Okay, so to say I hate cop shows is an over-generalization. I should clarify that I hate cop procedurals. Much to my delight, The Chicago Code looks to be much more of a serial than most of its genre compatriots. When it comes to TV, I'm will to accept just about any conceit, any backdrop, and any genre,
so long as what happens in episode 1 actually matters in episodes 2 and 3. Hell, some of my favorite shows fall into genres that don't generally populate my DVR, but a good serial is a good serial, regardless of subject matter. Meth cookers, 1920s gangsters, backwoods Kentuckian drug dealers, US Marshals, Baltimore cops... they're all fair game when the story actually matters.The story of The Chicago Code matters. It's not just the story of some random cops taking down A-plot bad guys-of-the-week. It's a story about a city, a social and political heritage, and the people born of such a place. The show was originally titled Ride-Along, and having seen the pilot, the change was warranted. This show isn't just looking at the job, it focuses a magnifying glass at the underlying infrastructure of one of the country's most infamous cities and the police who are trying to make a difference. That sounds incredibly saccharine, but when told through Shawn Ryan's lens, it's gripping and effective.
I have yet to watch Ryan's past show The Shield (it's on my list), but having recently loved and lost Ryan's Terriers, I should have known I was in for far more than a typical Fox drama. The show focuses on police lieutenant Teresa Colvin (played surprisingly well by Jennifer Beals) as she uses her new position of power to try to chip away at Chicago's criminal
infrastructure from top to bottom. The pilot began with her doing voiceover narration which made me a little leery, but as the episode unfolded, the narrative reins were handed from character to character. It wasn't so much a cheesy device to impart lazy plot exposition as an effective means of introducing characters and giving them some genuine interest and perspective. It felt more like they were narrating the documentary of their lives and their city, complete with artistic flashbacks to their pasts. Passing it from character to character worked incredibly well and got me invested in these people and this show almost instantly, which allowed the show to deliver quite an emotional wallop with only the pilot under its belt.Along with Beals, Jason Clarke stars as Detective Jarek Wysocki, Colvin's former partner and newest recruit in her war on corruption. There are a lot of ways the show could have taken this dynamic. At various points during the pilot, I expected the standard "she's a hard-ass, he's a loose-cannon" trope, the "they used to be lovers but now they have to work together" storyline, and worst of all, the deplorable "she's a woman in power who's in over her head and needs someone to save her" bullshit. To my delight and surprise, the writers have played against all those predictable and unwatchable conceits
and constructed a rather fresh and engaging relationship between them. Wysocki, playing against type, completely respects Colvin, admires her accomplishments, and feels she is eminently capable. Having the lead male actor, the rough-and-tumble bad boy (sort of) of the show show complete trust in Colvin's abilities helped quash a lot of the the potentially problematic gender issues with the show. Other cops, dirty cops Colvin is ousting that is, might point to her sex as a liability and use it as a flimsy excuse for the way things are, but not Wysocki. In this way, the writers are able to address issues of gender without crippling the show under the weight of a tired routine. Colvin won't have to spend every waking minute proving herself because to the people in this show who actually matter, she already has. Along with Wysocki, Colvin's partner (sort of) Antonio, Wysocki's new partner Caleb, and Wysocki's fellow police officers trust and respect her. That goes a long way to improve the narrative and make this a show that doesn't have me rolling my eyes and cringing.Wysocki and Colvin form the backbone of the show and I'm already rather intrigued with their dynamic. The writers did a nice job constructing a relationship that had an ambiguous past and a limitless future. They were partners, are friends, and you believe it. He's been established in such a way that the audience likes him, values his opinion, and most importantly, can believe that he's comfortable having a woman in power. Something as simple as positing his dream movie star against his partner's went a long way. Where his new partner came up with Phoebe Cates in Fast Times at Ridgemont
High as his wet dream, Wysocki counters with, "Audrey Hepburn, in anything she's ever been in." To juxtapose the typical, juvenile fantasy of Phoebe Cates (which I type "Cakes" every single time, go figure) taking off her bikini with the pinnacle of class and elegance, they've established Wysocki in a way that makes his relationship with Colvin all the more believable. Going one step beyond that, Wysocki, who can't seem to keep a partner for more than a day, goes so far as to say he prefers a female partner. He's been established as a bit of a player (he's engaged to a 27-year-old, but is still sleeping with his wife), so that may seem to indicate that he's simply a Lothario who'd rather stare at a pretty female partner all day, but when it comes to this job, a cop needs someone who has his back. Wysocki may be a ladies' man, but when push comes to shove, he's as comfortable with a female partner, if not more so, than a male (although his new partner seems to be sticking around, and for good reason--rather than being your typical newb, he's actually pretty talented). You can immediately believe how Colvin and Wysocki worked so well as partners. Neither of them has anything to prove and neither of them has gender hang-ups keeping them from connecting. She's
