K-Ville: Pilot (Episode 1)

Kville

K-Ville opens with the as yet unknown Trevor Cobb, struggling to stay above water for even a matter of seconds before the screen cuts to black and then the brief text, "New Orleans, September 1, 2005." And the scene is set, quickly before a water-ravaged New Orleans is shown--homes underwater, only rooftops show, tops of interstate signs peek out, police and military men rescuing people from their roofs to the safety of interstate bridges, people beg for water once on the safety of bridges. The water has stopped falling and there is no sign of the astrodome horror, but New Orleans is still clearly in the throes of Katrina and it is hard to summon snarky comments on this sad and ugly recreation of this still too fresh disaster.

On a bridge the loudest voice is that of NOPD officer Marlin Boulet as he calls for those who are not too injured to leave the supplies for those who truly are. His frightened-looking partner, Charlie Pratt, comes to him and whispers that he's just shot a dog who was starting to eat a dead person. Boulet, who's name, the first of many to suggest French roots, suggests to Pratt, the first of a very few not to suggest French roots, suggests that Pratt might be losing it a little (understandable to me) and that he might need to chill a bit, before turning his attention to a bloody, injured woman. Boulet asks Pratt to get a dry towel from their car. Instead, Pratt gets in their squad car and speeds away, leaving Boulet calling desperately after him. One for the French. Zero for the not-so-French. AND SCENE.

Cut to two years later. Boulet is fixing himself a shrimp po-boy, because of course that's all people in New Orleans eat and of course they fix them for themselves in their own kitchens in the 9th Ward while music that's all too literal ("Blood is thicker than water/At least they say it is") when he catches a neighborhood kid stealing a Cypress tree out of his yard because, you know, people gotta landscape. Boulet is pissed because it's his favorite kind of tree and, he explains, they used to grow throughout the city before the storm put salt and chemicals all over them and killed them, so if he catches the kid stealing another on, he'll "bury him under one." So, um, Boulet really like Cypress trees, I guess. Also, he wants the kid to tell his mom he'll be at her "gumbo party" Saturday. People in New Orleans really don't have gumbo parties, but I guess we're supposed to overlook that. Gumbo and Cypress tree burials are going to keep on coming up. Watch for them.

Just then Kaja Fontaine, as delightful and disgusting a post-Katrina stereotype as any, I suppose, and Boulet's neighbor, drives up in an awesome vintage 50's car of some sort. She "only spent two Fema Checks on it"! It's 2 years after Katrina and she's still getting FEMA checks? She must be something else, because no one else is . . . She explains, she's a singer, not a bean counter, so she has to roll in style, ya know?

RIIGGHHTT! This all makes sense. And all makes minorities and the impovrished look good. And all make New Orleans look good. And all makes the 9th Ward and everything and everyone associated with it look exactly how it and they are. And it all makes FEMA look like the hero it is.  FEMA trailers full of formaldehyde, anyone? Damn. This show isn't doing anyone any but FEMA favors so far, except Anthony Anderson as Boulet, who is pretty awesome except for the stupid lines he's having to say. And Kaja, because she's kind of interesting. So far.

Just then Boulet notices that his neighbors on the other side of Kaja Fontaine are selling their home. Their name? The Kellers. Not French. Surprise, surprise, surprise. He looses his cool and throws their for sale sign in the garbage. A level-headed cop. Another surprise!

Why is everyone selling, he wants to know? Why is everyone leaving the 9th Ward?  With those Fema checks rolling in and all? I'd be asking, too. He's pissed. He's also apparently blind and stupid if he can't see the disaster area he's standing in. And living in. Some cop. Blind and dumb. Seemingly living in a parallel universe. Maybe not such an inaccurate way to describe some parts of today's New Orleans.  Who can say?  O.K.  I will.  Not inaccurate.

