S08.E13: High Ground

[Danielg342]

Quote

During a hiking trip, Powell and Gamble stumble upon an illegal weed farm and find themselves taking on a dangerous cartel

[Danielg342]

Yikes. That was bad. Really bad. Really, really, really bad.

We're not just talking "worst of the series", "worst of the year", or maybe even "worst of the decade".

Oh no. I think this is up there with the absolute "worst ever TV episode ever".

Yeah. That bad.

Before this one, the episode that held this title was the pilot episode of the 2013 TV series, We Are Men, the ill-fated attempt to create a Sex In The City kind of show for men.

Now, I'm still not sure "High Ground" is actually worse than the witless, hubris-filled junk that was We Are Men, but it was sure written as an episode that competes with We Are Men's level of shoehorning.

Let's start.

First, Zoe Powell and Devin Gamble are out on a hike. They don't have their SWAT gear, they don't have their usual equipment...what they've brought with them is the usual hiker's gear.

Plus each have a gun. Not a big gun, just a pistol, but still a gun.

Reasonable for what they were doing.

...but then Gamble stumbles on a marijuana drug operation and her and Powell stumbles on a pregnant woman who just happens to work at that operation.

The pregnant woman's partner shows up, flashes his gun at Gamble and Powell, takes Gamble's cell phone and one of their guns (can't remember which one) and tries to get them to come with him to the grow op but Gamble and Powell make a break for it, as they have that opportunity.

At this point, there's nothing at all sideways about the episode (well, sort of...but I'll get to that later).

However, things take a nonsensical turn once Gamble and Powell are in the clear. Once they are out of danger, Gamble wants to go into the op to save the pregnant woman. Powell- who is a strange choice for "the voice of reason" in this instance given her own recklessness- then reminds her about all the disadvantages they face:

• They have one gun with two bullets
• They have no communications devices except for one cell phone that is out of signal in their area
• They have no tactical gear or other supplies
• They are simply two women who, while very trained at physical combat, are still going up against a well-organized, well-funded and well-trained cartel

Powell further explains that six miles down the hill is the highway where they could call in for help or get a driver to call in for help.

In other words, going back to the grow op to save the pregnant woman is a suicide mission. No other way of putting it.

So, what does Gamble do?

"Naw, we're SWAT! We can take them on all by ourselves! Plus the pregnant woman won't survive without our intervention!"

Uh...Gamble...you're SWAT. You're not Wonder Woman. There's also no guarantee that the pregnant woman will survive if you intervene, or that she won't survive if you don't.

However, this writer really wanted a "you go girl!" episode so badly that, instead of making Gamble and Powell smart, the writer had to contrive an episode full of luck so badly just so Gamble and Powell can play the hero and come out not worse for wear because of it.

There are just no words to describe how stupid that all is. In real life, Gamble would be leading herself and Powell into a death trap.

...and all for what? A pregnant woman they barely know?

I get it...this is Hollywood. Pregnant women are a small slot below children in the hierarchy of "we have to save them". The kind of distressed victim that writers will do everything in their power- even if it means sacrificing the integrity of their characters, the storylines or any kind of rational sense- to get those victims alive, safe, and relatively unharmed.

...but, here's the thing. Gamble and Powell didn't have to be stupid just to save the pregnant woman. Fleeing to the highway and calling in backup could have still given us an episode where the pregnant woman- and the rest of the cartel's workers- get saved.

The only difference is that Gamble and Powell wouldn't get to play "hero" all by themselves...but, we don't need them to play hero just so they can look badass.

In fact, being stupid, reckless characters who get by purely because of luck is about as un-badass as you can get.

They weren't the only ones carrying around a massive, giant Idiot Ball for this episode.

Let's go back to that pregnant woman's partner...the one who decided it was a good idea to flash a gun at two civilians.

Yes, Gamble had, just seconds before, discovered the grow op...but the partner didn't know that.

In fact, he could have avoided the officers sniffing around by pretending that the pregnant woman is his wife and he's just a hiker like they are.

Now, the officers might still get suspicious and get on his trail anyway...but if I was pregnant woman's partner and I was running a cartel grow op, the last thing I'd want to do is draw attention to myself.

