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Belle Gibson, like a great snake oil salesman, said that healthy eating could cure cancer. Clearly she was lying. But she may also have been deluded.
Bad company corrupts good character.
Or so people say. And so people think—even if it might not be technically true. Sometimes, a person can hold onto their character—and be judged by their company.
Let me break it down.
Moses Johnson is a great kid—a high school track star set to start college on scholarship in just a couple days. But he wound up in the wrong place at the wrong time. But on Chicago’s 61st Street, it always seems to be the wrong time.
Walking home from practice, Moses sees his brother, Joshua, in a bit of a confrontation with The Nation (a local gang). As the confrontation heightens, Tutu—leader of the gang—fires his weapon in the air to punctuate a point and is immediately shot by the nearby police. When the officers demand everyone get on the ground, Moses is scared to be associated with the gang and runs.
Lieutenant Francis Brannigan has been busting The Nation’s drug dealings for some time now. Perhaps too long. Officer Michael Rossi, who works under Brannigan, is even becoming suspicious that Brannigan is ignoring a rival gang known as The Faction and their similar misdeeds.
Rossi secretly wears a wire in a meeting with the Lieutenant to hopefully catch Brannigan admitting his agreement with The Faction (one that lets The Faction roam free and puts The Nation in the line of police fire). But shortly thereafter, while chasing Moses, he trips jumping a fence and dies tragically and accidentally, leaving his partner, Logan, too distraught to question Brannigan’s misdeeds.
And given that Moses ran from the police and Rossi was found dead, Brannigan and Logan are more than willing to blame the black teen for the death of their fellow officer.
The rest of Season One revolves around Moses’ court case, and, if it goes his way, the fallout of such an unprecedented Chicago ruling (one that favors a black teen over a police officer). Black lawyer Franklin Roberts thinks this is his last chance to make a difference.
The second season is shaping up to focus on the consequences of Officer Logan’s and Joshua Johnson’s respective bad company.
Logan still works in a corrupt criminal justice system that he believes failed to get justice for his fallen comrade. His bitterness and hate nearly boils over before he falls back down to Earth to face the consequences of his own actions.
Joshua, Moses’ brother, was a good kid… until he was accused of being a bad one. Figuring the authorities would always associate him with the drug-pushing gangs of 61st Street, he went ahead and proved them right. He joined The Nation, immediately getting caught up in drugs and debt.
And the show gets caught up in its own problems.
61st Street pushes an “us versus them” mentality. Even Franklin Roberts, the hero of the story, seems to paint police behavior with a broad stroke. Those close to Franklin are upset with his tendency to use horrendous stories of Black teen’s experiences with police brutality for his own social platform and his wife’s political platform. They seem designed to encourage hatred rather than understanding and change.
On the other side, Logan’s undying loyalty to Brannigan is initially questioned by Rossi, his partner (given that Rossi firmly hoping to expose Brannigan’s dealings with The Nation’s rival gang). After Rossi’s death however, Logan’s blame-based hate fueled by Brannigan’s racist mindset spiraled out of control resulting eventually in the horrific events at the start of Season Two.
While the show avoids gratuitous gore (even the three main deaths don’t show an excessive amount of blood), the language can be extreme, and topics broached in each episode are not TV-PG. Parents wanting to introduce their kids to the wide world of crime shows with this less vulgar introduction should be ready to discuss racial violence, criminal justice corruption and the power of hate and grief.
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at [email protected], or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
[Spoiler Warning] The Chicago Black community celebrates the acquittal of Moses Johnson, but when Jalil plays a song bashing the police a little too loudly outside a police bar (we hear a couple inappropriate songs throughout the episode), a drunken Logan beats him senseless.
Brannigan promises Logan to cover up the incident, but Logan is clearly plagued by his misdeeds and Jalil’s eventual death, succumbing to his injuries.
At the end of the episode, we see him knocking on Roberts’ door and admitting his crime.
Meanwhile, Roberts seeks to recount others’ past and share their traumatic stories (we hear some of them, including an instance of an officer lifting a young black woman’s skirt with his nightstick) to inspire change, and his wife rallies crowds behind their collective cause.
Martha is a faithful wife to Franklin Roberts, promising to care for him in sickness and in health.
Though not much blood is shown, we see Jalil, bruised and cut in a hospital bed and we see short, dark clips of Logan’s brutal actions. Later we see Logan’s bloody hand when he breaks a glass bottle in his fist.
Jalil’s family is religious, praying at a dinner after Jalil’s death that he is resting in the arms of Jesus.
Characters drink and smoke. Logan abusively drinks, even while driving, and appears drunk and hung over in some scenes. At the cop bar one character said he got “baptized” in Jameson’s Whiskey there.
Joshua is still part of the drug gang and is in debt to the leader.
We hear “d–n” twice, and “b–ch,” “h—” and “a–” each once. There are also two censored curse words, likely both the f-word. God’s name is abused once.
In the very first scene, we get a glimpse of the racial injustice in the Chicago court system when Roberts fails to convince the judge to keep an impoverished Black man out of prison, even though the man’s only crime was stealing baby supplies for his newborn.
From there, we are introduced to Brannigan and Rossi and their suspicious dynamic as well as Moses, a young respectful track star.
In the shady side streets of Chicago, we meet The Nation gang and hear about their drug deals. Brannigan also knows The Nation gang well and tries to use his shady connections with The Faction to make as many Nation gang arrests as possible.
Then, disaster strikes when Rossi dies, Moses is blamed, and Joshua is arrested in an attempt to find Moses.
Rossi’s death is bloody and traumatizing—for both characters and the audience. Guns are shot and a man is attacked by a dog.
Moses continues to run from disaster.
Feeling like he hasn’t made a difference in the flawed system, Roberts wants to fight for Moses in court before his prostate cancer gets worse.
Despite many friends and family vouching for Moses’ good character, Brannigan is willing to stoop to any level to capture and convict him, even planting drugs in his family’s apartment and torturing his younger brother (we don’t see the torture at the river’s edge, but Joshua is traumatized by it).
On the morning before his death, we see Rossi with his wife. He is shirtless and his wife kisses the back of his neck.
When he arrives at work, Rossi prays, grasping the rosary hanging from his car mirror.
We hear three s-words as well as “a–” once. God’s name is misused three times, once with “d–n” and Jesus’ name is likewise misused once.
Caleb Gottry is the Plugged In intern for Summer 2024. Caleb studies journalism with a minor in music at Texas Christian University, where he will be a junior in the fall. He loves playing with words, listening to and making music, and spending any spare time with friends or family.
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