Season 4, Episode 3 “Bang”
Air date: 3-29-05
Now this is how you do it. They got one good action packed storyline- a small gang war, and ran out several interesting directions at once.
They started with a fairly simple, but unique, clever and reasonably plausible premise. This banger Choppa thinks he's going to be the next rap mogul, and he's got his unique (if extremely cheesy) gimmick: x-rated rap video. That is, he's absolutely filmed a porn video, rapping away and flashing his colors as he's humping the hooker.
Thing is, he made a big point of recruiting a whore who belonged to a rival gang. A member of the rival gang named Puppethead does not appreciate a rival banger not just humping his baby's mama, but videotaping and intending to market it. Thus a gang war with a half dozen dead people.
Among other things, this let the writer get in a couple of good whacks at dysfunctional ghetto values. Notably, the skank in the video was not horrified to learn that half a dozen people had been killed in a gang war over her. Indeed, she was quite proud of herself. "I must be the bomb."
Choppa was also real pleased with himself in this. Half a dozen people were dead, including his cousin Oink, so why was he so happy? Why, as an aspiring rapper, he couldn't BUY street cred like this.
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Most importantly, though, Choppa's story laid out the first application of Captain Rawling's new asset forfeiture policy. When City Councilman Aceveda objected to the policy in the previous episode "Grave," incoming Captain Rawling pooh-poohed his objections. She's not going to feel bad about taking their "pimp rides" and besides, "We're going to target the right people."
The first right person, though, turns out to be Choppa, on whom they wish to exert pressure for co-operation. Thus when he doesn't talk, Captain Rawling feels it incumbent to take the house he was buying for his mother and baby brother and sister. She's going to absolutely take their home, and send them to a shelter.
Series creator Shawn Ryan expressed it at one point to say that the Rawling character was designed to the best, most appealing possible face on the toughest, harshest policies- these asset forfeiture storylines. Which is not to say that they're promoting the policy.
Indeed, this first case involves absolutely putting a mother and her 7-8 year old children on the street. The best dramatic scene of the show involved big Mama showing up with those kids in tow at the station. She gave it to Captain Rawling with both barrels, certain that Ms Rawling obviously isn't a mother herself. No mother could ever do this, see.
Captain Rawling is clearly a well meaning person. She's empathetic, fair minded and even tempered. She is in no way at all a crooked cop trying to get a cut, as Vic sometimes has been. She's clearly motivated by her own understanding of what she thinks is best for the community that she serves. Yet this is where the policy even STARTS.
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Choppa had a classic quick response when Vic first explains to him that they're going to seize his mother's house. Also, if you wish to object, you have to hire your own lawyers to do it, and prove that the house was NOT paid for by drug money. Choppa understandably didn't believe they could do something like this. "Quit clowning. This is America." Used to be, anyway.
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They quite ingeniously hung several little extensions of other continuing plotlines on this week's banger war. Most notably, the Antwon Mitchell character quietly took charge and brutally resolved the war. Vic acknowledged to Captain Rawling privately that Mitchell had come out ahead on this round. He showed that he had more juice to make things actually happen in the street than the police do.
As Vic had pointed out to Antwon earlier in the show, it strongly served the interests of both himself and law enforcement to end this gang war. Antwon got it done, but in such a way as to make sure that HE was the one known in the community to have the power to actually do it.
Advantage, Antwon.
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Captain Rawling's first talk to the troops at the Barn on her first morning as captain worked very nicely to open the show. Using her best master thespian skills, Ms Close began reading awkwardly from cards, then gave up on the prepared notes and crossed the lectern to speak eloquently from the heart.
The highlight came when she announced the formation of the anti-gang task force. "From now on, all drug and gang related murders go through Vic Mackey." Particularly, the reaction shots from Dutch and Claudette were priceless. Between them, they managed to non-verbally communicate a whole stew of disbelief, disgust, exasperation and three or four other things. Claudette had a particularly caustic private comment to Dutch later about this representing "Sherman's march through the hood." My, but that metaphor is just maybe slightly loaded.
