So, Amanda's stalker is a serial rapist who went to prison for a faked cocain-charge... and now wants revenge. And why did she fake the charge? Because she didn't want to go on the record as a victim of an attempted rape and the main other witness refused to testify. Shady. And now that the guy's dead, her faking the charge is swept under the carpet as well. Which causes strive amongst the 3 CBI agents. Will's uncle reaches out just as she maybe wants to patch things up with him.
Michael learns that his wife admitted herself to a mental facility and didn't run off with her new boyfriend.
Good episode - not sure what to think about Amanda staying in charge of the CBI, though.
Review by wolfkinBlockedParent2024-04-09T02:20:01Z
Somewhat interesting case. I know people don't like Michael but the "Oh he's a Dad so he doesn't know how to get his kids ready in the morning and it's so goofy and wacky the girl-child will go to school wearing a hat" routine is just kinda ridiculous. To the point where it really should have been lampshaded. We've seen this literal scene beat for beat like 180 times. Down to the hat. Down to the "Uh.. uh I don't have lunch so take some money". Down to the female not mom coming in and the kids ignoring dad to greet her and then leave. It's like they pulled this scene from Fisher-Price My First Screenplay book.
I think it's gross that she went to mental rehab and didn't tell anyone but her sister. I mean I was setup for the she wants a divorce and feels guilty about sticking with a man she doesn't love. Drop him and live your life I get that. But she went to a medical facility and just ghosted on her entire family. That's stupid. Lucky the police weren't called in to track you down. There's no reason not to leave instructions for the sister to let them know what happened. All it does is just stretch out how long I thought she left him to start divorcing him.
As a reminder his "hero moment" was being willing to have taken Gina his wife to the mental hospital himself. I'm not saying the dude desperate to not divorce his wife doesn't have problems. But this ain't it. He has no idea what's going on. His kids don't know what's going on. I mean honestly all things considered he took that news that she didn't want to be around him like. a. champ. He didn't fight it. He accepted it. He's literally "best case scenario"-ing right now. And then there's Nancy who the show is trying to tell us is in the morally superior position but saying things like this
And again, Michael's right. Because in no way was he denigrating the struggle she's going through. He's been supportive since he found out (which was like 10 seconds ago). His only problem was that she disappeared and everyone refused to tell him why? What IS he supposed to tell the kids when she just doesn't show up for breakfast? Aunt Nancy is too busy tone policing him to consider reality. People get sick. People you depend on get sick and that's life but it'd be nice to know they got sick and not just have them disappear like they got murdered because those are two different types of reactions you're going to get.
I don't know where they get these killers. You find a guy who has murdered 8 people and was literally on his way to do number 9 and heaven forbid they get framed for RICO. They will take that personally. They will wait 20-30-45 years if necessary but they will NEVER let it go... but why? I mean this isn't the burgler who gets framed by murder. This isn't the white collar criminal who gets framed for treason. This isn't the massage prostitute accused of child touching. This is a bad dude who does bad things who got setup for bad things. Even his father is like "I know my son he doesn't do drugs". Yeah but your son IS a rapist serial killer. I'm not sure what mileage he plans to get out of the 'at least he doesn't do drugs' stance. Nothing in his plan makes sense either. He wants to get at Director Wagner but he does it stumbling into killing someone and lucking out that she took the blame. Happening to have stolen her keys ages ago... and then leaving the murder weapon in a basket.
That's almost as stupid as all the cops rooting for Dir Wagner and yet them seeing their statutory requirements of holding her gun and her bad as a personal offense.
ACAB
And there it is... ACAB comes for all the cop shows eventually. We're bring it back because this was egregious. In the ACAB corner I'll highlight all the ways the show tries to make cops look better than they are. This is not normally a reflection on the show or it's quality.
