The Chicago Code - "The Gold Coin Kid" Review

“The way I see it, a whorehouse is a whorehouse whether it serves Crystal or Old Style.” -Wysocki

Although a good episode independently, The Chicago Code’s problems reared their head tonight. In order for it to be a successful network drama, it needs to have a touch of episodic elements while trying to maintain a serialized story. Tonight we got very much needed information on Caleb Evers and he and Wysocki’s relationship, but it came at the expense of the Alderman Gibbons arc. The show is not as strong when we get less Delroy Lindo. This in turn effects the undercover agent story line. It’s almost like this episode was aired out of order. I’m ok with episodic cop drama, though I prefer serialized. Up until this point, The Chicago Code was able to straddle both effectively. I’m not a fan of the half in half out episodes. Imagine if a train were to crash. It would be the worst case scenario if it crashed and partially remained on the track as no working train can pass through. If it fell all the way off, at least working trains could still use the track. If The Chicago Code is most effective as an episodic drama that focuses on relationships, so be it. But I think they can maintain their serialized arc once they get all their exposition out of the way.

As for the episode itself, we finally learn a little more about Caleb Evers. Up until this point he was just a ride along detective that was trying to learn some things from Wysocki as he trys to get better at his job. Tonight we learn that he’s a Northwestern grad with aspirations to become an FBI agent. If watching cop dramas has taught me anything, it’s that local police and the suits of the FBI don’t always get along. The only instance I can think of where it worked well was the friend McNulty had on the FBI in The Wire that got him surveillance equipment. Put this against Caleb being from the North Side and we see that there will be tension between Evers and Wysocki just based on upbringing alone.

Now what was nice is that The Chicago Code didn’t let the conflict just die at that. Wysocki and Superintendent Colvin cooked up some scheme to get the department some radios. The problem is that Wysocki left Evers in the dark about it. It was a type of test that led to a 2 week suspension and a black mark in his file. Evers was understandably upset at this and called Wysocki out on the affair that he’s having with his ex-wife. Two things worked really well about this scene. The first was seeing Wysocki almost proud that Evers figured it out. He had a type of sneer that said, “I’m not even mad, I’m impressed.” The second was when Caleb yelled, “You can lie to your fiance but not your partner!” This has to hit home as Wysocki has taught his niece, Vonda, that the most important thing in police work is to trust your partner. Evers grew up right before Wysocki’s eyes. The problem being now is that Evers can’t trust Wysocki as opposed to the other way around.

I did think that The Chicago Code took the easy way out in the case that Wysocki and Colvin cooked up. One problem with the show is that the hand picking of cases for Wysocki is largely unrealistic and the amount of time he gets with the Superintendent is unreasonable. So it was interesting at the beginning when I thought Colvin was going to try and use Wysocki for her own personal gain to keep him in line. However, with them being both in on it and the willingness of both to play with fire like that, Wysocki is just being made more into a super cop that can do no wrong. I think we need to see Wysocki in some real hot water in order for the show to raise its stakes.

I’m still not so sold on the Isaac and Vonda story line. I get that it helps us see Wysocki be protective of his family. The search for his brother’s killer is still looming over our head, but I’m not sure we need full story lines from them. How does it elevate the show? I know that it exoands the universe, and that’s important, but it just seemed very detached from the rest of the narrative. Perhaps Moose was too busy filming season 2 of Justified, where he plays Coover Bennett, for them to keep him in each episode. I can’t envision a scenario where the task force and Wysocki’s cases would come into conflict. I think that angle of the show needs to be fleshed out a bit before I’m ready to see a lot more of it.

The Chicago Code - "O'Leary's Cow" Review

“Tape it up. Learn to play with pain. This isn’t Evanston, kid.” -Wysocki

When watching The Chicago Code I have to constantly remind myself it isn’t The Shield, nor does it want to be. Where The Shield was unique in that it took a villain and made us care about him. In The Chicago Code we largely have heroes. As far as we know, Jarek Wysocki, Caleb Evers, Liam, and Teresa Colvin are good police. There is definitely a market for watching good police catch bad guys, but that show has been done to death. What makes The Chicago Code specifically interesting is when good police and good people are put into a situation where their morals and ideals are compromised. Seeing them wrestle with both sides of things is where unique drama is created.

