without a warrant or and doing seemingly random things. He came to her house to get her to help again pretty damn quick. 

I did wonder why they didn't check old family property to see if the victim was hiding out there early on but that's a minor case nitpick. 

Family scenes were okay, pretty standard setting up some long running plots. 

[Raja]

2 hours ago, Featherhat said:

Family scenes were okay, pretty standard setting up some long running plots. 

So if they are lucky to last long enough she has the baby now instead of needing to have  a cousin Oliver join the family later.

[Irlandesa]

On 9/18/2024 at 4:57 PM, anniebird said:

I was confused by the "all churches face East" thing. In my town, all the churches, no matter the denomination, face North or South because the major streets all run East/West. Did I miss something in her explanation?

That line was taken directly from the French version of the pilot so I just assume it applies more to the old European churches.  In fact, I like the lead and Judy Reyes but this episode was so similar to the French version which I recently watched that I had a hard time loving it. 

I do with they had selected someone else as the detective partner. 

[Chaos Theory]

Looks like the typical police procedural with a consultant because cops can’t be trusted to solve their own crimes.   At least the reason why the woman is there makes some sense.   She is the kind of smart that makes living in the real world difficult but couldn’t help herself and helped solve a case and cop in charge offered her a job.    I mean it makes some sense.     

[MerBearHou]

I may have missed this, but she works at night while her kids are asleep and the neighbor watches them?  What does she do during the day while they’re at school?  I get that the show’s plot put her by herself at night in an office so she can see things when no one else is around, but I don’t understand the realities of her work situation.  And call me old-fashioned but that micro-mini cleaning outfit and dancing by herself like she’s in Flashdance — both just eye-rollers for me.  

Edited 9 hours ago by MerBearHou

[shapeshifter]

3 minutes ago, MerBearHou said:

I may have missed this, but she works at night while her kids are asleep and the neighbor watches them?  What does she do during the day while they’re at school?

Gets them ready for school, showers, sleeps, gets up in time for when they get out of school around 3. But I'm not sure how that works with the baby.

[MerBearHou]

1 minute ago, shapeshifter said:

Gets them ready for school, showers, sleeps, gets up in time for when they get out of school around 3. But I'm not sure how that works with the baby.

You know what?  I totally forgot she has an infant!  

[incandescent]

I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Monk has been mentioned here, but Kaitlin Olson's character really made me think of Adrian Monk's brain combined with Sharona Fleming's everything else.

[Raja]

33 minutes ago, MerBearHou said:

I may have missed this, but she works at night while her kids are asleep and the neighbor watches them?  What does she do during the day while they’re at school?  I get that the show’s plot put her by herself at night in an office so she can see things when no one else is around, but I don’t understand the realities of her work situation.  And call me old-fashioned but that micro-mini cleaning outfit and dancing by herself like she’s in Flashdance — both just eye-rollers for me.  

I think they went half way with the Sherlock, Dr. House analogy that she is hard to work with or be around. Part of she couldn't hold a relationship or a job speech that she gave. So the lone shift, not even any rest of a cleaning crew wondering why the other offices aren't done in sight for her. But then when working with the cops nothing abrasive comes from her. Only her daughter seemed to mind.

[Annber03]

2 hours ago, incandescent said:

I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Monk has been mentioned here, but Kaitlin Olson's character really made me think of Adrian Monk's brain combined with Sharona Fleming's everything else.

I can absolutely see this. Great comparison. That's another selling point for me, then. 

Decided to check this out, partly because I've heard some good comments about this show elsewhere and partly because I found out Deniz Akdeniz is on here as a series regular, and he popped up in a couple other shows I watched/watch ("United States of Al" and this past season of "Ghsots", where he had a particularly memorable and entertaining guest spot as a stripper at one of the ghosts' bachelor parties :D). Doesn't take much for me :p.

But echoing the others here, I too quite liked this pilot. I already like Morgan, she kind of reminds me a bit of Kristen from "Evil" with the chaotic home life and trying to juggle a family on her own and whatnot. And there were some moments that made me laugh as well, notably the bits where we get to see the crime scenes. The neat and tidy wife flipping off her curtains and Morgan explaining the two main reasons anyone would go to that one town were funny XD. 

I also liked the neighbor and I hope he continues to be a good, stable support system for her, though I also wonder if he'll have his own mysteries and secrets at some point as well. And the overarching mystery about the missing father is intriguing as well, and I'm curious to see where that will go. 

I also look forward to seeing more of the rest of the team and learning more about them individually, and how they and Morgan all learn to work together as they do. 

So yeah. Count me in :). 

[AnimeMania]

2 hours ago, Annber03 said:

I also liked the neighbor and I hope he continues to be a good, stable support system for her, though I also wonder if he'll have his own mysteries and secrets at some point as well.

Not 100% sure on this, but I think the neighbor that everyone keeps referring to is actually the grandfather, the father of the father of Morgan's two youngest children and happens to live next door. There seems to be a rift between the grandfather and his son and they don't spent much time together.