A complex story that begins with the usual false lead. A woman is shot through the head from a nearby rooftop. Brisco and Curtis manage, however implausibly, to track down the person responsible for the shooting. He's just a snotty kid of about twelve who is the "slave" of a local drug dealer (Agustin). The kid (Adam Zolotin) runs errands, delivers cocaine, and sees to it that someone is bumped off when it's necessary. The dealer is the kid's virtual father.
How did this arrangement come about? The kid's mother (Karen Young) is a crack addict, and the small-time drug lord keeps her happy. The price is that the kid has become the Agustin's willing "slave." The kid worships only two things: his boss Agustin and his crack-head mother.
The episode is engaging for two reasons, aside from the depressing and Dickensian plot. There are a couple of outstanding performances. Not Agustin, the head villain. He's a stereotype and the part could have been phoned in. But Karen Young as the beaten-up, abject mother does a splendid job of projecting a kind of angry hopelessness. She was a shy but compliant whore in "American Psycho," which illustrates her range as an actress. Make up has made her blond hair and ordinary features convincingly lusterless.
The other is Adam Zolotin as the defiant and thoroughly corrupted kid who hates cops and refuses to involve his boss or his mother in the murder. Where does anyone find a twelve-year-old boy who can act so well? I'm not sure he could add such zest to any other role. It's hard to imagine his playing some introverted accountant. But that's just to emphasize how compelling his performance is here.
How did this arrangement come about? The kid's mother (Karen Young) is a crack addict, and the small-time drug lord keeps her happy. The price is that the kid has become the Agustin's willing "slave." The kid worships only two things: his boss Agustin and his crack-head mother.
The episode is engaging for two reasons, aside from the depressing and Dickensian plot. There are a couple of outstanding performances. Not Agustin, the head villain. He's a stereotype and the part could have been phoned in. But Karen Young as the beaten-up, abject mother does a splendid job of projecting a kind of angry hopelessness. She was a shy but compliant whore in "American Psycho," which illustrates her range as an actress. Make up has made her blond hair and ordinary features convincingly lusterless.
The other is Adam Zolotin as the defiant and thoroughly corrupted kid who hates cops and refuses to involve his boss or his mother in the murder. Where does anyone find a twelve-year-old boy who can act so well? I'm not sure he could add such zest to any other role. It's hard to imagine his playing some introverted accountant. But that's just to emphasize how compelling his performance is here.