K-Ville: Cobb's Webb (Episode Number 2)

K-Ville: Cobb & Boulet

As the show opens, Hotty Cop Cobb is in orange jail garb, running from police with flashlights and dogs. He looks terrified and then self-satisfied when he finds a big rock to hide behind. Smart. They'll never find him behind a big rock, especially with those dogs trailing him.

It's unclear if this chase is a flashback to his own breakout two years before during the aftermath of Katrina or if, as his partner Boulet suggested in last week's episode, he might still have a little bit of criminal inside.

Then another cop, Jeff "Glue Boy" Gooden wakes him up. Glue Boy, huh? Hope we'll get some insight into that nickname at some point. So far, no one seems to call him by any name at all. I only know that's his name from the web site. And that his partner is Ginger "Love Tap" LeBeau. Subtle, huh?

Love Tap

Anyway, Glue Boy wakes up Hot Cop Cobb from a dream about his escape from jail and I figure we're in for an episode about a jailbreak. Bingo! I win! GB explains that three inmates have busted out over at "OPP" (Yeah! You know me!) (Actually: Orleans Parish Prison) and "the chief's rounding up the posse." Wait. This is 21st-century New Orleans, not 1800's Texas, right?

Captain Embry gathers his troops and explains that they've been assigned a sector of Jefferson Parish's 4th District, where it is believed by Terrence Deville, a powerful and corrupt politician who runs OPP that the three escapees are currently on foot.

The police are shown photographs of the escapees: 29 year-old Tim Dunlevey, 33 year-old, 210 lb Christopher Green (he won't be going anywhere fast, Captain Embry snarks), and Tyler Amsinger, 36 years-old and a federal prisoner, though all should be considered armed and dangerous. The copier is broken, so they all have to stand and stare at the mug shots instead of taking off with their own copies of the photos. I think the broken copier is supposed to be a post-Katrina nod to downtrodden New Orleans, but it's hard for me to believe that the NOPD and the OPP combined do not have more than one copy machine between them or couldn't borrow one from a local business. These cops don't seem so resourceful.

Back to staring at the mug shots. Hot Cop Cobb is staring at Tim Dunlevey, who does look an awful lot like a younger him, when suddenly he is staring at his own mug shot. His own and that of his old cellmate. The one Hot Prisoner Cobb drowned when their cell flooded and Cellmate couldn't swim? Remember him? AHHHHH……precious memories.

FLASHBACK! Hot Prisoner Cobb is telling nameless Cellmate, the very same one who he eventually murdered or man slaughtered, that he had a dream the night before of breaking out. Hot Prisoner Cobb and Not-Dead-Yet Cellmate are not wearing prisoner orange, as Hot Prisoner Cobb was in the dream that started this episode—hints of Allison DuBois again? I mean, he wakes up and tells his partner about a dream that is eventually going to come true? And Not-Dead-Yet Cellmate tells him to just forget it, much like Allison's husband? I think I'm pursuing a dead end. I'll leave it alone. In a second. Hot Cobb does not have nearly as good looking a cellmate as Allison has, though. (Sorry--I cannot find a name for the character or the actor who plays Hot Prisoner Cobb's cellmate).

Back to reality. Or, reality-ishness. Hot Cop Cobb has not shown us that he still has any criminal in him, but he does know a lot about criminals and about jail. He pulls Boulet aside and explains that a house-by-house search of Jefferson Parish makes no sense. Three prisoners escaping together would take months of planning and money. They had to be organized and had to have money. The way to find them, he explains, is to search out their contacts. With a quickness best skipped over in television and wisely done here, thank goodness, they are knocking on the door of one Laurencia Leon. Laurencia is the wife of Fredi Leon. Fredi Leon happens to be Tyler Amsinger's former partner in getting up to no good. Mrs. Leon tries to put them off, but in defending him, she reveals that he currently works as a baggage handler at the airport. That'd be Louis Armstrong Airport. Go there sometime.

Geniuses Hot Cop Cobb and Gumbo Guzzler Boulet realize that the three men they are chasing are headed to the airport, where they will either leave by plane or by car (not rickshaw?) . They call for backup and are joined by a SWAT team that immediately disappears. Freakin' cowards. Unfortunately, the dream team is also joined by a high-ranking prison guard, Deputy Carllson, who is Deville's #2, in every sense.

Dunlevey, Green, and Amswinger are caught loading up a car and getting ready to speed away the parking lot--shots fired, people running, everything blurred and in over-saturated colors. I'm confused. Help.

