CDN Television: Rookie Blue, Episode 1.3 "Fight Night"

Rookie Blue
Season One, Episode Two, Fight Night
Original Air Date:  July 8, 2010

Everyone, including McNally's retired cop father, is making plans for Fight Night.  A briefing is held about two policemen who have been killed in 18 months by special bullets that can penetrate vests and the operation to try and get said bullets off the streets.  McNally and Peck are stationed at the back and Peck asks McNally about her being "friendly" with Swarek then warns her to be careful.  A fight upstairs from the target apartment threatens to interrupt surveillance and Peck and McNally are ordered to stop it.  Beljac, the subject of the operation is arrested smoothly.  Nash and Epstein arrest one of the Beljac's associates when he flees from the car Beljac arrived in.  It is later learned that the fleeing suspect was Beljac's younger brother.  McNally talks Peck into going back to the apartment where the argument was earlier in the day to help stop a domestic violence situation.  The husband is arrested but can only be held for 2 hours so McNally and Peck has to find a way to protect his wife.  Once they place her in a shelter they go to Fight Night.  Nash goes up against a ringer at Fight Night while McNally's father spends the evening tossing back scotch.  Round one goes rough but Nash comes out strong in round two and wins the match.  McNally has to stop a fight between her drunk father and another man.  The woman at the shelter goes back to her husband and McNally tries to stop her from doing so.  McNally goes to the bar for a drink with Luke.

Wow!  It seems like this hour this show is on goes by pretty fast!

At this point, I'm convinced that the only reason Peck is on this show is to meet the cute blonde woman quota that every show must have.  She has got to be one of the most shallow and unlikeable people on the planet.  She doesn't strike me as being a very motivated policewoman since McNally had to virtually drag her back to check up on the woman being abused by her husband.  Once she sees McNally is right she genuinely seems to care about the woman.  But, once her problems come back, she doesn't care a bit if the woman is in danger or not.  It's all about Gail Peck.

I don't care for story lines depicting violence against women, but, unfortunately, it's a very real thing in this life.  The domestic violence issue wasn't resolved in a quick, clean and easy manner the way it is in some cop shows.  In fact, it wasn't resolved at all.  The woman went back to her husband because he needed her, said he was sorry and said he wouldn't do it again.  Sadly, that happens in real life and, while I would have loved to see her husband get what he truly deserved for being such an assbutt to his wife, it being left unresolved added a depressing and frightening realism to the situation, I think.  It left me wondering if in the last couple minutes of the show McNally would be standing over the woman's dead body as her husband stood nearby in cuffs.  But, that didn't happen, either. 

Bugger.  It appears McNally is going to choose pretty boy detective over Sam.  At least for now, anyway.  She goes to the bar to have a drink with him at the end of the show and seems rather happy to be there.  Oh, well.  I guess every TV character can't do what I want them to all the time, can they?

Apart from her choice of men, McNally is a thinker.  She might not make all the right decisions the first time but she eventually gets there.  She was sharp enough to pick up on the small details of the domestic violence case and knew there was a problem there that needed intervention.  I can already see this character has evolved in just three episodes.

Maybe it's too early in the life of this show for me to be wondering about this but only one thing bothers me right now.  I have to wonder just how long this series will last without having to change in some way.  It isn't written anywhere that a season of a show must be a year in the character's lives.  However, our five main characters can only stay rookies and keep making stupid rookie mistakes for so long before viewers, myself included, will start to wonder if they truly are so daft they never learn from their own mistakes.  It's kind of obvious to me that McNally is a smart woman who does learn from her own mistakes so I can't see her making the same ones over and over again.  I guess for right now I should just be happy with the fact that we're down three episodes with ten to go and Rookie Blue is still delivering an hour of entertainment to me and let the show evolve as it will.