Drama
Chicago Fire
Where’s the fire? In Chicago, it seems. But the flames outside Firehouse 51 are nothing compared to the heat generated inside.
There’s a sometimes creative, sometimes downright odd kind of comedy that’s dominated “Indiewood” for a while now. It’s been called “quirky” and “offbeat,” but whatever the descriptor du jour, it’s a goofy mix that often teeters somewhere between dark comedy and whimsy, melodrama and slapstick. And Fox’s new buddy-cop series is just the latest attempting to pull that eccentric sensibility onto the small screen by its mustache hairs.
The Good Guys features a pair of Dallas detectives who’ve been relegated to the Routine Crimes division, the force’s bottom shelf. Fresh out of the academy, Jack Bailey gets stuck in this dead-end slot because he’s just a little too big for his britches. If he’s not rolling his eyes at the department’s petty politics, he’s alienating his superiors by pointing out their grammatical errors and sloppy reports.
His mustachioed and sunglasses-clad partner, Dan Stark, is too much an old-school cowboy to get along well with the new high-tech world that’s sprung up around him during his already long career. In his more coherent moments, Dan could probably teach his fellow officers a thing or two. But this badly weathered, shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later cop has a hard enough time just staying sober or upright.
So the mismatched duo step weekly into one criminal situation or another. And after 40 minutes or so of searching for clues and cracking wise, they stumble into a comedic resolution. If their investigation happens to lend itself to a slo-mo shootout or a Starsky & Hutch-style leap from a speeding Trans Am along the way, well, so much the better.
Better for the show’s indie appeal, that is. Not for its less than stellar family-friendliness. Stark’s never averse to sleeping with a willing witness. And he keeps his hangovers at bay with more booze, stashed everywhere from the police locker room to his squad car to the conditioner bottle in his shower. When he’s not vomiting at crime scenes, he’s blasting bullets in every direction.
Add in regular profanities, blood-releasing shootouts and trips to a strip club, and The Good Guys ends up with a rap sheet longer than a drug lord’s.
(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 letters@pluggedin.com, 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.)
Stark and Bailey try to track down a stolen humidifier. But while Bailey gathers clues, the half-sloshed Stark only wants a one-on-one “interrogation session” with the female victim. “Hey, it pleasured us both. Plus, it jogged her memory,” he says afterwards.
A pawn shop owner, in addition to stocking his store with stolen goods, ends up disposing of a car with a body in the trunk. Next thing you know, the odd-couple cops are waist deep in a Mexican drug deal that involves two competing assassins and a drug runner who wants to look like Eric Estrada. The investigation not only ends with a shootout, it starts with one too. Oh, and there’s another one in the middle.
The slo-mo gun battles (a guy is also run over with a car) spill the blood of thugs and cops alike. Stark and Bailey systematically defy orders from their superiors. Stark gulps down moldy cottage cheese so he can vomit all over a crime scene. (“Never heard of good cop/sick cop?” he asks Bailey) Bikini-clad women get screen time dancing in a strip club. Pictures of “enhanced” breasts adorn a plastic surgeon’s office walls. Foul language includes “d‑‑n,” “a‑‑,” “h‑‑‑” and “b‑‑ch.”
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
Where’s the fire? In Chicago, it seems. But the flames outside Firehouse 51 are nothing compared to the heat generated inside.
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