Up until this point, I had largely thought that the storyline involving Liam the undercover cop was a bit light. I knew what it was trying to do, but I didn’t really see any benefit to keep showing him week in and week out. Just as I was thinking that, he’s confronted with an actual chance to commit a crime. This is where all undercover cop stories need to go. It’s the catch 22 within the situation. The undercover agent needs to work their way up to get more information, but in order to work their way up, they need to earn their keep. We’ll see just how far Liam goes. I have a hunch he travels further into the crime world, especially after a dead body was discovered. Any misgivings I had about the Liam story line have been put off. I’m curious how far he’ll go now to make the people who made him a killer pay for what they did. Jarek’s reaction when Liam tells him is also very interesting. He doesn’t so much care about what Liam did. As far as he’s concerned, it came with the territory. It’s just collateral damage. This leads me to believe that in the future Jarek will not be afraid to break a few eggs to make an omelet.

Superintendent Colvin was also put between a rock and a hard place when her sister and brother-in-law asked for her assistance on an issue where it was later revealed that the brother-in-law had sold access to the CPD. Teresa’s sister placed an unfair ultimatum on her. She said she could help the family by just sweeping this under the rug and looking the other way. We learn that Teresa’s family views Teresa as someone who cares more about her job than her family. So when Teresa has to stand up to her family and tell them that she is on the side of the law and not theirs, something tells me those tears let us know that Colvin knows she’s sacrificed a lot for her job and may not be completely comfortable with it. I’m glad that Colvin didn’t bite at the first chance to turn her back on the law. We need her integrity in tact so that when the time comes, her turning her back means something very significant.

The biggest problem concerning me are the relationships that surround Jarek Wysocki. The superintendent seems to let him get away with a lot. He shoots his mouth off, speaks out of turn, and doesn’t follow direct orders all the time. I think this is a bit implausible, so it was no wonder when the other cops took offense to it. The Vonda and Issac relationship does nothing to help this. I still think their would be lingering tension there, but it just seems like they’re both desperately trying to gain his approval. I would like it more if Isaac and Vonda stayed with Moose’s team and we saw a bit of the conflicting ways to get business done, but maybe that’s a little too “Strike Team-ish.” Finally, the Caleb Evers relationship is one I like but it’s only skin deep. I enjoy their banter, but I think they need to find more instances where they can be equals as opposed to the constant teacher/student relationship we have going. As slight as it was, I liked when Evers stuck up for himself after he asked Natalie the cute nurse out. I had a thought Natalie could be Wysocki’s 27 year old fiance, but I don’t think that the case. Still waiting on her to show up. But the biggest road block in the Wysocki/Evers relationship is that we don’t know much about Evers. We need to know what makes him tick or at least see some sort of dirt. Right now Wysocki is depicted as some sort of super cop where everyone is playing up to him. I wonder what will happen when someone legitimately challenges him. Perhaps that’s where the Alderman Gibbons story takes us. I suspect he knows what happen to Wysocki’s brother.

I do like that we saw a chink in Gibbons’ armor today. We learn Alderman Gibbon’s biggest weakness is voters. The way Colvin gets to him is by attacking those that put him in power. He has power as long as he’s in power. You threaten his position, you threaten everything he’s worked to attain. Gibbons took a bit of a back seat this week, but I’m ok with that. He’s the main guy Colvin is chasing and something tells me he’s going to be around a while. The question is if he’s around for just a season or longer (assuming there is a longer.)

The Chicago Code - "Cabrini Green" Review

“Today is a great day. Today is the first day of a better Chicago.” -Gibbons

It’s episodes like “Cabrini-Green” that lead me to believe The Chicago Code will be successful. The center piece of this episode was an episodic story line about bombings going on in Chicago. This allowed for the episode to stand alone to a viewer who might have just tuned in to watch the show for the first time. It had suspense and drama. In particular the scene where the bomber talked to his mom on the phone. Watching Caleb Evers sneak up on the bomber with everyone’s life at risk had my heart racing a bit. I know they wouldn’t kill off our main two characters, but I have to suspend that feeling and just let the show work on me. While the episode was largely episodic, we did learn more about Alderman Gibbons.

What makes for the best villains is not just continuous acts of crime, violence and other despicable things, but rather humanity. We need to be able to commiserate with the villains from time to time in order for the highest levels of drama to be reached. It makes for a better viewing if you watch Gibbons and think, “I hate him, but I’m on his side here.” It makes the audience constantly evaluate each episode and situation. It also makes our heroes work that much harder for our appreciation. In this particular episode, we saw Gibbons take in a young boy about to be initiated into a gang and turn his life around despite the kid attempting to assassinate him. Now, we can all agree that helping out the less fortunate is agreeable. But to what end? He used the kid to figure out what gang had put out the hit. With that information Gibbons was able to track down the leader and murder him. I think we’re also on the same side that murder is bad. It’s the way the audience’s morals are always in question that lead me to love the writing of Gibbons.

