Cop Rock S1E5: The Cocaine Mutiny

Starring:
Anne Bobby as Off. Vicki Quinn
Barbara Bosson as Mayor Louise Plank
Vondie Curtis-Hall as Det. Warren Osborne
Ronny Cox as Chief Roger Kendrick
David Gianopoulos as Off. Andy Campo
Paul McCrane as Det. Bob McIntire
Larry Joshua as Capt. John Hollander
James McDaniel as Off. Franklin Rose
Ron McLarty as Ralph Ruskin
Mick Murray as Det. Joseph Gaines
Peter Onorati as Det. Vincent LaRusso
Kathleen Wilhoite as Patty Spence

Written by: William M. Finkelstein and Stephen Bochco and John Romano

Directed by: Arlene Sanford

Well would you look at that episode title?  What a lovely little pun!  Here we are back on the rough streets of LA, where anyone is prone to breaking out into song at any given time.  This formula has not worked at all in previous episodes, so there’s really no reason to believe that it’s going to start working here, but stranger things have happened, right?  Wrong.

In the last episode, we saw Patty Spence get locked away for admitting to selling her child for money.  This interrogation was set up by Officer Vicki Quinn as an attempt to help her get her life back on track, but the sleazy, gravel-voiced Captain John Hollander had other plans, and abruptly asked to have her arrested.  Vicki was hurt by this, and so was Patty, thinking that Vicki was the one that had her set-up.  Well, in a surprise turn of events, Hollander, who “made the mistake of bringing it up” to his wife one night, reverses his decision, instead believing that she deserves a second shot.

This change of heart is actually pretty refreshing, because up until now Hollander has been nothing but a poorly-written sonofabitch; here, for the first time ever, we see that there might actually be a kindhearted man buried somewhere, very deep, under his tough exterior.  While he’s the topic of the moment, I do want to mention his low-pitched, annoying voice.  If that’s actually the way his voice sounds in real life, then I give him a pass; but if he talks that way to give the illusion that his character is “cool” and “tough“, well it’s one of the biggest failures of a cop show that includes song numbers.  Every time he talks, it sounds like he’s trying so hard to convince viewers that he’s a no-nonsense macho-man that my wife and I automatically comment on how much we hate him.

Now back to the story: His suggestion to give Patty a second chance puts her in a courtroom, where she squares off against someone from Social Services, or some similar organization.  Of course, Patty defies the odds by giving a heartfelt speech to the judge, who decides to get her out of prison and give her full custody of her child after all!  Isn’t yawn-inducing predictability grand? (Actually, to the show’s credit, she surprisingly does not resort to singing…at least, during this scene.)

Introduced in this episode (as a one-off character, I believe), is none other than Gina Gershon, that hot, “star-of-the-moment” in the ‘90s, that was more or less quickly forgotten by the time the 2000s rolled around.  In this, which I would actually presume to be one of her first roles (sorry, a fever and general disinterest prevents me from diligently double-checking the information as I normally would), she plays an actress being relentlessly stalked by a superfan, who she fears will eventually cross the line into physical harm.  We are then subjected to a singing number from the fan, as he explains his obsession to us, complete with romantic sax music (?).

This brings me to another critique of “Cop Rock” and its song-and-dance format: It simply doesn’t understand who’s worthy of a musical number.  When the show is at its “peak”, a term here used loosely to mean “not cringe-inducingly embarrassing”, it’s because it picks a subject that can sustain song treatment.  For example, “He’s Guilty” from way back in the pilot.  That song managed to be effective because it was catchy, and because it was convincingly executed…having the jurors suddenly don gospel garb and sing backup, as silly as it sounds, is a damn inspired choice, and the whole thing is pulled off with brazen confidence.

The only problem is, it sometimes seems to get a little overconfident, forcing us to listen to terrible, misguided attempts to rationalize its worst characters.  We saw it a couple of episodes ago with the song “Baby Merchant”, in which a man who buys and sells babies (?) sings to a “prospective couple” (in this case a duo of undercover cops) about how they shouldn’t worry because he always comes through.  Here, we get a psychotic loner singing about his love for a woman that feels threatened by him and wishes he would just go away.  As with every other song in the show, it attempts to be earnest, to be straight-faced.  On the one hand, I kind of get the point: I think it‘s the show‘s attempt to wear its heart on its sleeve, so to speak, and to get the viewer to care for even the lowest of low-lifes.  But do they really think such connection with the audience is possible through poorly-written songs?  How else are we supposed to take this besides self-parody?  It’s just too ridiculous to work straight, something no one involved with the show seemed to understand at any point of its development cycle, and it‘s a big reason as to why the world of “Cop Rock“ is enmeshed in constant failure.

