7x05 End of the Road

I never thought the screwup I had to fire would be the hardest one I would say goodbye to."

Me too, Hondo.

This episode showed what I believe S.W.A.T. had been missing the past few years- heart.

Seeing Street with 30 Company, seeing how much he's bonded with them and how much his bond with them showed how far he's come as a character was a joy to watch.

This was not just another soulless, mindless, robotic romp through the many winding roads of Los Angeles where the heroes and villains play a very large and dangerous game of "cops and robbers".

No, this was a mission with meaning. A mission with a purpose. A mission with heart.

Yeah, it's a cliche that police procedurals have criminals who target the police and thus "make things personal", but this time it worked.

Because the episode's subtext, where a case threatened to tear apart Long Beach's SWAT team, gave it that much more meaning, and it showed what kind of a character Street really could be.

Hondo was right.

Behind all the screwups and the idiocy Street showed- and, let me tell you, it was downright cringeworthy at its worst- deep down inside, there was a man who was simply trying to do the right thing.

He was just a man who simply had no idea what he was doing, and he needed someone to help him get there...and that guy was Hondo.

Just like Carnegie. We may not see the development of Carnegie because that's a show that will likely not air (though, hey, I think Alex Russel could use a starring vehicle), but Carnegie too is a good heart that needed a good direction...and that direction is Street.

Street might be one of the few times- if maybe the only time- where the writers of this show played the long game with a character and crafted a long term development that we finally got to see pay off.

Mind you, that pay off came in S3's brilliant "Bad Cop"/"Good Cop" doubleheader, a pay off that, once it was done, left Street with very little to actually do, but it's hard to argue that, taken within the totality of the episodes from the beginning of S1 to that point, Street's slow but careful ride from Leeroy Jenkins to a top notch police officer was a joy to behold.

It's rare that Hollywood writers have the discipline- let alone the planning and the foresight- to write a long form story of a character's development and actually stick the landing, so kudos to the S.W.A.T. writers for sticking to it and making it work.

...and it all worked out wonderfully.

Lastly- a bold prediction: this won't be the last of Street. No, the final episode will close with a wedding.

A wedding that I thought would have been Hondo's and Nichelle's but, I think, will turn out to be the wedding of Christina Alonso and Jim Street.

I admit, I always wasn't on the "Stris" bandwagon...but their wedding would be the appropriate sendoff for this show.

As for the Nichelle subplot...good for Nichelle to stand up for herself and show her narcissist of an ex-co-worker who's boss. I'm not sure I wouldn't have still sent his sorry behind to jail because that guy is definitely not a good character guy worthy of a second chance, but I'm not the writer, and Nichelle still made her point.