Aside from learning about Gibbons, we got some more insight on Caleb Ever’s detective skills. We still don’t know a lot about him personally except that he’s from the north side of Chicago and wants to do well at his job and is anxious to please Detective Jarek Wysocki. Caleb proved in this episode he could keep up with Wysocki both mentally and physically. However, I’m going to grow wary if their relationship is just one where it’s Evers constantly searching for the approval of Wysocki. He’s going to need to earn his stripes sometime soon or the relationship will get stale. I almost hope it comes at the expense of Wysocki. Up to this point, he’s been a bit of a “super cop.” Saving lives and solving crimes. That’s all Wysocki does. I think back to the conversation he had with the nun. He’s still not over his brother’s death and often finds relief in the bottom of a bottle. We haven’t seen this dark side yet. We know he’s fooling around with his ex wife behind his 27 year old fiancé's back, but again, we haven’t seen it. As much as I need my villains to have a touch of humanity, I need my heroes to have some blemishes as well.

The Chicago Code - “Gillis, Chase, and Baby Face” Review

“Don’t you threaten me Hugh. It’s not productive. And it’s not polite.” -Gibbons

When this episode first got going, I thought we were in for another episode that was a chess match between Superintendent Colvin and Wysocki versus the rest of the force. That would have been just fine. Inter department politics are always interesting to me. I personally would have liked to see a little of the Jonesy tow truck scam. This is why police dramas will never get old. There’s always material. Anytime they want, they can go off a tangent that will still keep us interested. But what the episode ultimately delivered was even better. We now know just what type of villain the Chicago PD is up against in Alderman Gibbons.

Finally we get to see the evil side of Alderman Gibbons, and the brilliance of actor Delroy Lindo. Up until this point it was all speculation and what the show told us, but now we see just what he is capable of doing. He was able to get both the Irish mob and the police force under his thumb in swift set of maneuvers. One of my favorite scenes of the episode was where Gibbons and Hugh discussed leverage. Hugh put all his cards on the table whereas Gibbons remained deathly calm. I was told growing up that if you get into a fight with someone and they talk all your best punches and never flinch, yet still come after you, it’s time to flee because you’re dealing with someone that’s not on your level. He will beat you. This is my view of Gibbons. He’s so insulated. The criminals need his protection and the police department needs the money he controls. Gibbons uses both of these groups against each other to further his agenda. The question is, what is his agenda? He’s rich and appears to be happy, but what else does he want? Surely he can retire at this point. Is the crime life that addicting? Is he trying to build an empire of sorts? Does he want to be elected mayor? At this point he’s only made moves to clean up messes. Things could get really ugly when he starts making his own moves to get more of what he’s after. Until we know just what his end game is, I don’t think we know the extent of what he will do to get it.

The other dynamic we have working is Wysocki’s professional relationships. It’s clear both he and Colvin share a mutual trust and respect, but it is that very relationship that endangers the life of him and his partner. Allegiances will be tested inside the department. Wysocki can’t be a successful cop if the rest of the cops freeze him out, yet because he hasn’t done anything to warrant their hate, he isn’t going to submit to them. This puts Caleb Evers in an interesting position. In his voice over in the previous episode, he stated that a successful stint riding with Wysocki will lead you straight to the top. But Evers is seeing the cost of doing business this way. In this episode he asks, “Is it worth it? I want to do my job, but if we can’t even trust other cops to have our backs, this job gets dangerous.” That answer to his question will surely be answered and constantly redefined.

Te struggle between Wysocki and the rest of the cops will be ongoing. As we saw with Moose, Wysocki can’t just take an apology and everything is ok. Moose put his and his partner’s life in danger by freezing them out. This lead to them not catching the criminal and having to resort to Wysocki shooting and killing him. Rather than take Moose’s apology, he punched him in the face further alienating himself. Wysocki’s rigid sense of justice is what makes him a great cop. However, it may be his undoing inside the force.