Let's break down all the stupid nonsense in this episode. It starts from the fact that someone so high up is accused of killing someone on the skimpiest of evidence. Oh she ran into the house and there was someone dead. She must have killed them. What??? I don't understand all factors involved why she was given the task to go into the front door by herself while Will and Faith went round the back. If anything Will or Faith should have taken the front door solo and the other take Amanda with them to go out the back. She's a target so bad they both want to protect her, until it's time to face actual danger then she's fine on her own? It's an example of how the writing in this scene is so awful. I literally didn't understand what was happening until I realized this was just the most complicated insane way to setup Director Amanda Wagner for crime she didn't commit. That doesn't even take into consideration that in the narrative of the show this whole murder was just a setup from the jump. How did this week's guest star plan to have her accused of murder when he couldn't know she would be left alone. But she was alone for 2 minutes MAXIMUM and that's a huge stretch. Even with editing no way it was more than one minute but even if you call it two the idea that everyone just assumed she slammed this man dead in two minutes is just insane. Plus she would have had to secret away the murder weapon which was a very heavy blunt object. Something we saw the man throw in his truck and something Wagner never had time to hide. I honestly expected Will to point that out and this episode to take a different direction. Just like Wagner going in alone I was just confused why everyone thought she killed a man in like 20 seconds until later I realized oh wait this whole episode is going to be about what if everyone thought she killed a man.
Then we have the APD investigation of GBI. This is the central premise of the whole show they have to do it "By the book" or... what? Have you seen a cop shooting in real life? They shot Tamir Rice from three feet away on camera and it got ruled justifiable. The idea that people would take this circumstantial case so seriously remains laughable. It's the sort of thing a police consultant on set would suggest. Because they always suggest it. This "By the book" episode just shows how hard cops have it. How they can't just DO THE WORK because "By the book" is stopping them and interfering with their ability to do the job. In real life, one cop team investigating another cop team is like asking a Lion to stop a Tiger from eating a rabbit. It's like asking a MGTOW and MRA to stop a PUA from hitting on a drunk girl. They literally are not capable of seeing what's wrong. It's a lose lose concept because if they do block Trent from the case it's just show how all the cop police are bad. If they don't block Trent it shows that cop police are pointless. You don't get points for going the second route Will Trent. It's literally just as bad. Honestly it just makes the storyline more confusing. The cop police (Angie and Michael) casually sidestep the entire purpose of a "By the Book" investigation by letting Will and Faith do literally whatever they want throughout the case. When Jenna Elfman's Captain Reynolds demands everyone not validate this case based on emotion but on hard evidence untainted by emotional ties. It's a respectable stance (once you swallow the hard hard pill that she's accused of murder) and Angie and Michael just poop all over it by completely ignoring her. Kinda disrespectful of law and order for the "good guys". But it's fine because they're the "good guys". Again this gets you the viewer used to the idea that cops should have the ability to do what they want
Then the APD interview someone who implicates Director Wagner and they basically cringe when he says her name. They were like: "eww sir could you just not say you think she did it. We're here to accuse your son. Focus on him please."
There's more church/state violation at Director Wagner's place and then we have cat and mouse with the real killer. And then complaining about procedure by "the good guys". Oh you have to wait for a warrant? That's so unfair. Maybe cops should have special ad-hoc post gratum warrants they can apply for afterwards so they don't have to wait? I mean it sounds laughable now but give it 10 more years of cop shows like this and a clever name and just the right amount of sympathetic victim or maybe just 10 billion from the right conservative billionaire and it'll happen. I mean technically it already happens. Cops backdate warrants and just lie. Who needs legal methodology when you can just cheat openly? After all you are the referee and you get to investigate yourself. You probably didn't cross any lines according to yourself so it's fine. Heck who needs all that when cops can just pretend they hear a baby crying and suddenly it's exigent circumstances. Heck if you follow bad cop news you know they don't even need to hear a baby crying. They'll make up whatever and call it exigent circumstances. A toaster pops and suddenly that's exigent circumstances. Who is going to question it? Internal Affairs? You mean other cops. Which is my point about this whole episode.
At this point we're just half way through the episode.
Then we get the backstory. Let's talk about what the backstory means and how the characters receive it. Because EVERYONE literally everyone without exception looks at Director Wagner with DISGUST when they find out what she did. She framed someone for a crime they didn't commit. Every one who finds out look at this like it's the most noxious nose twisting thing they've ever seen.
It's so weird considering the story. Which is that she was literally almost raped as a lesbian black female cop in the 90s. A demo so rare even her FAMILY told her not to bother telling anyone what happened and her family was in charge of the department. A reality so dark she immediately understood and didn't question it. Dude we can BARELY get a rape conviction 25+ years later. Imagine how hard it was in 95. But she got the information and setup a case anyway. It flopped so she framed him for something else.
