It’s the third episode of ABC’s The Rookie, and the story of that “polarizing” Officer Doug Stanton (Brandon Routh) wreaking havoc among the many LAPD continues. This was definitely positive to observe given the introduction of Officer Stanton in the January 10 episode “In Justice.”
Within the January 17 episode “La Fiera,” Officer Stanton bodily assaults an harmless younger black man who doesn’t match the outline of their suspect, then threatens to arrest the person’s total household for attempting to intervene whereas pointing his gun at all of them in an over-the-top scene, with the rookie he’s coaching, Officer Jackson West (Titus Makin Jr.), uncomfortably watching all of it.
Dispatcher: All items B.O.L. 211-armed simply occurred. Suspect is male, Black, 6-foot, black pants, blue hoodie. Weapon a handgun.
Officer Bradford: Come on. Let’s get to work.
Stanton: Hey. There’s our man.
West: I do not assume so. Uh, the hoodie’s inexperienced, not blue. The suspect is 6 toes. That man’s too brief.
Stanton: ‘Trigger some scared rp with a gun of their face is gonna inform the distinction between inexperienced and blue? 6 toes and 5’6″? Come on. Management, 7-adam-07, eighth and Bronson, acquired a attainable 211 suspect. Code 6. Right here we go. Hey. LAPD. Present me your arms. [Music heard through headphones] I mentioned present me your arms now! [Stanton tackles young man]
Younger Man: What the hell?! I did not do something! I did not do something!
Stanton: Roll over, dumbass! In your stomach!
Younger Man: Aah! I reside proper right here!
Stanton: Palms behind your again.
Younger Man: Why are you cuffing me?! Ow!
Stanton: On your security and ours.
Younger Man: My — Your — My security?! Aah! You are hurting me!
West: Look, sir, please, it is gonna be okay. We simply must examine you out.
Younger Man: Verify me out?! I reside proper right here!
Mom: What are you doing?! That is my son!
West: Ma’am. Ma’am.
Younger Man: Mama, I did not —
West: It is gonna be okay. It is gonna be okay.
Stanton: Hey! Again up!
Younger Man: I did not do nothing.
Mom: Let my child go! Get off of me!
Stanton: Woman, I’ll knock your ass out!
Father: Get your arms off my spouse!
Mom: Are you loopy?!
Stanton: Management, 7-adam-07, I acquired a home emptying out on me.
Father: Son, it is okay.
Stanton: Ship backup.
Mom: Let him go!
Stanton [pointing gun]: Everyone on the bottom!
Relations: Whoa, whoa, whoa!
West: Management, 7-adam-07, we’d like a supervisor out right here. Code 3. Everyone, simply keep the place you might be. Simply — Simply give us a minute to clarify.
Stanton: Everyone on the bottom now!
Grandmother: I do know, I do know, child. It is okay.
Viewers not solely must be handled to such an intense scene, however are additionally hit over the pinnacle simply how “polarizing” Stanton actually is, and a racist. It’s so melodramatic that it primarily accomplishes insulting the intelligence of its viewers.
Instantly following the industrial break, the present returns to the aftermath of the scene, the place the household directs their disgust notably in direction of West and Stanton continues to unnecessarily inflame the state of affairs:
Grandmother: Child, you are okay.
Doug: Everybody down on the bottom!
Mom: Let him go!
Officer Bradford: What do you want?
Stanton: Assist Jackson hook these idiots up.
West: We’re arresting the entire household?
Stanton: What the hell did I simply say?
West: Wait, even the grandmother? Are you severe?
Bradford: Alright, West, Chen, you keep right here. Stanton, come right here. Let’s go type this out.
Lady: Hey, I am recording this. I see you.
Man: It is at all times the identical with you guys.
Mom: Get these cuffs off my boy!
Officer Chen: We will not, ma’am. Not but, in any case. It is protocol. I am sorry.
Father: Not as sorry as this fake-ass brother. Uncle Tom sellout.
Stanton: We noticed the 211 suspect, ordered him to cease.
Bradford: H-hold up, maintain up. They — They simply pinched that man half a mile from right here two minutes in the past. You did not hear that on the radio?
Stanton: I am arresting all of them. Tried assault on a police officer, resisting arrest, legal threats.
Bradford: What are you doing right here? There are cameras throughout. You nabbed an harmless man. The D.A. Will not file.
Stanton: These folks do not respect authority.
Bradford: You grabbed the mistaken man.
Stanton: You are senior officer. It is your name. [ Siren wailing ]
Bradford: Management, 7-adam-19, Code 4. Shut down Code 3 items and cancel the supervisor. Jackson, come right here. Uncuff that gentleman with an apology. Discuss to the household, clarify the state of affairs. See in the event you can mud them off, okay? Okay. I will be part of you in a minute.
