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

Natural Born Killers (1994)

Director: Oliver Stone
Writer(s): David Veloski, Richard Rutowski, and Stone. From a story by Quentin Tarantino.
Starring: Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Tom Sizemore, and Rodney Dangerfield

Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis play Mickey and Mallory Knox, respectively, a couple who spend the better part of two hours (of screen time) killing anyone that gets in their way.  Naturally, the media jumps all over their story.  But the problem is, their murders don’t disgust the nation; they seem to inspire it.  Before you know it, everyone is in on Mickey and Mallory Mania, not the least of whom is Wayne Gale, a sleazy tabloid reporter for the sleazy television series “American Maniacs”.  He knows the story could pull in huge ratings, so he arranges a sit-down interview with Mickey that will air right after the Super Bowl.

We’re just getting that out of the way, because the plot is largely secondary in Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers; it’s all about the ultra-stylish visuals: Video clips play in windows behind characters; some sequences are animated like comic books; shots are in black and white; lighting changes drastically in mid-scene to convey harsh changes in tone; disturbing moments involving child abuse are played out in a sitcom-style, complete with a laugh track.  It’s a hyper-kinetic grab bag of visual brilliance that manages to help carry the film, even after the one-note social commentary aspect starts to wear thin.

As relevant as the camaraderie between the media and murderers has always seemed to be (after all, the media craves ratings, and sensationalized stories of brutal murders have always succeeded in bringing them), the relationship has gotten even more out of hand since Natural Born Killers was released; this movie itself was the focus of copycats, who glorified (and misinterpreted) the film and used it as a launching point for their own sadistic crimes.  However, to put it into perspective, this was released five years before the tragic events of Columbine, perhaps the most “famous” of all shootings, and arguably the moment the media crossed the “point of no return”, where the constant exposure of the killers crossed the line into blatant glorification.  Outside of those closely impacted by the terrible events, very few can name even a single victim, but the killers themselves have become household names.

In other words, this is a movie that sadly only gets more and more relevant as the years go on, and one that threatens to stay that way for many decades to come.

Much of the film’s success lies in the hands of its stars: Harrelson and Lewis are perfect in the main roles.  Their chemistry is solid, and they can pull off low-class white trash like few others in Hollywood.  They ooze confidence and charisma underneath their sleaziness, giving them somewhat likable qualities that the everyday man can relate to; the way their exploits are presented to eager audiences hit a little too close to home for comfort.  The other performances are pretty good all around, but Tommy Lee Jones is the most notable of the secondary characters, in a ridiculously (and intentionally) over-the-top performance as prison warden Dwight McClusky.  He spits and spews his lines without restraint, yet it’s a performance befitting the material.

Quentin Tarantino wrote the original screenplay (before it was heavily revised by David Veloz, Richard Rutowski, and director Oliver Stone), and rumor has it that much of his original dialogue stayed intact through the final version.  This is partially the film’s biggest fault, with an elongated middle section that features long-winded monologues, in Tarantino’s style, that break up the film’s otherwise exciting assault on the senses (Interestingly, Tarantino has disowned the film, claiming: "I hate that fucking movie. If you like my stuff, don't watch that movie.")

Tarantino and his massive ego don't deserve to shoulder all of the blame, though: the whole “mainstream media is evil” angle, while entirely true, is a rather thin hook to hang a two-hour hat on.  As I’ve stated earlier, Mr. Stone does an admirable job of keeping things interesting, but there are just so many ways you can present the media’s influence on the outcomes of its subjects (which was the singular idea that turned the project from an Arnold Schwarzenegger-style action vehicle, to the satirical take on media that it became) over the span of 120 minutes, while still managing to keep it fresh.  In certain passages, it becomes clear that the filmmakers, lead by Mr. Stone himself, are simply content to beat a dead horse.

But rarely has beating a lifeless equine been so damn liberating—at its best, which it is for roughly three-fourths of its run-time, Natural Born Killers is an adrenaline-pumping bloodbath of epic proportions.  And like many of my favorite films, it has a natural obsession with pulling out all the stops; Stone throws everything in his repertoire at the viewer, and the effect is truly exhausting.  A fitting companion to the incredible visuals, the soundtrack (produced by Trent Reznor) is also phenomenal (supposedly, Reznor watched the movie 50 times to understand every scene and subtle nuance before committing music to the film), and really helps to accent the brilliance of the individual scenes.