Now keep in mind throughout this narrative it's never questioned that he deserved it. It's never suggested that it was unfair for him to get setup for dealing and note rape/murder. It's never suggested maybe he could have turned his life around if someone gave him a chance. He's the devil who got punished for slapping you with is left hand when in reality he slapped you with the right. And with that context the disgust that comes off Will Trent is disorienting. It doesn't make sense. There's a phrase in English that goes
It's a reference to the concept of jury nullification. In the US the Jury is allowed to rule on the case for any reason. The purpose of the trial is to present the evidence and the argument and the corresponding laws for their consideration but at the end of the day the jury goes into their deliberation room and they get to decide. They don't have to follow the law. They can look at a case with compassion. They can look at a beaten women and find her innocent of murder in slicing off the dick of the husband who trapped her in a violent marriage. They can look at a mother who fired a warning shot at a dangerous ex boyfriend and find her innocent of all charges even though warning shots are literally against legal statute. The point at the end is that Director Wagner's situation here the quintessential example of a case where she could never get convicted. Who in the right mind would look at the evil and dangerous devil criminal and say Wagner should be found guilty. No one. ESPECIALLY not cops. ESPECIALLY not family and that's what Will is. Family.
Again the dialog wants you to look at Will and say he's right but no. He's not. This whole segment is about copaganda and how police abuse their power to get justice in their eyes and STILL I'm saying Wagner was 100% right with no questions.
There's a conversation between Faith and Angie. It doesn't make any sense unless you have the most extreme copaganda glasses on. Why is Angie apologetic to Faith? She's been letting Faith literally do anything she wanted on this case. She brought a literal apology apple to open the conversation. Faith aside from the scuffle with unnamed cop #4 has been the literal voice of reason even in this episode. All this to say "Come cross the chinese firewall again today".
Speaking of apologies it's Will's turn to apologize and that went over like a YouTuber apology. He totally pulled a "Sorry if you were offended". Because he didn't apologize and then doubled down on the "How could you?" this time with puppy eyes. Again Director Wagner is 100% correct. None of these people will ever walk in her shoes. Saying you're not like other men doesn't make it any less true. Then the most hilarious scene where SWAT comes in to accuse a black women in jogging clothes of waving a semi-automatic gun at children in the park. Their description is "a women waving a semi-auto at children" so you attack the black women who clearly doesn't have a gun or anywhere to hide the gun? So pop quiz hot shot.. who called in the SWAT? It wasn't the devil criminal because she was hiding at Will's. I'm willing to maybe cede that she went to her same running path that she goes to every day.. which is stupid. And even then WHY? He's dedicated his life to framing her not just getting her killed by her own people.
Then Wagner finally caves and goes tell everyone what she did but Will responds that "You don't have to do this". What the character stance? He's been pushing her to take responsibility since the moment he found out and when she does he balks? So cops should ideally feel bad but not actually be forced out of the job because their mistakes and cheats are for the greater good. Cops know who their local dealers are if they're planting evidence it's probably better for everyone anyway.
Even as I review it, the situation is just so gross with Faith as it was with Will. Director Wagner it talking to her daughter about having dinner and talking it out
LIES. This whole episode she's been trampling all over the integrity of the work by doing a case against ethical procedure and direct orders. She has the nerve to suggest that she's now forced to keep a secret that's against her ethics against her will while at the same time complaining that she was never told a secret that was against her ethics. What is the logic here? You really have to pick ONE lane and stick with it. You can't literally complain about both sides of the coin landing up. I promise you if Wagner went to give her "I did it" speech anyway Faith would be the first person in front of Will telling her she didn't have to. All this over a dude so evil he literally came back 30 years later to kill her after almost raping and murdering her the first time in a situation that once again Faith will never understand not being a lesbian, not being a rare sight, not having been overpowered solo by a serial killer not having lived in the 95. At this point the show reminds me that Faith isn't Wagner's literal daughter and I'm too lazy to go through this and remove those references. Whatever. Maybe later.
And the final point about ACAB here is that this is a show that heavily features APD the Atlanta Police Department. This is a department that's currently using as much copaganda as possible to justify murdering protesters who want to stop Cop City a multi billion dollar money pit that's going to train cops to kill innocent people. In natural forest park. I like Will Trent as a character and lord knows I'm still gaga for Christensen but ACAB moments in this show are especially dangerous in the current climate which is saying something considering the white watching of the LAPD that happens on The Rookie. The cops in the APD have shot protestors in the back and gotten away with it, like they took the wrong coffee order. They'll do it again if they haven't already.
Stop Cop City.
https://stopcop.city/