Anyway, we have to have this storyline spell potential trouble for the police department, so the actress asks out Detective Bob McIntyre, who agrees to go out on a dinner date with her.  But things quickly get dicey when the superfan decides to take his obsession to the next level, opting to deliver her flowers in person.  Even though Bob is there and about to apprehend the subject, the actress panics and shoots him dead.  As of this ep, all that signals was the end of the relationship, but it might come up to be a bigger deal down the road (if it doesn’t, it’s a rather pointless single-use storyline, as neither are charged for any criminal wrongdoing).

Meanwhile, Captain Hollander also gets to be the focal point of another storyline when an epidemic of cocaine use is running rampant throughout the city.  But these aren’t just low-income ghetto dwellers that are buying the stuff, but rather upper-class executives.  One of them just happens to be the assistant of a city councilman, who of course has the power to pass an important bill for police funding.  Reluctantly, they let him go, but once the same girl is captured again, Hollander decides to go against the grain and ignore the councilman’s pull.

Another side note on Hollander:  The show goes through such great lengths to paint him as a level-headed, honest cop that it’s honestly disgusting.  No one would ever behave like this, at least in the real world, circa 2016.  He’s already gone out of his way to convict a cop that murdered a known cop-killer, and now he’s attempting to fight a highly influential councilman?  Gag me out the door.  I guess we’re supposed to appreciate his ethics, but they just feel so unnatural that it’s just another reason that it’s impossible to take him, and by extension, this show, seriously.

In the last bit (I’m going wildly out of order here), LaRusso starts falling in love with his attorney, who plans a trip to New York--and refuses to let him come with her.  Is she hiding something?  Or is she simply the womanizing LaRusso in female form?  Either way, it’s obvious that he is not happy, as he even tries exerting some of his machismo on her, attempting to control her into submission.  But even that can’t break her.  It’s apparent that he’s not used to this kind of treatment from a woman…is he going to end up falling for her?  If he does, will she reciprocate it?  I kind of hope I don’t have to answer that question.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, and at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I’ll say it again: This show sucks.  It has gotten to the point that I can’t even force myself to watch it more than once a week; at this point, I’d be glad to quickly force down the rest all at once, the way you used to force down liquor when you were younger, just for the sake of getting drunk as fast as possible.  But I honestly can’t do it…my heart sinks every time I’m faced with the prospect of sitting down to one of these, and my mind desperately searches for more important things that I have to do, just to get out of it.  Hopefully a future episode will change that, but I’m pretty sure we’re seeing the peak of the show, and getting an obvious glimpse as to why it was canceled.

EPISODE RATING: 3/10

FULL EPISODE

Cop Rock S1E4: A Three-Corpse Meal

Starring:
Anne Bobby as Off. Vicki Quinn
Barbara Bosson as Mayor Louise Plank
Vondie Curtis-Hall as Det. Warren Osborne
Ronny Cox as Chief Roger Kendrick
David Gianopoulos as Off. Andy Campo
Paul McCrane as Det. Bob McIntire
Larry Joshua as Capt. John Hollander
James McDaniel as Off. Franklin Rose
Ron McLarty as Ralph Ruskin
Mick Murray as Det. Joseph Gaines
Peter Onorati as Det. Vincent LaRusso

Written by: William M. Finkelstein and Toni Graphia and John Romano

Directed by: Fred Gerber

Well it has been two weeks since I forced myself to finish the last episode, and as much as I want to throw in the towel and call it quits on this ill-conceived series, I feel like I’ve come too far to fail.  Actually, I don’t feel that way at all; I’m just going to continue trudging through it for literally no other reason than unbridled stupidity.

I also decided to actually take notes for this episode, which will help me to remember all the reasons this episode sucks, both the obvious ones, and the more subtle ones.  I will be fair from the outset and state that, as bad as this episode is, I didn’t hate it.  Sure, it has some pretty terrible moments, and the songs continue to be the most forgettable (and simultaneously unforgettable) part of the show, but “Three-Corpse Meal” at least has one of the series’ first legitimately humorous parts, and that certainly has to count for something.

It also has a lot of continuing plotlines, so strap yourselves in: First things first, LaRusso, the cop who murdered a known cop-killer that was re-released to the streets without so much as a slap on the wrist, was convicted of his murder.  The judge sets the bail to $500,000 against the wishes of his defense attorney, and as LaRusso is being lead to his jail cell, he starts into a song about how he doesn’t fear anyone behind bars.  I actually didn’t hate this song--a statement which, as far as this show goes, is becoming the new “like”--but the refrain of “you can’t keep a good man down” seems hilariously misguided.  Is this merely how he sees himself, or are we supposed to be seeing him in that light, too?  Yes, the fact he was convicted of this crime would never have happened, both in real life, and in every other cop show ever made, so just the fact he finds himself in this situation is pretty dumb.  But the way he treats the people in his life (especially women), and the shady, reckless way in which he acts is pretty despicable, so I’ve actually been hating him from the outset.  Oops.  Anyway, to further this story so I don’t have to keep backtracking, his bail is considered unconstitutional, and is lowered to $10,000.  His defense attorney’s partner, an attractive female, agrees to pay three-quarters of it, if he covers the rest using $2,500 he has stashed away.  Of course, she has ulterior motives, which are obvious from the outset, and when he goes to thank her, they end up banging.