Amsinger and Green (and apparently Leon) are eventually taken into custody, but not before Green is shot in the leg. Hot Cop Cobb corners Dunlevey near the getaway car with his gun pulled on him. "Go ahead and shoot," Dunlevey says, "If you send me back, I'll be killed there." Hot and Sensitive Cop Cobb tries to talk to him, asks him what he's talking about, asks him to explain, but before Dunlevey can, Carllson comes up behind Cobb and begins shooting at Dunlevey, it seems, at least, though he could as well be aiming at Cobb for all we can see and in the commotion Dunlevey jumps in the car, speeds off, and gets away.

AND CREDITS! You thought the show was over, didn't you? Just kidding!

Back at headquarters Hot Cop Cobb and Boulet are interrogating Green and Leon about the financing of their escape (Where's Amsinger?). They begin to explain that Tim had the ideas and the money when Carllson bursts in, announces that time is up and Green and Leon have to return to prison. Cobb and Boulet are stunned that they are not being allowed to finish their questioning, but Deville bullies Embry into releasing the prisoners to him and they are returned to prison.

Boulet and Hot Cop Cobb do some research on Tim Dunlevey. He comes from a wealthy family, is a law-school dropout with no real work record to speak of, and has been in prison for two years (Since just after Katrina? He's one of those who survived in prison during the storm? It's unclear). What is clear is that he's in on a bogus charge--litering or loitering--and is being held because Deville is making such a great per diem for each prisoner he keeps in custody (that's not how prison really works, though, is it? law students? You can't do this sort of thing can you? This kid would bail out in a matter of hours--judges trump prison executives, right?).

Boulet and Hot Cobb decide to visit the Dunveley family, who speak in the Rich-of America accent and explain that they had no idea Tim had been in prison at all, that the last time they had seen him was at a family gathering years ago when he had been disrespectful, not working, and apparently just getting by on his earnings as a street performer. In short, they make a load of sense and sound like ideal parents. Rich and invisible. I think Dr. Phil just had an orgasm. I mean, these creeps didn't even know if he had survived the storm! They explain that when he was born they set up a trust fund for him, which they describe as the worst mistake of their lives, and which explains the source of the money, but not how he was getting it in prison.

They leave the Dunlevey home and do a little thinking and then report all back to Embry via cell. By the time they get back to headquarters, Embry has found the bank numbers for the trust fund and bank photographs of the woman who had been withdrawling money and funeling it to Tim Dunlevey in prison. Our heroes head to the French Quarter, having found record of her performer's license. There they find her, wearing a hilarious hot pink wig, mask, and dress. They have her name at that point, Kelly Vert (Are the French names getting a little tired?), so when the other street performers all start calling out for her to run, she's not very inconspicuous. I apologize for not providing a photo of her in hot pink gear. I cannot find an available one. Rather, here is one of the frozen man who finally end up starting the screaming franzy that gets her busted.

Street Performers

Kelly says she has no information. All Tim would tell her was that his life was in danger and that if he told her why, her life would be in danger as well. Since she won't say more and was handing off the money to him, they arrest her, but hold her at headquarters instead of sending her to what they believe truly is a dangerous prison. Amazingly, she seems to have had a shower and a change of clothes at headquarters, something the cops there don't even get. Guess they weren't going to go the entire episode with her decked out in hot pink, although I think that would have given the episode a great deal of flair and style and ridiculousness that I would have enjoyed a great deal. A saxaphone-playing clown as a love interest is rarely seen, you know?

Turns out Hot Cop Cobb and Boulet were right about the prison. They get a call and Green and Amsinger have just been murdered in OPP. Hot Cobb and Boulet are furious. Deville used them, they believe, to catch those men and return them to prison so he could murder them. Hot and Boulet head to OPP to investigate. Deville explains that Green and Amsinger should have been put into a solitary medical unit to have their wounds tended to because prisoners hate escapees since everyone wants to escape--strange logic, no? I'd think they'd be looked up to for making it out at all, but what would I know. I've only served short sentences at OPP. There was no room for them to be in solitary and other prisoners got to them and killed them. No real details are offered.

HCC and Boulet want to know how the three escaped from the prison, to follow in their footsteps. Carllson shows them their cells and claims that he was walking them from one place to another when Amsinger took a shank to Carllson's neck and overpowered him. (Allow me to digress for a moment. In Dunlevey's cell Boulet finds sheet music on his bed and comments that it looks like the blues.) Carllson's story is confusing and makes little sense, forcing me to be confusing and to make little sense.