The Chicago Code - "Hog Butcher" Review

“There is corruption and then there is just the way things get done and you need to know the difference.” -Jarek

Teresa Colvin is six months into her new job as Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department and she’s getting a crash course in politics. In the first episode she embarrasses a veteran cop taking him off the streets but “promoting” him to Commander of Mops and Buckets. This act of shame ultimately lead to the police officer bad mouthing Colvin to a few close friends who attempted to end her life, but shot her driver and close friend Antonio Bets instead. Bets died because he gave the superintendent his bullet proof vest, but in doing so he was in violation of police policy and now his family is entitled to zero death benefits UNLESS you get special clearance from a committee headed by the crooked politician Colvin is trying to take down, Alderman Gibbons. This is all going on while her former partner, Jarek Wysocki is leading an unofficial task force trying to link Gibbons to political corruption through the use of an undercover agent in the Irish mob.

It’s clear that balance of power is going to be a big issue inside of the show. Inside of every relationship there exists a scale on which power is weighed. Colvin while wanting to take down Gibbons now has to go hat in hand to him and ask for a favor. This won’t be easy for her to do as she knows it will create a potential road block in their investigation. Colvin will also have to deal with keeping Jarek from abusing his power. Colvin has given Detective Wysocki a lot of extra power in the department and he used his freedom to disobey a direct order by talking to the media after she issued a media blackout. Jarek is doing his best to good police work and Colvin wants him to, but she sees the danger in allowing a cop to directly undermine her. Another power struggle is between Jarek and his niece, Vonda. She is partners with Isaac Joiner, who Jarek tells not to pursue an Irish mob member, but he does so and makes a 300,000 dollar drug bust and puts a felon away. Jarek tries to tell her that there’s stuff she doesn’t know and she needs to listen to him. And Vonda quips back that Jarek taught her that the most important thing is to trust your partner. Lots of different characters are stuck in lots of different power struggles and it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

As far as the structure of the show, Shawn Ryan is great at creating episodic story lines that service the main arc of the show. In this particular episode we saw Jarek and Evers work on finding the shooter of Antonio Bets. We were lead to believe that it was going to link the murder back to Gibbons, but ultimately it was a separate issue. It keeps the viewers entertained episode to episode, but still wants them to watch again to see how the rest of the story unfolds.

I think one of the more interesting points of the show is going to be Vonda and Isaac’s promotion into the Organized Crime Unit. Joiner doesn’t have an explicit vendetta against Jarek, but it’s clear he does not hold him on a pedestal. Jarek is using the undercover agent in the Irish mob to help link them to Gibbons. Joiner and Vonda will surely start uncovering information in the mob that could lead to either the cop being exposed or getting to the head of the mob. Jarek will always think his case is more important, so I think we’ll see a clash between the Organized Crime Unit and Jarek.

The character of Jarek gets explained to us a little further this episode. We are starting to understand more the type of cop and person her is. He’s taken a liking to Caleb Evers and starts to teach him how to think outside the box. This, of course, leads to him bending the rules and contradicting the Superintendent. I’m curious to see if this type of behavior will go deeper. In a conversation he has with Colvin he tells her that she won’t want to know everything that “deniability” will be necessary. Colvin insists that she needs “accountability.” To what lengths will Jarek go to get what he wants?

But what does Jarek want? In a very nice scene between he and Sister Paul, played by Betty Buckley, we learn more about him as a person. We get an introspective look at him by ways of his own words. We learn he has a strong sense of moral rigidity. He knows his flaws and wishes not to be a hypocrite. He tells Sister Paul of his affair and his drinking problems. But probably most importantly, we learn that he is nowhere near being over the death of his brother and that he’s still looking for his killer. How important will this fact be going forward? Will he have to sacrifice anything to find out what happened to his brother? Could the killer of his brother be someone he knows? Is it linked back to Gibbons giving him more fire? The Chicago Code is shaping up to be a good one.

Other thoughts:

- I don’t know how I feel about the story line where Antonio’s mom is suing Superintendent Colvin. I know it’s Gibbons putting a birdie in her ear and trying to keep Colvin coming to him for favors, but I hope the litigation involved isn’t a drawn out process.

- It was nice to see Gibbons ingratiate himself with the public. Makes him more despicable. I like it when I can’t stand the villains. I think I’ll learn to hate him.
- I don’t like it when Twitter is referenced in a show. It never seems genuine. I do like that it was used correctly in this show. And it was funny to hear Jarek say, “I’ll keep it under 140 characters, ‘Let it go!’” I know Shawn Ryan uses twitter a lot, you can and should follow him @ShawnRyanTV, to interact with fans and promote his show, so it’s no surprise he used it in his show.

- We still don’t know a lot about Detective Caleb Evers except that he’s a smart Cubs fan. I’m anxious to see the development of his character.

- Yes, that was Chicago native Billy Corgan singing the theme song.