Chicago PD/ Law & Order SVU (2020) We stopped in to these two particular returning NBC cop shows for one reason.......
Since they take place in current, real time, we couldn't wait to see how these very different sets of police folk deal with all the catastrophic events of 2020......
And holy misery, where do we begin with that.......what with the Pandemic, the murders of George Floyd and Breanna Taylor, and the curious plague of 'Karens', hysterical racist women who seek to deploy cops on African Americans for no other reason.....than African Americans make them fearful.
Even before all these events descended upon America (along with the phrases 'wokeness' and '#MeToo') the Chicago PD cops, under the the command of raspy-voiced, law-unto-himself Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) remained stubbornly un-woke.
That was the show's raison d'etre.......watching Voight routinely hurl suspects into the precinct cage to beat the truth and/or confessions out of them......and sometimes exacting judge-jury-and-executioner justice on assorted 'perps', if the legal system failed his eye-for-eye standards.
And throughout the show's seasons, those who sought to curb Voigt, thwart him, or even indict him for his numerous illegalities (and suspicious deaths) inevitably failed.
This season, however, the new era landed on Hank Voigt like an avalanche. Evidence collected during one his wild 'no knock' raids was thrown out of court.
(And the Chicago PD's Deputy Superintendent (Nicole Ari Parker) had already warned Voight that any more of his bloody 'put-'im-the-cage' confessions' will get him fired.)
With no cage torture and no case to build against his perp, the killer of a small child, the enraged Voight, in typical fashion, sits parked outside the scumbag's house.......contemplating a Voight-style instant assassination.
Meanwhile, the black member of his squad Kevin Atwater (LaRoyce Hawkins) has the entire Chicago police force arrayed against him for ratting on a racist cop who was fond of stopping and beating black men for no other reason than.......well, you know how the rest of this goes....
Stay tuned for further developments......
Travelling east to New York City, the Law And Order: SVU gang never miss a chance to stage their own versions of whatever hot button issues and events are currently at the boiling point.....
The show's writers and producers especially love jamming two real life incendiary incidents into a single episode......a sort of 'buy one controversy, get one free' deal......
In true SVU style, the collision of an obnoxious 'Karen' with a the wrongful arrest of a black man for a brutal homosexual rape leads to a miserable, tragic outcome for almost everyone involved (except the real criminal....
Even when the squad finally captures the right perp (a simpering, smoothly lying white guy), the Grand Jury, disgusted, angry and fed up with police behavior, are easily suckered by the perp and refuse to indict him.
And the squad's captain, Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) finds herself in the crosshairs of Internal Affairs for neglecting to find out that the 'Karen', whose complaint started all this chaos was a serial false accuser.
Cue the standard Olivia Benson angst over another case that goes horribly awry for her.
As the shadows of George Floyd and Breanna Taylor loom over these TV shows, we can only wonder where the hurricane winds of change will blow these cops next.......for now, we'll give each of these episodes 2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2) for their efforts to cope with this terrible year's upheavals.....
We'll all stay tuned for further developments........
No comments:
Post a Comment