They walk down a corridor past Hot Prisoner Cobb and Not-Dead-Yet's old cell. Hot Cop Cobb sees some initials scratched into the walls of their old cell. Throughout this scene Hot Cop Cobb is having small flashes of himself and Not-Quite-Dead-Yet in their flooding cell, but they are only momentary. Geez. Is he going to be Hot Tortured Cop Former Prisoner Cobb? Because I'm not typing that again.

FLASHBACK! Not-Dead-Yet Cellmate is bummed because his girlfriend missed a visit. Hot Prisoner Cobb reassures him that missing one visit doesn't mean "she's doing the entire softball team." I don't get that joke. As they talk, Not-Dead-Yet scratches his girlfriend's initials into the cell wall.

Back to reality-ishness. Hot Cop Call gets a call from Embry on his cell phone. He tells Carllson it's his wife, though he's single, and Boulet covers for him. Embry explains that Tim Dunlevey is on the phone and won't talk to anyone by Hot Cobb, so he is going to patch him through. Dunlevey tells Hot Cop Cobb that he knows they arrested Kelly, that she didn't do anything, and to please let her go. Hot Cobb tries to bargain. He says he is protecting her, but he has to know what happened at the prison. As this conversation is happening, the three men continue walking and eventually emerge into an outdoor area of the corridor, where prisoners on the yard can see them and seem to have some access to them. Dunlevey keeps pleading for the police to leave Kelly alone and Hot Cop Cobb keeps insisting he has to know what happened at OPP. Dunlevey keeps dropping a kind of lame hint: Nothing happened THERE. Nothing happened THERE. Hot Cop Cobb forgets he's a genius for a minute and gets distracted when a prisoner jumps on his back and attacks him. Rather than protecting Hot Cop Cobb, Carllson pepper sprays both men. I am not cop, so I don't know if that's protocol, but I do know it is extremely rude.

Once Cobb is Hot Unblinded Cop Cobb again, Boulet and Hot Cop Cobb confront Evile Deville and #2 Carllson in an office and tell them they know something terrible is going on at OPP, they know Carllson isn't telling the truth because he has no marks on his neck from a shank, that the prisoners did not escape from the prison, but from some other location, and that they intend to find out what happened. Deville admits that the three escapees found out about a money-making program he was running on top of the prison work-release program, forcing him to shut down the program and something had to be done. But that no one would ever find what. Game on, I guess.

Boulet and Hot Cop Cobb are talking things over when they get a call from Embry, who is finally catching on. He tells them he's gotten a call from Deville demanding that the two of them be taken off the case immediately and asks how long they really want him to wait to take them off the case. They ask for two hours and Embry agrees to call them back in two hours and order them off the case. Cute scene, I guess, if you need to make Embry look like less of a brown noser than he has this entire episode and inject a little more vertical camaraderie. Sheesh. That was SO Law & Order. And who doesn't prefer a little horizontal camararaderie, if ya know what I'm sayin'?

Boulet and Hot Cobb are being followed by Carllson, which they don't immediately acknowledge, but you can be sure they know. More importantly, it turns out that Boulet lifted the sheet music from Tim Dunlevey's cell bed and, being something of a musician himself, has realized it is no composition at all. And being something of a smarty pants, he has realized it is a code designed to get past prison guards who read outgoing mail. He has cracked the code, so they go to headquarters to read this last coded letter, the one that did not get mailed, to Kelly: "Escape tonight. Call you from the road. In case I die, I love you. Or in case I live."

This show should be called Manipulation-Ville. Hot Cop Cobb goes on to tell the de-pinked Kelly that Tim called him just to beg for her safety and that she be let go. He and Boulet beg the shattered Kelly to help them bring him in since he will, under current circumstances, spend the rest of his life on the run, "which is a prison in itself," HCC explains as the word CLICHÉ spreads across his forehead.