Just in case that wasn't enough of having their low places in the pecking order made clear, there was the hospital shooting. A couple of rival bangers happened to see Choppa's cousin Oink in the hospital, and absolutely opened fire and killed him right there- with Dutch and Claudette just around the corner and obviously on scene first. Then five minutes later, Rawling showed up and handed the investigation to Vic.
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This continued blackballing of the Claudette and Dutch show leads to an interesting scene in which Dutch approaches the representative of the DA's office. If they will relent the blackballing, he promises to "control" Claudette. Really? I wonder what exact controlling they will come up with needing Dutch to do? Hmm.
He also promised his willingness to do "favors" for the DAs office from time to time. Wonder what kind of favors those might turn out to be, and what kind of challenges to his integrity they will represent?
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Dutch gets my sympathy frequently by landing in situations where he's wrong and bad, even if he's right. Particularly in this case, he was stuck in penance working a minor convenience store robbery. The Muslim owner was freaking out disproportionately, which resulted in a classic Dutch faux pas. He impatiently suggested to the owner that he should just calm down, cause this was a simple robbery- not a "jihad."
Besides his co-workers stopping to literally drop their jaws, this resulted in a dumb little PC scene in the captain's office with a formal apology to the offended store owner. Keeping him over for a little private chastisement, Rawling notes that it's her first day on the job, and she's already tired of hearing his excuses for this "nonsense."
This was just such a nothing little excuse for an offense, and the way the shopkeeper's milking it is obviously far worse than the passing comment. Still Dutch inevitably ends up the jerk, and obviously should have known he would. It was not really an unreasonable comment in the context, but Dutch is the schmuck anyway.
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They made excellent dramatic hay out of the thalidomide lawsuit storyline. Lining up to sue the manufacturers of children's vaccines for supposedly causing their children's autism, Vic goes with Corrine to speak to her big shot pediatrician friend at the hospital. They wish to recruit her as an expert witness against the vaccine manufacturers and doctors.
This setup naturally leads to a strong dramatic scene, in which basic issues about the controversy get laid out in the form of a well-motivated emotional confrontation. The pediatrician nicely refuses, wanting nothing to do with what she considers to be a baseless cause.
This sets up Vic's best scene of the night, denouncing her as just another culpable figure, covering ass for other doctors much as he covers ass for fellow cops. She seemed so reasonable and rational, yet Vic's broad suspicions and accusations make some sense as he lays them out.
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Got our first glimpse this season of Shane's home life with the wife and new baby. Obviously, Mara's even a little more whacked than usual. She having a little "post partum" Shane says, avoiding even the word depression.
Vic's come around to make nice, and try to bring Shane in a little closer to his new anti-gang group so he can keep an eye on him, and maybe try to keep him and thus his old Strike Team mates out of trouble.
There was a particularly interesting bit of dialogue just after Vic departs. Mara says that she still doesn't trust Vic. "It's not about trust anymore, baby." Shane replies. Hmm. Exactly what is "it" about?
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Note the absence of David Aceveda. This is the only episode of the series ever to my best recollection not to have Aceveda in it at all. One pointed invocation of his name in the last lines of the episode was the only shadow of him tonight.
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The last scene of the episode was classic, with a conscious decision marking a strong demarcation of character. Rawling shows up with Vic at the mother's seized house to sign the work order finalizing the seizure of the house, and removal of the family's belongings. The mother has made it as difficult as possible, leaving the mantels filled with photos of the children throughout the house. Rawling was not pleased with this being the first test of her new policy.
So she invited an argument from Vic as the voice of pragmatism as to why she should reverse course and let the woman keep her house. Vic argued reasonably that the gang war was settled, and they didn't need Choppa's co-operation any more. More importantly, he echoed her repeated concerns about what a "PR nightmare" this seizure would inevitably be.
Even with this tough case though, she chose integrity to her own policies over politics and public relations. Her plan would stand or fall on the merits. [Forgiveness begged if this quote from memory is slightly inaccurate.] "If I start making exceptions to prettify it, well that sounds more like something Aceveda would do."
Decision made, she strides out the front door, grabbed the clipboard to sign, and said simply, "Take the house."
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