not some power-hungry mega-bitch trying to exert dominance in a boys' club. She's just a cop, trying to clean up the city--a goal in which Wysocki is also invested.I feel like I'm beating the gender issue to death, but it really could have been a horrendous element of the show and turned out to be one of its strongest assets. As such, I can't help but to elaborate. Adding to the gender dynamics of the show are Wysocki's niece Vonda, a new cop, and her partner. During Vonda's voiceover, we learn that when her father was killed (also a cop), Wysocki took her in, and when she told him she wanted to be a cop, he not only didn't discourage her, he pulled strings to get her into the academy quicker. For a viewer such as myself, confidence in the abilities of women goes a hell of a long way and it endeared Wysocki instantly. The show doesn't go overboard in this arena though. This review is making him sound like a card-carrying feminist, and that's really not the impression he gives at all. More than anything, he simply strikes me as a person for whom gender doesn't really matter when it comes to most things, including the job. It simply isn't a factor that really matters all that much. He was established in such a way that when his niece is injured chasing down a bad guy, he gives her a hard time, but not because "this job isn't safe for a girl" as you might expect from a typical cop show. He simply addresses an err
or in procedure and tells her to be careful the way he would anyone else. He also gives a tantalizing possible hint at his past with Colvin when he asks Vonda if she's sleeping with her partner (who, it just hit me, is played by Todd Williams, aka Bobby Dershewitz on In Plain Sight (!)), saying, "Trust me, being partners is enough to handle." Or something like that. Does this point to something more in his past with Colvin? Or has he simply been around long enough to have seen the fallout before? Whatever it is, I'm thoroughly intrigued. Add to that the fact that Vonda swears she isn't sleeping with her partner, but that she later reveals that she's terrified something might happen to him, and the waters are delightfully muddied once again. They set Colvin and Wysocki up in such a way that a romantic pairing at some point isn't out of the question, but it's very clear that this show isn't hinging on the "will they or won't they" shenanigans of other shows. They have a very different vibe than that at this point and I appreciate it.Now that I've spent 5 pages establishing just how much of a non-issue gender is, I can move on to the rest of the show. Please try to keep the Hallelujah chorus to yourselves. At the center of the narrative is Colvin's fight against corruption from the top down. The pilot creates an overarching storyline that will allow for the show to grow into nearly any direction it wants to. High ranking city alderman Patrick Gibbons (played to perfection by Delroy Lindo) is as corrupt as they come and is more than willing to kill to maintain power. When Colvin and Wysocki start to uncover some of his shadier dealings, things get even messier than they already were (Gibbons having hired a hit of a whistle-blower who
could have exposed his operations). As Colvin recruits Wysocki to form a special task force to look into Gibbons' brand of crime, he takes decisive action. In what came as quite a jarring surprise, the narrative reins had been handed over to Colvin's partner Antonio who was in the middle of giving details about his upbringing, how Colvin had saved him from the streets and encouraged him to be a cop, when his story is cut short. His narration and flashbacks stop almost mid-beat as he and Colvin are gunned down in the street. I honestly didn't see it coming, and even though I only just met these characters, I was emotionally invested in the outcome. That simple narrative device helped establish everyone on the show and help catch viewers completely off-guard. It's not often that I truly care about a set of characters by the end of a pilot, but when Antonio died, it was upsetting. He was a character that I already liked and wanted to learn more about. Killing him off in the pilot not only sets a certain tone for the show and gives these characters additional motivation to take down the city's criminal overlords, but it lets viewers know that this show doesn't pull any punches and that nothing can be taken for granted.I was a little apprehensive about this kind of show airing on network TV, fearing it couldn't be as gritty or dark as the setting might require. To be honest, I'm a little afraid of just about anything airing on network TV anymore. Cable, especially premium cable, affords so many more options to a show. It's getting to the point where watching a program that has to endure the confines of network standards and practices is taxing, so especially for a show with this kind of subject matter, the Fox label was a bit unnerving. To the show's credit, they actually did a really nice job with it. There were certainly times when I felt they were holding back a bit, but it didn't ruin my enjoyment of the show. In a chuckle-worthy turn, the writers added a narrative quirk for the cleaned-up dialogue by giving Wysocki a distaste for profanity. It was an obvious nod to network confines, but I couldn't help but believe that a guy who adores Audrey Hepburn might also deplore cursing. I'm still a bit apprehensive about how far they'll be able to take such a construct on a big four network, but based on the pilot, I'm hopeful they can pull it off.
Overall, this was a slick production. The budget is clearly there, and the writing and directing had enough uniqueness and style that it had a different vibe than most of what's out there. In spite of network confines, they did a very nice job establishing Chicago as the often notorious city that it is. The story will likely have procedural elements, but there's no escaping the underlying storyline that runs through everything. My only major concern with the show is that I had to dub Jason Clarke Detective Mumbly Mumbleson. Good lord, between his native accent sneaking in here and there, his varying Chicago accent, and his soft, mumbly, word-jamminess, I had a hell of time making out what he was saying a lot of the time. I went back and turned on the subtitles for most of it. While it was annoying as hell, the very fact that I cared enough to make sure I caught every word speaks very highly of the show.
Here's hoping his enunciation and the sound editing is better in the future... and for me there certainly will be a future. It's not often that I set my DVR to record a series after only the pilot, but it's safe to say that The Chicago Code looks to be a winner. It's far and away the best new pilot of the midseason and if Fox had any brains at all, they would have given it a post-superbowl debut.
Pilot Grade: A-
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