SONG: YOU CAN'T KEEP A GOOD MAN DOWN

Our good friend Patti, the young drug-addicted mother who sold her baby for a measly $200 in the first episode, makes her long-awaited return!  She asks Officer Vicki for help in getting her life, and then eventually, her baby back.  I didn’t know that sellers on the black market kept such strict files on all of the babies they buy and sell that it would be possible to trace where her baby ended up, but I must be wrong.  Must be so they can file taxes at the end of the year.

But just when “Cop Rock” heads toward a plot that might not actually be all that bad, we’re thrown a curveball: After Vicki agrees to help Patti, they have a sit-down meeting where Patti announces to all in attendance, including the Captain, that she sold her baby and wants to get her life back on track.  Well, at the end of this seemingly amicable discussion, the Captain decides to have her booked for her part in getting rid of her child for monetary gain.  When Vicki voices her displeasure, the Captain tells her she’s acting out of line, and refuses to listen to her.  What a heartless piece of trash this guy is turning out to be!  There’s also a song in here, but the less said about it, the better.

Vicki’s semi-fat, real old husband, the forensic expert named Ralph, also gets some screen-time.  After hanging up the phone and looking sad (to which another officer strolls in, and completely without tongue-in-cheek, asks: “Is someone dying?”), we learn that his doctor has ordered him to lose 35 pounds, or suffer the consequence of death.  Rather than this being a wake-up call, we just have to listen to him bitch about not being able to eat anything the rest of the time.  (I will say that there is a legitimately funny sequence--the second of the entire series--when Ralph responds to a triple homicide at a restaurant, which leads to the title reference.  It's obvious as hell, to the point that I knew it was going to happen well before it did, but both the setup and execution were done very well.)

Are you still with me?  Oh good…I thought you  had fallen asleep.  In the next plot setup that’s so obvious there’s no real reason to watch this show, Vicki and her partner, Andy, go undercover to bust the guy that bought Patti’s baby.  After suffering through a thoroughly-embarrassing song about how he’s a “baby merchant”, and that he always delivers on his promises, they eventually buy the baby and then he’s caught in a sting.  Hmm…I wonder how this could effect the relationship between Vicki and Andy, having them pretend to be husband and wife.  But just a reminder--she’s married to fat forensic expert Ralph.  Will his refusal to change his life cause him to die, thus opening the door for Vicki to pursue her relationship with Andy without any resistance?  Either way, you just know something’s going to happen between them.  I’m also wondering if the baby they happened to purchase might be Patti’s child after all…

In the last bit, we finally see the mayor after her plastic surgery.  I thought they would make a mockery of this storyline (well, moreso than they already have), and have some supermodel play her post-op, but it’s still the same actress, just with makeup removed to make her look like a normal person.  She goes on a date with Chief Kendrick, though I’m unsure why he wanted to take her out before seeing her (as he’s waiting on her, he even mutters under her breath about how ugly she is), but once he sees her, he is immediately smitten.  Their date ends on a positive note as she appreciates her newfound beauty in the mirror by singing a song that I honestly completely blocked out.

I think I've mentioned this before, but the show honestly could have been pretty good if it had just set some standards on the songwriting.  For starters, there is no need for five songs per episode, which I believe has been the quota up through now.  If the songs would have been used sparingly--say, maybe once or twice per show--then they could have focused on maintaining a high level of quality for each of them, while still being able to focus on the individual storylines.  Since the songs are such the focal point, then the writers are pretty much forced to give us ridiculous novelty acts like the aforementioned "Baby Merchant".

"BABY MERCHANT"

Just from watching the above clip, you would assume that this show is in on the joke, and aware of the preposterousness of such a premise.  Only, I'm not so sure.  While there have certainly been attempts at humor in some episodes, they're usually limited to the occasional joke here and there, with the majority trying to deal with weighty issues and more mature themes.  So that makes it infinitely tougher to tell what was going on through the minds of the writers when they were penning each song.  No matter which way you look at it, it doesn't work for me, because that essentially leaves two options: Either these songs were intentionally meant to be over-the-top, which kind of takes away all of the impact when the show tries to be gritty and take on serious themes (like racism and gay rights in a later episode), or the writers were blissfully unaware they were taking their own songs into the realm of self-parody, at which case the above problem still applies.  You can make jokes and still have a hard-hitting, powerful show; you cannot intentionally turn your show into a mockery of itself, and have the same outcome.

