Wednesday's outing was yet another exciting, engaging, emotional, funny, raw episode of the best show no one is watching. Over the past several episodes, I've really grown to love these characters, especially Hank (played by, a
s it turns out, the utterly brilliant Donal Logue). Logue has been on my radar since the days of ER (he played Dr. Lewis' paramedic boyfriend, as I recall), and I've always enjoyed him. Even though he was woefully miscast in Life, which made his character a bit difficult to endure, he still made the best of it on yet another great show that was cut short. He has long been known as a comedic actor, and he certainly has the comic chops to keep me smiling throughout even the darkest of times, but what has really grabbed me with his role on Terriers is his dramatic talents. This last episode delved into the darkest recesses of his past and the hardest time of his life and put it all on full display. In short, wow.Hank is the kind of character that you like immediately. While it was never a secret that he used to be an alcoholic, and that his drinking led to his divorce and his dismissal from the police force, it was always a little difficult to picture Hank as a total lush. He's rough around the edges, to be sure, but he had a deeply-rooted sense of morality that I could hardly imagine being overcome by booze. Well, leave it to Logue to show how a warm, funny, morally irreproachable guy can start out as an out-of-control trainwreck who affects others in the worst possible ways. Logue did a lovely job balancing the different levels of Hank's personality and transmuting them with alcohol abuse. You could still see the lovable rogue inside him, but it was buried deeper. He moral compass was still steadfast, but his level of control over how to handle his moral outrage was essentially non-existent. At his core, he's a good guy who looks out for others and tries to help people, but when alcohol was thrown in, it finally became clear how such a wonderful guy let his life fall apart. Most other shows would have had Hank being a reprehensible lush that everyone hated, but with Terriers, they truly understand the gray areas of life. In fact, they luxuriate in them. It's where the show is at its best. Life isn't black and white, and the characters on this show embody the grayness in an incredibly grounded way.
The flashbacks in this episode were masterfully integrated and managed to illuminate the reasons for Hank's problems with Gretchen, the case that got him booted from the force, and in a very nice surprise, how he met Britt. When I read the description of the episode, I expected a lot of things, but that truly caught me off guard and in the best possible way. Holding true to the characters themselves, the Britt of three years ago has the same basic core as the Britt of today, but is at a different stage of his life. Britt was still a thief and factored into Hank's investigation into a series of rapes in a coherent and consistent way. I have no doubt that Britt was about to rob the house of the would-be rape victim, but I would expect nothing less than for him to startle the rapist and call 911 for help, even if it meant he got nicked in the process. Britt lives in the gray area with the rest of them. The writers have a hell of a task on their hands in handling characters who are so variable in realistic and consistent ways, but they do so with surprising aplomb. Every character's actions are true to that character and even when they do unexpected things, in the context of who they are, it always makes some sense.
Case in point, Britt beating the shit out of Katie's supposed one-night-stand. I love Britt, and Britt loves Katie more than anything, so even after watching him cleaning his stuff out of the apartment and curtly leaving, I could still absolutely see him reacting to this guy with violence. Again, the moral compasses on this show are rooted in a certain place, but the character's actions are no where near as cut and dry. I knew Britt was going to confront the guy and probably have some sort of altercation, but I was shocked and a little repulsed by the fight. I honestly thought Britt might have killed the guy for a second. A lot of shows would have posited this situation as badass--a guy getting even with the man who slept with his fiance, but Terriers is more authentic than that. Beating a guy unconscious is not badass. It's brutal. And it carries some devastating consequences for those involved. I was dismayed by Britt's actions, but at the same time, I just wanted to give him a hug. He would never lay a hand on Katie, so he essentially took all his rage and pain and loss out of this guy's face. The only thing more devastating was seeing Britt's reaction to the truth. I wasn't sure Hank would tell him the truth, but when he did, it was hard to watch. Not only was Britt in deep shit for his actions, but he didn't even beat up the right guy. To boot, Hank has known about the affair since day one and he's the one who convinced Katie not to say anything. Ouch. Poor Britt. He really only has a couple of people in his life and now they've both betrayed him. At least he still has the dog? (Speaking of which, was anyone not crying when Katie said goodbye to the dog? Just heartbreaking.)
This show has so much going for it in terms of character that the A-plots should hardly matter, but with Terriers, even aspect of an episode is so well-integrated that every plotline affects every other plotline in some way. They all tie together seamlessly and it makes for a much more dramatic effect. The A-plot this week, with the rape case from three years ago was gut-wrenching and surprising. I watch a lot of TV and it has become harder and harder for shows to really fool me, but I have to admit, I didn't even kind of see it coming that one of Hank's fellow detectives was the rapist. God, that scene where the rape victim listened to the line-up of men read a sentence her masked attacker had said in hopes of making an ID was incredibly well-crafted. Having the victim ID the detective who filled in the line-up had the exact desired effect on me. I was heartbroken that the victim was unable to make a positive ID. I honestly thought the guy Hank had pinpointed was the perp, so when she asked for the detective to read the line again because, "It might be him... I'm can't be sure," I assumed she was just too shaken to remember. "You did very well" says Hank's partner, obviously thinking along the same lines as the audience. She simply can't remember. Or the guy simply isn't in the line-up. Never did I guess that he actually was. When it was revealed that in fact she was absolutely right, that guy #2 was the right guy, that a man who was supposed to protect and serve had raped countless women, I was truly surprised. What a great reveal. It's just so devastating to know that Hank's life fell apart over this and that he really had been set-up to take the fall. The A-plot here informs on the characters beautifully and it makes it perfectly clear how a guy we love so much came to be where he is.
I could gush on and on about this show, but I'm guessing no one who reads this blog watches this show, so it's largely moot. I think this show is superb, but it has a lot working against it in terms of generating viewers. The title alone is quirky, and if you already watch the show, it suits it perfectly, but if you don't already watch it, it sounds like a show about dogs (as Flavia excitedly asked me the first time I mentioned it). Also, this show is so layered and has so many wonderful qualities that it must have been hell on earth for FX to figured out a marketing strategy. They presented it as a buddy detective show, but that's really not it at all. This show is not Psych, plain and simple. It's way better, in fact. There are only a few episodes left of this season, and while I'm hoping for a miracle, I'm realistic. This show has been getting far more buzz lately than it's network cohort Sons of Anarchy, but sadly, it has far less viewers. I'm not going to lie, this wouldn't be the easiest show to jump into this late in the game, but in terms of quality, it's well-worth the effort to track it down. It's far and away one of the very few gems this fall in what is otherwise a complete waste was time.
And if all that's not enough, the theme song is catchy as hell... even if I can't quite understand most of the lyrics.
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