I watch terrible television so you don’t have to.
New This Week
Death and Other Details (Tuesday, Hulu)
I watched the first four episodes this week. Once again on the suggestion of the algorithm, and once again this is a crime series. In the spirit of The White Lotus, a murder takes place on a cruise ship and suspects can be found amongst both the guests and the staff. Mandy Patinkin plays Rufus, a genius detective down on his luck and Violet Beane is Imogene, his protégé who he met when she was a child and he was hired to solve her mother’s murder, still unsolved and potentially connected to the present murder (of his previous protégé).
It’s a conceptual series with lots of gimmicks (narration, flashbacks, scenes being played from different perspectives etc.) and a healthy portion of childhood trauma. Plus crime lesbians. Clearly made for me.
Chicago Med (Thursday, Peacock)
Hannah (Jessy Schram) went on an app date, so she’s not dating any Archers. And the app date went well right up until his pregnant wife showed up in the ER and of course, went into early labor. So Hannah’s now giving up dating apps. But don’t worry, Dr. Ripley (Luke Mitchell) was also at the bar and of course, also at the hospital, so that’s a hook up waiting to happen.
Same for Crockett (Dominic Rains) and Zola (Sophia Ali), who got closer by helping a cancer patient get surgery so he could go to Italy with his husband before he died. She shamed the insurance company on social media, using something he said, which (eventually) spurred him to shame the insurance company to the hospital’s board of directors to which he was newly elected.
Meanwhile, Sharon (S. Epatha Merkerson) is getting it on with an oncologist, and Maggie (Marlyne Barrett) is stuck with another case that ends up being about her impending divorce. And I’m worried her own cancer is back.
Chicago PD (Thursday, Peacock)
This is a classic episode of Chicago PD in which it calls out the racism, violence, and corruption of the CPD while simultaneously holding up our team, also CPD, and their questionably legal methods as the best option. To wit, Chicago is a sanctuary city and the bad cops take advantage of it, up to and including the rape and murder of refugees. Kim (Marina Squerciati) is the good cop from jump: she speaks out against racism, notices the shooter before anyone else, is overtly kind to refugees, solves the case basically alone, arrests the rapist murderer, and still knows it’s not enough.
She’s also straight-up called a White Savior and she absolutely is one — she learned Spanish from her nanny, adopted a Black foster child, and used her own money to buy fake IDs when pushing on the system legally didn’t help her witness. She is very White and she is very much a Savior.
Law & Order (Friday, Peacock)
Speaking of racism in the (now NY)PD, Shaw (Mehcad Brooks) and Riley (Reid Scott) catch the pretty horrific homicide of a white woman that turns out to relate to the murder of a Black woman that Riley worked on in his previous assignment and also the murders of two other Black women. Their cases don’t have as much evidence and the victims were poor sex workers as well as Black so Jack (Sam Waterson) and Nolan (Hugh Dancy) choose to only prosecute the present case, overruling Sam (Odelya Halevi). When the case goes South, Nolan switches gears and brings in the prior bad acts, which in turn brings in Riley’s prior bad acts. But they win the day when Riley finds photos of the three other dead girls wearing jewelry found in the murderer’s possession.
The episode finally gives us reasons to care about Riley AND lets Camryn Manheim (as Lt. Kate Dixon) actually do something for once. So that’s good.
Law & Order: SVU (Friday, Peacock)
David Krumholtz has had a long and storied career as a character actor but to me he will always be Paul Sobriki, the schizophrenic who killed Lucy and hurt Carter on ER season six. It’s not at all fair, he’s an evocative actor, and this week’s Dr. Ray is no exception. Ray is one of the victims in the case of the week (two losers force a sex worker to rape a sad middle-aged man) and it’s really quite sweet to see him find his “swagger” as Bruno (Kevin Kane) puts it.
Captain Benson (Mariska Hargitay) got Office Gomez (Edie Salas Miller), whom she took a gun from during the teen hijinks of last week, transferred into the island of misfit toys that is SVU for some tough love mentoring. Fin (Ice-T) is the best mentor on the squad (sorry, just facts) but I do love Liv taking young women under her wing. And Liv is the best leader, proved by how well Fin and the boys, including Carisi (Peter Scanavino), do after she leaves on a Maddie side quest with Gomez.
Maddie Watch: Oof. The board is up in the squad room to haunt them all and Liv takes Maddie’s mom’s call in the middle of a conversation and then leaves— because Maddie’s dad tried to kill himself. That’s a lot! Poor Gomez gets thrown right into the deep end. But Liv took off her MADDIE bracelet (left it in the girl’s jewelry box) and went to get therapy after work, so those are positives.
Law & Order: Organized Crime (Friday, Peacock)
Things progress. The case is easily the least interesting or important thing to progress, sorry crime, but they learn that the bad guys were using the Imam/mosque’s refugees (?) to smuggle emeralds and other gems and probably other things (?) in their bodies. Idk, it’s convoluted and it involves cutting pockets for the jewels into people’s chests, and who does that? Anyway, they rescue one of the mules and his kid. And they trace the blonde “Dutch” assassin to an underground gun rental operating out of a bodega. And then Elliot (Christopher Meloni) shoots him and he falls off the roof proving he wasn’t important (can Elliot please catch a break tho).
Romance drama inches along. Bell (Danielle Moné Truitt) warns Jet (Aisnley Sieger) not to let her not-so-secret relationship with Bobby (Rick Gonzalez) become a problem she has to clean up while Elliot advises Bobby to keep Jet out of his trauma/drama/mess. Jet is embarrassed but takes it well while Bobby lashes out by throwing Elliot’s history with Olivia into the mix. Elliot shows emotional maturity again by not taking the bait but I find the ongoing implication that the Benson and Stabler situationship is legendary across the entire NYPD hilarious and delightful. And speaking of situationships, Bell and Shah (Nicole Shalhoub) continue to have a complicated history that complicates the present. Parallels!
Finally, we get set up for next week’s promised Stablers chaos: Randall (Dean Norris) plans a family dinner at Elliot’s and then surprises Elliot with a Joe Jr. (Michael Trotter) reunion. First of all, I have three brothers and this show nails the big-middle-little dynamic perfectly. Second, we learn the sisters are named Sharon and Dee. Third, I love seeing Bernie (Ellen Burstyn) with her two boys and I can’t wait to see her with her three. Fourth, Trotter played Muncey’s brother on SVU last year and I need someone to write the AU where Olivia unknowingly recruits Elliot’s sister into her squad.
Also Watching
Catching up on CSI: Vegas in preparation for its return on the 18th.
Mental Illness Sidebar
Toward the end of this week’s SVU, Olivia seeks out EMDR therapy. It stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing and is most often used to address post-traumatic stress. I participated in an EMDR study for use in anxiety disorders. The idea is to use outside stimuli (eye movement) to jumpstart the brain’s natural healing processes. I like that the show didn’t explain because I prefer the audience learning about the process from experts rather than a quippy line of dialogue, e.g. everything George Huang ever said. That choice will probably be reversed in the coming weeks, but still. Also: I continue to believe we are meant to connect Gomez and her gun to S12 and the EMDR suite being on the 12th floor supports that.
Over on Organized Crime, Bobby takes out his aggressions on a perp and is immediately sent into therapy, I love this new world.
Ship of the Week
Definitely Adam (Patrick John Flueger) and Kim, who got engaged (again) on Chicago PD. I’m annoyed that Adam is completely fine after being near-fatally shot by a child while undercover last year BUT they are the perfect combination of angst and fluff and they most certainly belong together so I’ll take it.
Show of the Week
Death and Other Details is easily the best crafted on this list.
What are YOU watching?