It’s far from perfect, but Natural Born Killers is a daring film, and certainly one of the gutsiest mainstream releases of all time.  Even though it was released twenty years ago, it still feels like a film ahead of its time, and will continue to be as long as the media acts as enablers to violent acts, instead of using its considerable power to help curb them.

RECAP: The film’s potent, but one-note, social commentary wears thin, but Natural Born Killers is an unrelenting attack on the senses.  Featuring an outstanding soundtrack (by none other than NIN’s Trent Reznor) and a visual style that utilizes animation, black and white sequences, over-the-top lighting, and background projection (just to name but a few), this manages to be a kinetic thrill ride that sadly only becomes more and more relevant as the years go on.

RATING: 8.5/10

REALLY LAME OFFICIAL TRAILER

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

Near Dark (1987)

Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Writer(s): Bigelow, and Eric Red
Starring: Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, Lance Henriksen, and Bill Paxton

Near Dark is a horror movie that seems intently hellbent on avoiding being called a horror movie.  Just take a look at the IMDb entry for it, and you will find that it’s billed as an “Action/Crime/Drama” film; it’s not until you scroll down for the remainder of the genre classifications that the rest are revealed: “Horror/Romance/Thriller/Western” (?).  Much to my shock, and my wife’s excitement, “romance” should actually be in the top 3, because despite all of its (occasionally) gruesome violence, and vampiric theme, this is, above all, a love story.  Think of it as Twilight done right, if that will help.

Adrian Pasdar plays Caleb Colton, a simple country man who lives with his father, and young sister.  One night, while out and about, Caleb stumbles upon Mae (Jennifer Wright), a woman who’s looking for a ride home.  Caleb happily obliges, but things soon take a turn for the weird, when Mae suddenly seems very concerned about making it home before sunrise.  Not realizing the gravity of the situation, Caleb messes around with her, making her kiss him before taking her home—bad move.  As you can probably surmise by now, Mae is a vampire, and she gives him a “vampire’s kiss” before exiting the car and running the rest of the way home.

A confused Caleb attempts to return to his own home, but as luck would have it, his car won’t start—he instead has to make it home on foot.  As the sun rises and starts beating down on him, he gets sicker and sicker.  He’s about in his own yard when inhabitants of an RV kidnap him.  Inside is Mae, and the rest of her vampire family, lead by a genius-as-always Lance Henriksen, as the coolly-named Jesse Hooker.  It seems he has just a few days to prove “he belongs” with the nomadic vampire family, and of course his initiation consists of murdering innocent people for their blood.

And so Caleb must choose—does he ditch his “real life” family for true love, or vice versa?  Or does he find a convenient cop-out loophole that allows him to sacrifice nothing, while still ending up with the woman of his dreams? 

Near Dark was directed by a young Kathryn Bigelow, well before she hit the big time with films like The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty.  She makes the most of her comparatively low-budget here, amassing a solid cast, while also delivering some convincing special effects for the time period.  There are some clever scenes, like a daylight shootout with cops at a motel, in which every bullet from the police send piercing rays of light into the room, capable of injuring the vampires even more than the bullets can.  It’s inspired scenes like this that elevate Near Dark above typical vampire fare.

I have to confess that this movie just didn’t grab me the same way it did when I viewed it as a teenager about fifteen years ago.  I always remembered it being endlessly creative and genius, and while there are some cool scenes (like the aforementioned motel sequence), most of it is just straightforward and fairly predictable.  I actually did like how the “romance” aspect comes to the forefront, with both Caleb and Mae making literal sacrifices to prove just how much they love and care for each other (without either of them having to “sparkle”), but the end just felt a little too neat and straightforward for my liking.

RECAP: If you are a vampire movie fan, and don’t mind some intriguing twists on the genre, this is a solid film that should be required viewing.  Hell, really fans of most genres will find something to like here, as the horror aspects are generally downplayed (though there is a massacre sequence at a bar that’s pretty violent, especially for those not familiar with horror films), and the love aspects stand front and center.  The performances are solid, the effects are good, and there are enough clever twists on the vampire subgenre to keep even seasoned fans intrigued.  It’s generally predictable, and not nearly as excellent as I remember from an earlier viewing, but still a million times more inspired than average mainstream fare these days.

