We'll get to Chicago Fire in a subsequent post. "The eternal verities frequently come up in Chicago Fire, and the way the protagonists in the P.D. grapple with their frequently troubled lives (perhaps comfortable people don't go to the Police Academy or Firefighter Academy?) and keep their sanity and get the job done, plus the odd object lesson. That Northern Illinois's Joe Minoso has one of the more interesting firefighter roles is a plus." That's become the "good guys win a few" interlude between Chicago Med, which I no longer watch, and Chicago P.D., which is sometimes NBC's Act of Contrition, and sometimes a culture-studies lecture.
Consider how TV Fanatic's Jasmine Blu describes the plot of the Chicago P.D. finale, which ends with a principal character in hospital. "Hatred lives here, it's bred here, and it's statistically the number one threat to Americans presently, white supremacy." It's NBC, and they're carrying Dementia Joe's water again, but the finale took a lot of building up to, with the special unit investigating a drug kingpin who had a side hustle as a white nationalist, and Adam Ruzek cultivating the kingpin's daughter as an informant. It did not end well. "It's apt and timely for the series to delve into that a bit, and it's been a slow burn with them and this case as Ruzek has gone undercover for months and all this season's Ruzek-centric."
There was all sorts of potential for Fire and P.D. to combine efforts and combine the two terrorist plots, one involving a threat to power substations, the other the blatant ripoff of Helter Skelter. But no, the power substation was two guys with one serious rifle, and Helter Skelter had to begin before school was out for the summer. That provided more sausage for the culture studies grinder.
Ruzek kept trying to save her and extend her all of these lifelines long after it was warranted, and if that's not some subtle commentary on the race and gender relations at play there, then what is?It's a strange world we live in, where what I saw instantly as the messed up hillbilly lady becomes a white fragility trope. It's almost enough to make me give up on the series. Not so for Jasmine. "Because the disproportionate response to and treatment of them is vast compared to those who are poorer or browner, yes?" No. The closing scenes where Callum figures out that Kevin Atwater shot his grandfather invoke the same sort of radicalization narrative that often figures in recent episodes, with Detective Atwater, who had to send a brother to Florida to keep him away from gangs, and whose father did a term in Stateville; or Detective Torres, who was a gang enforcer in high school. Previous TV Fanatic reviews of P.D. episodes have complained about the writers milking the antagonism in the black and Hispanic neighborhoods between police from those neighborhoods and residents therein. Why not expand the set of neighborhoods where such antagonism exists? "Callum is alive, and now, his hatred is even more pronounced because he watched Atwater shoot his grandfather. The evil glare he gave him was enough to give you chills."
Because even with her getting someone killed, killing people, running a drug game with her father, and quietly existing in the racist ideologies he's implemented, somehow, Samantha is supposed to be this poster child for white woman fragility.
The most amusing parts of the evening were the commercials. The Bud Light country music advert ran at one station break, and one of the Budweiser patriotic spots ran at another. I wonder if that's another unforced error in St. Louis. The title mentions police, yes, but the investigations are secondary to the Peyton Place going on at the station, or the firehouse, or the hospital.
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