I Watch TV: S.W.A.T. Season 2
I noted in my review of the first season of SWAT that the show had a minor interest in institutional change of the policing (and thus the city) of LA. Anyway this season introduces an antithesis to this thesis, in the form of recurring villains the Emancipators. They have three interesting elements; they’re fans of 60s and 70s radical groups (recreating some actions of the Symbionese Liberation Army in particular). They like holding people hostage to have corporations, billionaires, and eventually the city spend money on improving the lives of the poor. And they like setting up automated ambushes that will cause the police to over react and kill innocents.
Fortunately the SWAT team is VERY SMART and also TOO PROFESSIONAL to be fooled into making a massacre and creating martyrs, presumably because the senior officers remember things that have happened before in LA. I’m just saying. (Also they’re the heroes). St Q, the leader of the Emancipators tries to get under Hondo’s skin about this, digging in on the problems and doubts he’s been experiencing with class, race etc throughout the season.
Hondo gets a girlfriend, loses her, then he and his mum become guardian of the son of a childhood friend (who is in prison). He also take the opportunity of a case where some criminals stealing military supplies to finally apologise to a former marine buddy of his for quitting the corps, saying that fighting the war in Somalia was less important than promoting change at home.
Everyone else gets some character bits too. Street, having got kicked off SWAT, is too cool for patrol and manages to get back on, despite budget cuts (which are partially reversed after SWAT save the city comptroller’s daughter). His Mum, Sherylin Fenn, the reason he got kicked off, goes missing and misses parole hearings. He tracks her down in time for the end of the season and stops covering for her, turning her in to get her off the drugs. I’m not sure this is actually a good thing, but he’s maybe growing up and it certainly makes him a better cop.
Deke goes into debt after his wife had a brain injury last season, and then they have another baby, and he spirals around doing some dodgy things to make money, eventually turning down the chance to have his own team and replace the supporting actor who turns up with the speaking role when more than one SWAT team is required (he gets a couple of good episodes, then retires). Eventually they sort it out. Also it turns out his wife is homophobic.
Chris links up with a couple to make a threesome, with responses from the team ranging from mild jocularity to mild discomfort to hitting on Chris (showing that Street is not growing up as much as he should). Also she goes undercover with the Captain in Mexico, using her Spanish and she also has to take the lead in the slightly confused attacks on LA’s Gay Pride events, especially as a queer gun club, the brilliantly named Straight Shooters, threaten to go vigilante. It’s another of SWAT's attempts to show that they need to do the work to gain the trust of minority communities, trust in this case involving the Catholic and mildly disapproving Deke blocking a truck with his own and being injured, so he can’t do overtime to help pay off his debts. It actually fits together pretty well.
Oh, her dog dies too.
Luca finally gets a house, in a bad neighbourhood that needs fixing up as part of a get-cops-to-live-in-the-areas-they-police scheme. Street moves in with him and they spend their b-plot time trying to get to know the local gang leader which starts to work out maybe a bit? They have some respect if not trust by the end.
Tan has some romance, we meet some of his family, he’s our entry into chinatown. I don’t know if it’s me, but I kind of feel he gets the least to do? He spends a lot of time telling people things they should know and asking them things we the adueince need to know to catch up.
As noted the series gives us a bit more of a couple of characters from outside the core team, Mumford the other SWAT leader and Hicks the commander, as well as Captain Cortez who was being written to be taken out of the main cast (either away undercover with the FBI or promoted with the LAPD. Though there’s the possibility of – Thesis: I can do more good on the street undercover. Antithesis: I can do better high up in the LAPD working on institutional change. Synthesis: Some kind of wacky TV twist)
I’ve put a lot of words here, hoping to find my point, the reason why I keep watching, what lifts SWAT to make it stand out from the genre of American TV shows in which heavily armed cops kick down doors, drive armoured cars and shoot drug dealers. I don’t know if I have seen anything other than a slightly more nuanced view of the difficulties of building trust in communities that only ever see the police as on the side of everyone else except them. But if it does then:
SWAT Season 1: A very intense black guy from a rough neighbourhood is not enough, you need institutional change too
SWAT Season 2: Incremental change is too slow, but violent revolution only hurts the innocent
SWAT Season 3: [My prediction] Obviously we don’t have a solution but here’s some things to think about? You know?
Watch This: For an action cop show that is thinking about action cops and their actions
Don’t Watch This: If after the door-kicking, car-chasing, drug-dealer-shooting of your show you don’t want to have it put into any kind of context
Comments