Here are the positives: Cush Jumbo and Peter Capaldi. They are, as you would hope since they're the lead actors, by far the best part of this series. The rest is overwrought, and inexpertly written.
The choices Jumbo's DS Lenker makes are questionable at best, and indicative of ethical failures at worst. The "I'm fighting for justice" attitude that Lenker wears as she breaks more and more regulations is belied by the fact that she casually misuses secure access to pacify her mentally disturbed mother's paranoid fantasies. Her excuse to her husband when he is surprised she would break these rules, is to tell him she won't let her mother be locked away again. Excuse me, what? How does indulging a person with mental problems prevent their being put in lock down? It's only Jumbo's significant skill as an actress that makes these nonsensical bits of dialogue slide by almost unnoticed.
Capaldi plays a role where we're forced early on to hate him, as not subtle nasty bread crumbs and his glowering presence convince us he's dirty.
This series proposes to expose the difficulty of fighting racial prejudice and white privilege while in public service. What happens instead is to present us with a morally challenged heroine who can't get out of her own way: use police search credentials for a relative? Disregard her supervisor's order to cease work on a case; falsify credentials and scheduling paperwork to interview an inmate she was told to stay clear of; disregard protocol in an interview to serve her own interests; lie to her husband as she pursues things that put him and their son at risk. In later episodes the forced debate between Lenker and her white husband don't feel believable. How can a couple of mixed race not have delved deeply into racial issues long before their son has turned 12? Not authentic. And both the husband and son completely disappear in the last episode. Terrible writing.
All of that said, Cush Jumbo is so believable and effective in her scenes that you're hoping Lenker will figure out how to win the day without cutting corners, and realize her methods may compromise the ending she seeks. However, as the series progresses the writing puts Jumbo's character in positions that a knowledgeable police officer wouldn't allow herself to be caught in. Confront a corrupt cop in private and reveal what evidence you have on him? Arrest the corrupt cop's criminal asset, and confront the cop in a dark deserted location? No way.
Capaldi is left to glare suspiciously, creepily blackmailing nearly everyone he works with, and utter dialogue that is contradictory. It's supposed to make him appear conflicted, but it doesn't work. There are moments where, because of his performance, you are led to wonder when he started crossing a professional line. And the flashbacks seem to indicate that higher-ups are the ones that led him in a direction that targeted people of color because it fit their narrative. This part of the story is a mess. The writers can't seem to decide how they want it played. What we see is Haggerty (Capaldi's character) pushed to provide a quick, politically oriented end to the murder of Adelaide. His connection to Errol's son (Patrick) seems born out of guilt. The wild herring disclosure of his daughter's addiction ends up having nothing to do with anything important, and we never see why she started using. And it's NEVER revealed why he's picking up fares as a Lyft driver. Utter B. S.
The last episode feels anticlimactic, and rushed. It's as though the writers realize they've stretched everything out too far, and then try to cram everything into one hour.
The last ten minutes feature Lenker chasing down another loose end, discovering that Haggerty had the information he needed to convict the white perpetrator, but instead implicated Errol. We've already seen this exposed in other ways. No value. We're left to see Capaldi refusing to confirm Lenker's second time accusing him, seeing him putting his phone down with a slight smirk. Stupid.
Not recommended.
The choices Jumbo's DS Lenker makes are questionable at best, and indicative of ethical failures at worst. The "I'm fighting for justice" attitude that Lenker wears as she breaks more and more regulations is belied by the fact that she casually misuses secure access to pacify her mentally disturbed mother's paranoid fantasies. Her excuse to her husband when he is surprised she would break these rules, is to tell him she won't let her mother be locked away again. Excuse me, what? How does indulging a person with mental problems prevent their being put in lock down? It's only Jumbo's significant skill as an actress that makes these nonsensical bits of dialogue slide by almost unnoticed.
Capaldi plays a role where we're forced early on to hate him, as not subtle nasty bread crumbs and his glowering presence convince us he's dirty.
This series proposes to expose the difficulty of fighting racial prejudice and white privilege while in public service. What happens instead is to present us with a morally challenged heroine who can't get out of her own way: use police search credentials for a relative? Disregard her supervisor's order to cease work on a case; falsify credentials and scheduling paperwork to interview an inmate she was told to stay clear of; disregard protocol in an interview to serve her own interests; lie to her husband as she pursues things that put him and their son at risk. In later episodes the forced debate between Lenker and her white husband don't feel believable. How can a couple of mixed race not have delved deeply into racial issues long before their son has turned 12? Not authentic. And both the husband and son completely disappear in the last episode. Terrible writing.
All of that said, Cush Jumbo is so believable and effective in her scenes that you're hoping Lenker will figure out how to win the day without cutting corners, and realize her methods may compromise the ending she seeks. However, as the series progresses the writing puts Jumbo's character in positions that a knowledgeable police officer wouldn't allow herself to be caught in. Confront a corrupt cop in private and reveal what evidence you have on him? Arrest the corrupt cop's criminal asset, and confront the cop in a dark deserted location? No way.
Capaldi is left to glare suspiciously, creepily blackmailing nearly everyone he works with, and utter dialogue that is contradictory. It's supposed to make him appear conflicted, but it doesn't work. There are moments where, because of his performance, you are led to wonder when he started crossing a professional line. And the flashbacks seem to indicate that higher-ups are the ones that led him in a direction that targeted people of color because it fit their narrative. This part of the story is a mess. The writers can't seem to decide how they want it played. What we see is Haggerty (Capaldi's character) pushed to provide a quick, politically oriented end to the murder of Adelaide. His connection to Errol's son (Patrick) seems born out of guilt. The wild herring disclosure of his daughter's addiction ends up having nothing to do with anything important, and we never see why she started using. And it's NEVER revealed why he's picking up fares as a Lyft driver. Utter B. S.
The last episode feels anticlimactic, and rushed. It's as though the writers realize they've stretched everything out too far, and then try to cram everything into one hour.
The last ten minutes feature Lenker chasing down another loose end, discovering that Haggerty had the information he needed to convict the white perpetrator, but instead implicated Errol. We've already seen this exposed in other ways. No value. We're left to see Capaldi refusing to confirm Lenker's second time accusing him, seeing him putting his phone down with a slight smirk. Stupid.
Not recommended.