Boulet reports to headquarters. For the first time in two years, it seems. He's getting a new partner for the first time since Charlie Pratt bailed on him during the storm. It's been two years and his captain is just now asking him if a new partner is an issue? Huh? Captain Embry (French? I'm guessing yes. At the least, he's the only one with a New Orleans accent so far. Very fake New Orleans.  Television New Orleans, not the real New Orleans accent, which is much  more like a Brooklyn accent.) Embry introduces Boulet to his new partner. Guess who? Trevor Cobb. We just didn't who Cobb was before--back when he was drowning during the first few seconds of the show. Is there hope for the non-French of New Orleans? Wait! He's not from New Orleans. He's from Cincinnati and he's been serving as an Army Ranger doing Special Ops in Kandahar and has come to New Orleans to be a cop. Huh? Didn't we see him earlier? Was that even him?  Drowning in Kandahar?  I'm so confused. Who cares? He's hot.

Captain Embry needs two guys to cover a benefit in the French Quarter. Cobb laughs at the idea of covering a benefit, so Boulet volunteers them when no one else volunteers, just to show him how tough it is to be a cop in The Big Easy. Anyone else smell trouble coming?

Ms. Kaja Fontaine is singing at this fundraiser. Surprised? It's to raise money for the 9th Ward. Surprised? It's being held by a lovely, voluptuous, blonde, who catches, Hotty Cobbs eye, Ms. Christina DuBois, daughter of a Rex DuBois, who owns the local casino and much of moneyed New Orleans. Surprised? Boulet tells Hotty Cobb he'll need to make more than 29K to "pluck that flower. Surprised? I am. 29k? Pluck that flower? I am really, really surprised. That's how much a NOPD cop makes? "Pluck that flower" is how NOPD cops talk?  Surprised?  I'm shocked? More money and more vulgarity, please. More money, vulgarity, and violence, please. Right away. I'm about to fall asleep. At least Boulet is drinking on the job. I mean, it's just a fundraiser. Trouble just has to be coming. At least the music is good.

And just like that Kaja is shot by someone with some longish, greasy looking hair, right through the propped open door. She seems to be shot in the hand, but she's down. Boulet radios for help. He's in pretty good shape for someone who's been sitting at the bar drinking. I wonder for a second if he's related to Allison DuBois because he looks at Hotty Cobb and says, "Here's to a long partnership. Don't let me get shot." Am I watching a re-run of "Medium"? When did she become African-American and gain all the weight?

They jump in their patrol car, the drinker drives, since he's the one from New Orleans, but Hotty Cobb says, "take the Neutral Ground," which is New Orleans slang for "take the median" and I'm fairly certain that's not said anyplace else in the country. Boulet's antenna should be going up, but who knows with those drinks. Mine are. The suspect's car flips and he flees into the casino owned by the DuBois family. No one claims to have seen anyone run in except maybe some bluehair who is unsure what she actually saw. No one is in the car. Something isn't right. Not in the suspect's car. Not in the cop car with Hotty Cobb. Not with the shooter. AND SCENE.

Now I'm really questioning my French/not French Good Guy/Bad Guy theory. Who's with me?

Kaja Fontaine dies. So one more of Boulet's neighbors is down. Found in her dressing room: a flower box of dirt and worms. It's a really lovely dirt bouquet. Boulet knows Kaja broke up with a fisherman she'd been dating a week before so him and Hotty Cobb head out to his boat to shake down the ex and accuse him of killing Kaja. The fisherman insists he's been out shrimping on the Gulf Coast and didn't even know she was dead; he had his brother deliver the worms just because he was pissed at her.  I had an ex like that once. Hotty Cobb becomes less hot when he delivers the worst line so far as Boulet dumps the fisherman off his boat and Cobb says, "Isn't this going a bit overboard?" HA! Hotty Cobb apparently 'fishes' him out and they leave.

Drugs are found in Kaja Fontaine's car and Boulet refuses to believe she was using or was killed for drugs. Apparently she was using (maybe spending her FEMA checks on drugs? That would keep up the reflecdtion of current New Orleans the show is giving off so far.) but it will turn out that he's right, she was not killed for drugs and they have been planted in her car. Christina DuBois insists on rescheduling the fundraiser and Boulet and Hotty Cobb are reassigned to work it again, this time with backup.