Sure, there's a good chance the police might still find me suspicious and start digging anyway...but, by at least trying not to draw attention to myself, it might help the cartel buy some more time, it might make the cops not believe I'm a part of it, and I might get lucky and the cops don't pick up the scent of a cartel at all.

Of course, pregnant woman's partner wasn't the only dumb one in this episode.

I could get into the cartel's skeleton operations where, seemingly, patrollers looking for Powell and Gamble are too lazy to actually do their jobs and have awareness skills worse than the village idiot.

For a supposedly "well funded cartel", Powell and Gamble sure were able to sneak around in the open almost unopposed.

Then there's the boss...who has to be the stupidest cartel boss in the world.

Let's recap his method for "staying in the wind": he takes all of his workers (which I presume also includes the ones who were supposedly looking for Powell and Gamble) and he kills them all right after harvesting the product he's going to sell.

Now, such a "scorched earth" policy might make sense if the grow op was compromised, but this cartel guy didn't just torch this grow-op- he torches all of his grow ops, meaning that whenever he wants to set up a new grow-op, he'll need to find a new location and hire a new batch of workers.

What does he think he's running? A McDonald's? You can't just pick people up off the street- finding the people needed to run a cartel (especially the ones who do the heavy lifting, such as smuggling, surveillance, counter operations against law enforcement, accounting, etc.) are very hard to find, not just because finding people in the criminal underworld is inherently very hard to begin with. No, the cartel's heavy operators are people with certain skills, ones that are not easy to train or to find even if you were looking for them for legal operations.

I know the show tried to justify it by arguing "dead men tell no tales", but in this case, that reasoning is completely erroneous.

They do tell tales, because in the 21st century, they leave forensic marks (especially when the dead bodies start piling up), and when the cartel boss starts new operations, he's leaving behind a trail of shell corporations and front businesses that will eventually get picked up.

Besides...how many open fields available for grow-ops can you even find? It's not like you can just pick them up off the shelf at a store. Those fields are hard to hide, even when your operation is perfect.

Doing it multiple times means you'll just increase the chances that you'll be found out.

I mean, to be fair, a cartel boss who frequently torches his sites isn't necessarily a terrible narrative device on its own...for a paranoid cartel boss, it'd be in character and if he's got some skill, he could cover it up for a while, but his operation would still be under a ticking time bomb and he'd likely still leave a pattern that would expose him.

...and besides, "our heroes being in the right place at the right time" isn't also, a bad narrative device in of itself. This show has used that device to great effect.

The problem is that here, within the context of all the other stupidity and contrivances that occurred in this episode, the cartel boss being reckless and paranoid is awfully convenient writing and just amplifies just how stupid and reckless everyone else was in this episode.

Small wonder that Gamble and Powell could be stupid and reckless and get the chance to "play hero"...the villains they were up against were just as stupid and reckless as they were, with a big side of utter incompetence and laziness, because our cartel boss "got what he paid for".

In short, this is just a mess of stupidity all around that requires so many "saving throws" from the author just to work that it blows up the entire concept of the "suspension of disbelief" utterly and completely.

There is just nothing at all redeemable about this, and because of that, this episode has to rank as one of the worst episodes TV has ever made.

Not since We Are Men has a TV show exhibited this level of hubris and wilful obliviousness. The only difference might be that, while We Are Men forgot that comedies require levity, it didn't try to pass itself off as a serious endeavour.

S.W.A.T., on the other hand is trying to be a serious endeavour, which makes this episode's failures so glaring.

Because there's no way you can at all take this episode seriously when there's just so much stupidity gets to pass within the episode.

[Snazzy Daisy]

“High Ground” — the stupidest SWAT episode ever. The characters keep making stupid decisions, one after another.

Then they turn Deacon into a judgemental prick. WTH. 😡

Just bring back the OG 20-Squad!!!

[Danielg342]

1 hour ago, Snazzy Daisy said:

Then they turn Deacon into a judgemental prick. WTH. 😡

I find a lot of the team interactions these days to be pretty forced. It's like the writers pull two characters out of a hat and then they write some awkward exchanges that are supposed to make them look like friends but everything sounds contrived. The actors don't even seem to be trying anymore because they just keep talking robotically to each other.

I don't even pay much attention to the side stories anymore since they add very little to the episodes, if at all.