Stanton: And now you are gonna kiss their ass?
Bradford: It is known as the least we will do.
Lady: It is not proper. That is not proper.
Man: He ought to lock him up.
Younger Man: Lastly.
West: Uh, sir, I’m — I am actually sorry for the, uh, confusion.
Grandmother: Confusion? You simply cuffed my grandbaby and pointed weapons at my total household.
Chen: And we’re very sorry, ma’am.
West: Look, ma’am, we have been searching for a suspect that match the outline of your grandson.
Grandmother: Oh!
Brother: Yeah. Younger and Black.
Mom: We have to converse to your Sergeant.
Bradford: In fact. Ma’am, this is my enterprise card in case you need to file a criticism.
Father: You wager your ass we do.
Later, in one other of one of many episode’s many plots, Stanton shamelessly declares drug lords are simply higher left to kill one another. This results in the predictably scripted scene of different characters discussing their ideas on him, with Officer Chen saying outright, “Stanton is a racist,” in addition to a possibility for Stanton to make one more racist assumption, this one in direction of West. Stanton presumes that West acquired into UCLA due to a sports activities scholarship, quite than due to West’s excessive GPA and being the valedictorian.
Lastly, there’s the dramatic interplay between Officer West as he enters the workplace of Sergeant Wade Gray (Richard T. Jones), simply because the older man is leaving, to demand that Stanton goes. Officer Tim Bradford (Eric Winter) additionally bursts in, to again up West. Although Gray in the end agrees to place Stanton on desk responsibility, it’s not sufficient for West. He even alerts Bradford that “silence is complicity,” a line previewed final week:
Gray: Officer West. I am on my method out. Can this wait until the morning?
West: Uh, no, sir. This — This will’t. [ Sighs ]
Gray: Alright, come on.
West: It is, um — It is Officer Stanton. He, um — He is a nasty cop, sir.
Gray: In what method?
West: To be trustworthy, each method. Who he chooses to tug over, how he — how he treats suspects of coloration, the issues he says.
Gray: Give me specifics.
West: Saying {that a} crime has “No victims concerned” simply because the deceased was affiliated [with a gang].
Gray: Look, a whole lot of cops really feel that method. It is an perspective I do not agree with, but it surely would not violate any guidelines.
West: I-it’s not simply that, sir. Y-yesterday we felony-stopped a person who didn’t match the suspect description. He was exterior of his own residence.
Gray: I find out about that. I learn the report.
West: Did you examine the physique cams? Beca– Stanton needed to arrest this man’s total household, sir.
Gray: Final I checked, it is inside cops’ discretion to make arrests.
West: It was unwarranted, sir! Look, Stanton escalated your entire state of affairs to the purpose the place it turned harmful for each us and that man’s household.
Gray: Bradford, we’re in the midst of one thing, so —
Bradford: I-I feel I do know what it is about. Look, no matter Officer West is telling you, I stand with him.
Gray: Positive. I will put Stanton on the desk until we determine it out.
West: With all due respect, sir, that’s not adequate.
Bradford: Jackson.
Gray: Excuse me, son? You’ve got been on the job for 5 minutes. I’ve acquired 25 years. You do not know what I needed to put up with, what your father needed to put up with to get this far. You stand on our shoulders.
West: And but the water continues to be above my head. So, inform me this, sir. What have been all of your sacrifices for?
Gray: Get the hell out of my workplace, West.
Bradford: Look, I do know you are pissed.
West: Why aren’t you?
Bradford: I’m. It is simply… I have been making excuses for pricks like Stanton my total life, figured there was no altering them, so I might let it go, I gave them a move.
West: It wasn’t a move. You gave them permission. Silence is complicity, sir.
Bradford: Yeah. I get that now. However Sarge is correct. Benching Stanton is the one recourse he has.
Much like final week’s episode, this one felt quite crowded and cramped because it tried to shove this dangerous cop narrative in with all types of different plot strains.
Then once more, what else can we expect with such heavy involvement from a gaggle reminiscent of Color of Change, which thrust upon The Rookie, and different exhibits, a 153-page “rather damning” report on an entire host of racist sins police tv exhibits have supposedly perpetrated.
A description for the January 24 episode, “Sabotage,” reads that “Officer Jackson West’s relationship along with his new coaching officer, Stanton, has escalated and he begins to work with Sergeant Gray to discover a answer.”
Nice, with the whole lot else occurring, it seems to be like subsequent Sunday we will get pleasure from what’s, at finest, one other more and more crowded, melodramatic, and poorly written episode of The Rookie.