Charlie Pratt shows up at Headquarters to talk to Boulet. He wants his badge back and asks Boulet to talk to the Embry for him. He tries to explain that he had to leave, had to check on his family. Boulet does not believe him; says that when he thinks back on it, knows that all he saw was a man falling apart, a man who left him alone in the water for three days. But Pratt also serves a narrative purpose. He explains that they never took his police radio away from him, that he's been listening like an addict. He knows about Kaja Fontaine. He knows what's going on. At first he seems almost like a suspect. That will change. He is so defeated, so sad. He looks like the living dead. I am reminded of the many cops who killed themselves during Katrina and the aftermath.

Boulet enters his home and is greeted by his young daughter. It's the first time we see his family. His wife appears. It quickly becomes clear that his wife has taken his daughter and moved back to her hometown of Atlanta. She explains that their daughter still cries every time it rains or is even windy. "Tell me I'm not your man," he demands. His wife cannot. "There is weather in Atlanta," he tells her. Well, yeah. There's weather everywhere, I respond. There's weather everywhere, I joke. There's weather in Kandahar, I explain. Weather isn't the problem. It's the toxic weather, the violent weather, the violence, the schools, the abandonment, the mold, the danger, I explain, along with his wife. Boulet asks me to tell him I'm not his man. You're not, I say. Hotty Cobb is, I explain. Later, I'll have a lot of 'splainen to do, I know, but, really, Hotty Cobb is my man. No matter the weather.

Cobb

AND SCENE.

Second Fundraiser. Christina Dubois is talking to a reporter. She is explaining, within earshot of Boulet and Hotty Cobb that she wants to bring back the 9th but won't talk about what happened to her brother. Cobb asks Boulet about her brother and Boulet explains that he was killed four years ago in the 9th Ward for his wallet. Boulet drinks on the job again. There is a drive-by shooting at the fundraiser. Then, Boulet and Hotty Cobb's cop car blows up. By light of next day, the cops report to Embry that there were no warnings and the only injuries were three broken bones and a few nasty cuts: no one got shot. Hotty Cobb realizes all shots were at least ten feet above the seating and aimed at the planters on the ground, well in front of seats. The shooters were aiming to miss, not to hit.

I don't understand all the street plans of New Orleans, but apparently the drive-by was done by someone on the way to the casino; someone was going there because they knew they could disappear there and not get caught, that's they didn't get closer. The Bring Back the 9th Fundraisers seem to be pissing off the very people who are putting them on.

In the casino security room the longish, greasy haired guy from before is apparently in charge of the security cameras. As Boulet and Hotty Cobb come out, they run into Pratt. Suspect? Helper?

OOOH! Helper! He has done some investigating and found out that the security guys working at the casino are Gulf War Vets turned mercenaries. Apparently hired by the DuBois family (Because the NOPD is in such disaray?). Hmmmm.............

Rex or the lovely Flower of Christina?

Apparently Christina and Rex live in a plantation house. Where are their slaves? My word. This show is about to cross what few lines it has not already crossed. Geez.

Boulet is back home seducing his wife after Rex DuBois has given him permission to do what he needs to do to find out what's going on at the casino. I guess he's in a good mood, though the relationship between the two moods is lost on me.

Then the single scariest moment I've seen on TV in awhile happens.

"So", he says to his wife, "you moving home?"
"Marlin?" she says, "Just shut up," she say, very, very playfully.
He pours her a glass of wine, with just a tinkling of liquid.
"Boulet? "she says, "You trying to get me into bed?"
"I think I've got evidence you're good for it sleeping upstairs," he says.
Then, a torrent, an avalanche, if you will, of water, down the very stairs he just referred to, comes pouring down from where their daughter is sleeping.

They rush upstairs and the water is pouring directly into the child's bedroom window. They grab the hysterical girl and the family runs outside and a hose has been connected to fire hydrant, which has been turned on, snaked into the girl's bedroom, and turned on. Spray painted on the sidewalk is the wife's address in Atlanta. Someone is onto Boulet and after his family. Someone knows he in onto them.

Boulet is next seen busting into the casino arresting the greasy haired mercenary, who we now know is named Mr. Wicks. Wicks claims he was in his hot tub with a scotch and a book when the daughter's room was flooded. We hate him.

