Monsters of Television

“So watching a baseball game at a sports bar makes me a girl?”

Perhaps it’s been the lack of quality programming since the end of the fall season, but this week’s The Good Guys was a significant improve over the pilot. It was funnier, more self-assured, the lack of chemistry between its leads was happily gone (though the chemistry between Hanks and Wade is struggling to work, as is Wade’s character), and while the narrative still didn’t fire on all cylinders, there was less happenstance and more forethought in its construction than in the pilot.

The show still has a little bit more growing to do, but I’m more optimistic than I was last month about the show’s prospects.

While I’m note sure how long its basic premise will last, that Stark and Bailey will stumble onto major crimes through the minor ones, this episode at least shows the creativity the show can harness to connect the crimes. In this case, it’s the broken window of two young women that leads the two detectives to uncover the theft of classic America cars that were left in the street (yeah, I know).

Whitford (and the writers) seems to have a firmer grasp on Stark than he did in the pilot, keeping Stark’s overblown nostalgia in check enough that he’s not totally intolerable, and actually funny. Indeed, Whitford’s commitment to Stark’s absurdity keeps the character grounded enough to be funny and relatable: he’s that uncle you don’t really like seeing but still makes you laugh every now and then. And he and Hanks finally seem to be clicking, as the show has dropped their “we just teamed” up vibe in favor of a more established one. I really bought Stark’s concern for Bailey while he was yelling at the computer.

The show’ mocking of chyrons that read “xx hours/minutes before” was great. I appreciate that the show is willing to mock that worn trope of television shows unspooling a narrative to the point that we’re granted a “1 minute before” chyron. While I groan most any time a show does that know (though Human Target makes it work for itself rather well, actually), as The Good Guys used the sound of a revolver spinning and showing us snippets of the events spinning backwards it made me laugh, and I looked forward to each backtrack. The backtracking doesn’t make the narrative complex or anything, but it is a nice stylistic tic that I think the show can keep.

While I still like the premise, I would like to see Stark and Bailey take their considerable crime-solving knowledge and apply it to an actual small crime through the course of the episode. I think there’s potential for a great deal of humor there, and it would force the show to do the little things in big ways (I’m thinking Hot Fuzz here, I freely admit). Additionally, the show’s other two regulars, Wade’s ADA Traynor and Riva’s Lieutenant Ruiz, needs some fleshing out and a role to play in these episodes. Traynor’s role in this episode is to be jealous of Kiersten and…well…that’s it. It’s frustrating, considering the signs of professionalism and power she had in the pilot to be reduced like that (Ruiz didn’t even show up in this episode).

Still a bit of a ways to go, but I won’t be dropping the show any time soon.