As an hour of episodic television, this episode was pretty bad, but by the impossibly low standards set by this show, it’s probably the best one yet.  Whether it will build off of the small bit of momentum its conjured up has yet to be seen, and the plots seem to be heading in pretty predictable directions, but at least the thought of watching the next ep shouldn't fill me with such a mounting, and inescapable, feeling of dread.

EPISODE RATING: 4.5/10

FULL EPISODE

Cop Rock S1E2: Ill-Gotten Gaines

Starring:
Anne Bobby as Off. Vicki Quinn
Barbara Bosson as Mayor Louise Plank
Vondie Curtis-Hall as Det. Warren Osborne
Ronny Cox as Chief Roger Kendrick
David Gianopoulos as Off. Andy Campo
Larry Joshua as Capt. John Hollander
James McDaniel as Off. Franklin Rose
Ron McLarty as Ralph Ruskin
Mick Murray as Det. Joseph Gaines
Peter Onorati as Det. Vincent LaRusso
Sidney Weitz as Dennis Lipscomb

Written by: William M. Finkelstein and Stephen Bochco and John Romano

Directed by: Gregory Hoblit

The first episode seemed to want to cram too many things in at once, with absolutely no “easing in” for the viewer; thankfully, here we have a chance to gather our senses.  Unfortunately, the plot that seems to be standing out in the spotlight is the most frustrating of the bunch: Capt. Hollander’s attempt to get to the bottom of what really happened to drug dealer, and known cop-killer, Tyrone Powers.

Powers, you will recall, was the cop-killing drug pusher from the first episode, who was killed by Officer LaRusso after he learned Tyrone was being detained without a warrant.  Rather than risk letting him go a second time (it was after he was released due to prison overcrowding the first time, that he ended up shooting a cop), he simply shot him dead, then made sure it looked like a shooting in self-defense.  And that’s how it looked to anyone who might have wandered into the crime scene, as LaRusso planted a machine gun on Powers’ body to make it look like he might have opened fire first.

It’s a little ridiculous that Captain Hollander would have even been able to tell just from looking at things that it was a homicide, rather than self-defense, and even stupider that he would keep pursuing it even after Internal Affairs ruled that LaRusso was correct in his actions.  If this were just a juvenile on a marijuana charge, I could understand his vendetta against LaRusso; but a cop-killer?  Come on…anyone in that department would just be happy he’s dead.  It’s just an ignorant storyline to have, and one that rings hollow, especially since police have long covered-up the “accidental” murders of people who have done far less.

“Ill-Gotten Gaines” starts off with the funeral service for Officer Braden, who was the cop killed by Powers.  Of course, his partner, Officer Rose, has to deliver a eulogy, and of course that eulogy has to come in the form of a song.  The shot of a saxophonist delivering the first few notes of the song is just another in a long-line of legendarily awful scenes; despite this false start, I have to admit that the song actually has a certifiable melody and some decent lyrics, automatically making it one of the better ones we’ve seen thus far (and by far the best one in this episode).

Meanwhile, Frank is returned to active duty patrolling the streets, and is given an awkward white cop as a partner who likes to sing Motown while they’re cruising the streets.  This upsets Frank, who simply wants to ride in peace, and he begs Hollander to find him a new partner.  Hollander refuses, though watching the way the rookie calmly and efficiently diffuses a potentially-dangerous situation wins him over, just as we knew something would.  There’s also a minor subplot involving a break-in at a rich house, but I’m thinking the only reason that’s thrown in there is so the show can provide us with two additional song-and-dance numbers: the first features Vicki and her partner Andy singing about how great it would be to be rich together, while the second is a cringe-inducing number featuring a gang of Cubans standing in a police lineup; it’s by far the worst of a bad bunch.

We’re only two episodes in, and the urge to throw in the towel is becoming more and more tempting with each passing minute spent watching this.  There are still nine episodes left.  At the current rate, that’s 36 mostly-intolerable musical sequences, and at least 9 more inane subplots that we’re going to have to slog through.  What’s amazing is that this show somehow still attempts to deal with real issues--there’s a sequence where a black cop is referred to as a “monkey” (though the derogatory term comes from another black man, which I guess lessens the impact some) that caught me completely off guard, but there’s just no room for a movie with dancing policemen to make any kind of serious statement whatsoever, and that‘s its biggest problem.  It’s nothing short of a complete failure overall, though at its best, which is incredibly rare, it at least manages to be a slightly interesting one.

EPISODE RATING: 3/10

FULL EPISODE