She asks them to get a message to a guy named Obvious Chance, a bartender at the Obvious Alibi Bar. Arriving at the Alibi Bar, Hot Cop Cobb asks to see Tim and Boulet settles in for a drink (psyche!). HCC heads to the storeroom in the back, where he finds Tim. Tim starts to run, but Hot Cop pulls his gun to hold him still. Dunlevey demands to know how his safety can be guaranteed. "It can't," an ominous voice says, from behind Dunlevey, as Carllson draws his gun on Tim. Damn that Carllson! But up pops Boulet, because of course they knew Carllson was following them, and draws his gun on Carllson. Gunfire everywhere and Boulet and Carllson are down. Boulet is saved by his bulletproof vest and calls for the ambulances himself. Carllson's status is left unclear for the moment. Dunlevey takes off and Hot Cop Cobb follows him when Boulet encourages him with a, "Go on! I got this bitch!"

The foot chase is rather short, as time is getting short and Hot Cop Cobb has better instincts and knows the streets more intimately than Dunlevey. He holds Dunlevely at gunpoint once again and finally gets the story. Damn. It's an entirely new story. Not a twist on anything we've had a hint of before. There is something so wrong about this pacing. It hurts me. K-Ville writers? You can't cram a three night mini-series into one hour. Give me crooked jailers, toss in a sexy D.A., lots more shots of New Orleans, but toxic dumping in the last five minutes? I'm so tired now. Y'all tossing in the French references. Have a trial. We'll sit through voir dire for the accents and bathroom breaks.

O.k. Back to the show. So Deville had a deal with Shore, an oil company. Shore 'hires' prisoners, but pays Deville loads of money for their use (actually, typcial lockup procedure), to roll their toxic waste to illegal dumping sites in wetlands and swamps (not typical--in Arkansas we use our prisoners to build wardens' summer homes and make their drug runs for them--nothing tacky like dumping txic waste!). Once Dunlevey figured out what was going on and began talking about to other prisoners, they wanted to expose it. Word got out in the prison and Dunlevey knew he would never leave there alive.

Hot Cop Cobb understand better than I do, completely understands, apparently, and hands Dunlevey the keys to his truck, tells him where it's parked, and to take it and go. Just go. A life on the run is just like prison, I thought? Chad Todhunter, who plays Tim Dunlevey, is listed as a guest star, but I have a hunch he is going to be a recurring one. Brother? Son? He just has to be relevant to Hot Cop Cobb in someway. Well, he doesn't have to be; I'm guessing here. I get the feeling the writers are flying by the seat of their pants, so who knows.

The show ends with Hot Cobb visiting the grave of his former cellmate to let him know his girlfriend's initials are still there on the prison wall where he scratched them. Boulet went with him. I guess they're bonding and Hot Cop Cobb probably won't end up under Boulet's Cypress tree or in OPP any episode soon.  As they walk away they have the following exchange, I swear:

Boulter: So did you explain it to him?

HCC: Yeah

Boulet:  Well, I'm sure he's catching on.

CATCHING ON?! To what?  That he's dead?  At Hot Prisoner Cobb's hands and now HPC/HCC is trying to make it right?  That Hot Cop Cobb and Boulet set things straight at OPP?  Catching on to an apology?  Is he really talking to a tombstone?  Ok.  Ok.  I know a lot of people do that and it is not unhealthy.  But on top of everything else in this episode, it's just too much.  End the episode knocking one back with Chance in Alibi Bar, not at the grave of a man who did not make it out.

Did y'all hear that?   That loud, breezy noise?  That was my sigh hear 'round the world.  I really wanted that hot pink, saxaphone playing clown to make out with the escaped rich convict.  Not a body in the ground 'catching on.' 

Very different from last week. There was a lot less character development for Boulet, I think maybe even less for Hot Cop Cobb as well, less focus on the fact that the story was unfolding in New Orleans (this could have happened in any coastal community), but the writing is still a problem.  I know I'm not the only critic asking you, dear writers, to stop trying to cram a movie into an hour.  You're making me feel all Amy Winehouse-y.

Next week: Embry visits/busts/gets caught in (?) a brothel and get a little pissy with Hot Cop Cobb. Guess it's time to show some New Orleans skin!

*During the pilot, Boulet caught a neighborhood kid stealing a Cypress tree from his yard and explained that it was his favorite tree and that he would be burying the kid underneath the tree if he caught him stealing again. At the end of the episode he buried the criminal record of his new partner, Trevor Cobb, under the very same Cypress tree, after telling him that he would "bury him" if he found that Cobb had any criminal at all left in him. Well, according to Wikipedia and a landscape achitect I know (who actually named his son Cypress), in Greek mythology the Cypress tree is associated with the God of the underworld, Hades. I don't know if the writers were aware of this, of course, or if it's relevant, but just thought I'd let you know since it's come up in some correspondence.