
Dead Sea Squirrels
Some 2,000-year-old squirrels offer some great lessons about both the Bible and life in this clever new Minno series.
Being a police officer is a stressful career.
You’re expected to keep the peace while also keeping your uniform clean. You have to stop the bad guys from harming others without harming them yourself. Be polite and nonconfrontational as you render aid even as those you’re helping scream in your face and call you names.
And unfortunately, that doesn’t necessarily end when you clock out at the end of your shift. Because when you’re a cop in an understaffed city like Long Beach, California, you’re always on call.
Officer Harmon knows this all too well. So she doesn’t count on anyone noticing if she or her fellow officers volunteer for extra shifts. She doesn’t anticipate a “thank you” from the public for protecting them.
But she does expect her precinct to trust her—and to have her back as she tracks down the guys who shot her former trainee, Maria Delgado—instead of whispering behind her back to her new rookie, Alex Diaz, about how she got a bunch of people fired last year.
Whether that’s true or whether someone is just sowing seeds of dissent within the department remains to be seen. But in the meantime, Harmon is going to keep doing her job. She’ll train Diaz. She’ll find Delgado’s murderer. And Harmon will keep serving and protecting the people of Long Beach—and all while keeping her shoes and belt nice and shiny.
Prime Video’s On Call, ironically, should probably come with a trigger warning for fans of typical police procedural. Why? Because despite some marketing that suggests otherwise, this show is anything but.
Violence is prevalent and graphic. Delgado is murdered onscreen (shot in the neck) during a routine traffic stop, an encounter that escalated when she realized the driver was attempting to traffic a minor. Traditional camera shots are juxtaposed with footage from Delgado’s bodycam and the cell phone recordings of bystanders. Instead of trying to help Delgado or even calling for help, they watch her bleed out in the street.
A mob attacks several officers and eventually destroys a local business. A rookie officer gets stabbed in the neck with a heroin needle, and he begins to foam at the mouth. Diaz saves his life by administering emergency naloxone. But the experience shakes him to his core, especially since they weren’t even after the guy who attacked them.
Officers are forced to take lives, too. Although Harmon always aims for a nonlethal approach (she’s never fired her weapon in 12 years on the force), that’s not always an option. And the first thing she drives into Diaz’s head is that he should always know his location, since you never know when you or someone else will need an ambulance.
Language is foul, with dozens of f-bombs per episode. Nudity and LGBT content sneak into the show as well. And viewers should also be aware of an anti-police element as well.
On Call shines a sympathetic light on Harmon and other officers. These brave men and women are trying to protect the public while being hindered by procedures and bureaucracy at every step. But even when they play it by the book, the department could still get sued for not doing enough. And, of course, there are some cops who get sick of all that and go off-book—sometimes in the hope of making progress, sometimes for personal gain.
More than anything, it seems On Call is trying to demonstrate that the work of police officers isn’t always black and white. There are many nuances to the job. And even when you do your best, it might not be enough. Someone could still get hurt—emotionally or physically.
And even though I’m sure what’s depicted here is reminiscent of what real police officers have witnessed on the job, I’m not sure the show’s message is strong enough to justify depicting it onscreen. Because while cops have been conditioned to this sort of violence (and have access to mental health professionals who can help them process it), viewers haven’t been. So rather than help us empathize with the boys (and girls) in blue, it just feels like another excuse to desensitize us to the horrors of this world.
(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.)
After her former trainee gets shot in the line of duty, Harmon is ordered to stay away from the case. However, as she begins to train a new rookie, she decides to break a few rules in order to track down the murderer.
During a routine traffic stop, Officer Delgado realizes that the driver is attempting to traffic a minor. She orders the vehicle’s occupants to step out, but a man in the backseat shoots her in the neck. The suspects drive off, and bystanders film the officer on their phones as she bleeds out in the middle of the street.
Officers struggle to hold down a man as they handcuff him. He reportedly beat his mother (who is bleeding from a wound to her head). But when they try to arrest him, his mom claims there’s nothing wrong and begs them to let her son go.
Harmon and Diaz engage in a car chase with the suspects in Delgado’s murder. The reckless driving worries Diaz, who’s anxious that the other driver will hit someone. Eventually, the car crashes, and we later hear the driver didn’t make it. Diaz chases the other suspect on foot, but the man gets away after Diaz hesitates.
Officers break down the door of a bathroom to find a woman half-passed out on the toilet (her pants are down and we see the tops of her thighs) with a drug needle in her leg. Diaz convinces a young man with a meth addiction to go to rehab. (The guy crushes his meth pipe underfoot, a possible sign of his commitment to getting help.) A man claims a teenage girl ate too many marijuana gummies, but it’s clear she’s been drugged with something stronger.
Harmon asks Diaz what the “First Commandment” of policing is. He responds, “Know your use-of-force policies.” Harmon rebukes him, telling him that’s what the police academy wants him to say. Instead, she says, it’s knowing where you are at all times. Because their department is understaffed, patrol officers work their beats alone. So if you or someone else gets hurt, you need to know where you are so you can call for help, she says.
Someone suggests that Delgado died because she didn’t follow protocol. Diaz says his mom hates cops. A woman gets mad at Harmon following a domestic-violence incident because she believes Harmon is judging her. Harmon issues a verbal threat to someone she arrests, and Diaz accidentally catches it on his bodycam. Later, she scolds him for failing to turn off the camera but encourages him to report her misconduct anyway. When Diaz fails to follow orders or respond on his radio, Harmon takes the heat as his superior officer.
We see some women in sports bras as they change in a locker room. People wear swimsuits by the beach. A group does yoga in the park.
There are more than 20 uses of the f-word and more than a dozen of the s-word. We also hear several uses each of “a–,” “a–hole” and “b–ch.” Jesus’ name is abused three times as well.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
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