RATING: 7/10

TRAILER

Cop Rock S1E3: Happy Mudder's Day

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

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

Directed by: Charles Haid

It’s weird how quickly things have died down here on “Cop Rock”; the first episode crammed about three hundred plot points into a brief 48-minute episode, but many of them seem to have fallen by the wayside.  There are still eight episodes left (really, that many?!) so I suppose they might be saving some for a rainy day, but I have to be perfectly honest here: my interest is waning.  I literally feel like each episode is an entire season…it’s just getting too much to slog through.

Anyway, the writers made it simple on us (and themselves) by focusing on only two plot points for this entire episode: the ludicrous investigation by Captain Hollander into the shooting of a known cop-killer by Detective LaRusso, and a random side story about the mayor running for a Senate seat that has to be seen to be believed.

To recap for those just joining me on this headache-inducing adventure, Tyrone Powers was an African-American male who was arrested on drug charges, but was let go due to overcrowding in prisons.  Right after being released back into the general population, he shot and killed a cop named Gilbert Braden.  For this reason alone, he would be a wanted man, with a bounty put on his head.  Sure enough, cops discover his whereabouts and go to grab him, only there’s one little problem: they don’t have a warrant.  LaRusso realizes the situation, and that a known cop killer would be released back onto the streets, and so he shoots him dead, making the whole scene look like an act of self-defense.

But Hollander inexplicably thinks something is up right from the outset, and has spent the last two episodes trying to prove that LaRusso acted in the wrong.  Well, he might finally get the chance to prove it here, as he makes an offer to Officer Potter, LaRusso’s partner at the time and witness to the whole event in question: Hollander will grant him immunity in exchange for coming clean.

Meanwhile, the mayor, a homely old woman whose name escapes me (edit: Mayor Louise Plank), is approached by some political types who suggest that she run for a Senate seat.  They think she can get her elected, only there’s one problem: focus groups have declared that she is one of the ugliest women they’ve ever seen.  So she sees a plastic surgeon to try to fix some of her most glaring flaws.  As stupid as this plot point is, it’s the best one we’ve seen so far, as my wife and I have despised her character since day one, so hearing people rip into her appearance was a welcome surprise (and it’s bizarrely a situation that’s played for laughs.)

Some of the episode also focuses on LaRusso, as he does what any cop who’s being investigated by his captain would do: hang out in seedy locations as an undercover cop, just under his own accord.  Oh, and we also learn that he’s dating a mud-wrestler (!).  He nearly blows one undercover sting when the subject holds his girlfriend hostage--after pretending not to care about her, the man lets her go and accepts his arrest.  If only all hostage negotiations were this easy!

The songs in this episode are all trash.  There’s typically been at least one song per episode that’s been kinda good, but that streak comes to an end here.  The opening number finds the police chief singing a country song while riding through the rough streets on a horse--it’s actually a pretty catchy song, but the accompanying images only succeed in making it irredeemably cheesy, which is an exact 180 from what they were going for.  The next one belongs to LaRusso’s stripper girlfriend, whom he treats like trash.  In it, she wonders why she continues to put up with his attitudes toward her.  She might have legitimate claims, but, like many of the songs featured here, it never rises above third-rate melodramatic junk.

Then there’s the gag-inducing number between an African-American couple who had the police called on them during one of their loud arguments.  After the man steals the cop’s gun and threatens everyone in the room with it, he is eventually calmed down, which leads to a “tear jerking” song about how they still do truly love each other underneath all the pain.  Then, in the worst one yet, the surgeon assigned to fix the senator’s face breaks out in a song all about how he strives for “perfection”.  Oh, and there’s a final one between the cops and all the “low-lifes” that come in and out of the station.  Sigh.

I’ve got to be honest here: I’m having a hard time even feigning interest in, and building up the courage to, continue watching this series.  Just when it seems like it has hit a new low, it somehow manages to find a way to dig itself in deeper.  Even discounting the song and dance numbers--which of course is the entire point of the show--the plotlines are just absolutely terrible, giving the viewer nothing positive to even latch on to, making it an all-around failure.

RATING: 2/10

FULL EPISODE