Next we see that Embry is furious and screaming at the entire force. He makes the other cops promise to keep Boulet away from Wicks.

Boulet asks Hotty Cobb to drive him to Ziggy's for gumbo because that's what Boulet does when he needs to think. Gumbo. More Gumbo. How about a shrimp po-boy to go with that?  He can eat it and watch a toss beads to girls who show him their boobs while a jazz funeral passes through the French Quarter!  Hotty Cobb begins to drive Boulet to Ziggy's without asking directions. Before they get there Boulet orders Hotty Cobb to stop the car. They get out and Boulet attacks Hotty Cobb, finally pulling a gun on him. He wants to know what his real story is. He claims no one not from New Orleans would know to say "take the Neutral Ground" or know the way to Ziggy's without asking directions if they were from Cincinnati, so what the hell is his real story? Hotty Cobb explains that he did his training in Fort Polk and came to New Orleans all the time and knows his way. If Boulet ever does that again, one of them won't be coming back. Hotty Cobb stays remarkably calm.  Boulet is iosing it.

Boulet realizes one person is buying all the 9th Ward parcels of land and finds out it is the DuBois family.  Hotty Cobb and Boulet pay Rex and the Flower of Christina a visit to bust them.  It turns out that Christina is paying Mr. Wicks to sabotage her own fundraisers to scare people off--to keep them away from the 9th Ward.  Apparently to make things right for her dead brother. The storm wasn't "a disaster, it was a cleansing," Christina DuBois says, just as a red laser beam appears on her head and Wick and his crew show up in front of her home in a bullet proof SUV to take her out before she can rat them out.  I guess they have a police scanner as well.  Boulet and Hot Cobb knock her out of the way and save her.  

What I do not understand is why Ms. DuBois goes to all this trouble.  The 9th Ward is falling in on itself all on its own.  Oprah and Brad Pitt go and help take the houses off stilts and rebuild.  FEMA checks are not enough.  There are not enough fundraisers by Dubois families in all of New Orleans to put it back together.  Even this web site has adds asking for donations.  There is no need to sabotage it.  It is already being embalmed in FEMA formaldehyde.  This storyline just makes no sense.  Revenge for her brother?  I believe the residents of the 9th Ward have already paid, with their lives, their homes, their safety, their children, with everything they had.  This just does not work.  But the lovely Ms. Psycho DuBois will be spending her life in jail for all of this and I guess that is as close to fair as the  NOPD and the D.A. can get.  Hardly fair, but the best they can do in the two seconds they spend speaking about it.  

Off my high horse, back to the story. Charlie Pratt, listening on his police radio so he knows what's going down, has chased and crashed into Wick, now on the run, and is run into the river in his car and is then saved by Hotty Cobb after a chase to the port. Boulet chains Wicks’ getaway helicopter and arrests him. Wick and his mercenary crew flip on Christina DuBois. Pratt is injured, but makes it out of surgery.

On Satuday, before the big Gumbo Party, Boulet approaches Hotty Cobb to confront him and tell him that he knows Cobb was a  prisoner during Katrina.  He found out when he had to go through the few paper criminal records that survived Katrina. Cobb explains that he had four months left on his sentence when Katrina came. He was literally drowning in his cell--that's what we saw in the opening sequence. His cellmate couldn't swim and it was going to be one or the other who survived, so he drowned the other guy.  Not cool. Hotty Cobb decided to change his life when he survived. So he joined the army. After two years came back to New Orleans and joined the NOPD. (And he's suddenly speaking in a New Orleans accent!  Television New Orleans, but still.  It sounds more like Mississippi or southern Arkansas or Georgia) Boulet lets him know that if he has any criminal left in him, he will take him down. But in the mean time, they'll bury the paper record under a cypress tree (just as he told that neighborhood kid he would do to him if he caught him stealing another tree early in the show--it's all come full circle--stop murdering and armed roberring or keep stealing trees--eaither way, you'll end up under one). Then they have some gumbo. And all is well. Until next week.

Cobb & Boulet