K-Ville: Bedfellows (Episode Number 3)

K-Ville

A dead man is being pulled out of water in one of those basket things they use to rescue people from water with helicopters. But this guy is way past rescue and he’s being pulled up by a tow truck.

Glue Boy, Love Tap, Hot Cop Cobb, and Boulet are all there. As the others watch the body rise and then begin to examine it, Boulet is off to the side, singing into his cell phone, "Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya. . . " His daughter, Tawni, asks him if he’ll be here tonight (presumably at a school play). He says he’ll do his best, pretty much guaranteeing that he will, indeed, do his best, but will not, in fact, be there.

Back to the body. The cops recognize it as that of former District Attorney of New Orleans, Clay Beelman. He does not seem to have been drowned and they believe he was killed elsewhere and dumped here in the shallow canal. With his Super Cop powers, Hot Cop Cobb is able to hone in on something deep in Beelman’s armpit, which turns out to be a broken off fingernail.  The fingernail is a painted blue with a pink magnolia pattern in the center. It looks as though it hurt like hell when it broke if that’s a real fingernail and not a Lee Press On.

Back at headquarters I realize that Boulet and Hot Cop Cobb are not just cops, but detectives. I have seen enough cop shows to know the difference. I just do not understand how Cobb, who has exactly zero experience as a policeman of any sort, who is only an escaped convict who spent two years in the army and faked his way onto the force, would be hired at the rank of detective. I guess it’s another nod to how desperate and pitiful the NOPD is right now. Yeah, NOPD! But, really. They only pay their detectives $29,000 a year, as we learned is their salary, in the pilot? I’ve had a better year than that by waiting tables.

Back to the show and back to headquarters. Detectives Boulet and Cobb talk to Assistant District Attorney Lyndsey Swan, who is lovely (played by Milena Govich, a veteran of cop and rescue-type shows, having had a recurring role on Law & Order for part of their 2007 season and guest roles on Rescue Me) and who made brief appearances last week. ADA Swan is distressed because Beelman was her mentor and it is clear she thought the world of him as a lawyer and as a decent man. She goes on to explain to Hot Detective Cobb and Big-Daddy Detective Boulet that Beelman was involved in the "Green Space Initiative," which was a program designed to tear down some of the most damaged and strategically placed neighborhoods in New Orleans and turn them into parks that would then serve as buffers for future floods. (I did some research and could not find evidence of any program quite like this one--not even close, actually, thank goodness.) Of course this gets Big-Community-Minded Detective Boulet in an uproar about repopulating the city and fixing homes and neighborhoods instead of tearing them down and ADA Swan goes at it with him. Me thinks they are missing the point of a homicide investigation.

A.D.A. Lyndsey Swan

Finally Hot-Headed Detective Boulet explains that in some of those neighborhoods there are holdouts that refused to sell and that there have been death threats sent to politicians, likely including Beelman, over the issue. ADA Swan looks overwhelmed. Who would want to kill her beloved boss over a little thing like bulldozing entire neighborhoods? Hot Detective Cobb is awfully quiet throughout this exchange and doesn’t even have any of his usual follow-up questions or bad dialogue to add when it’s over.

Big-Daddy Boulet takes the broken fingernail home to his wife, Ayana (apparently she and Tawni have moved back from Atlanta and in with him and been given names—other issues left unresolved from the pilot). Ayana glows and beams at him because she thinks he has taken the day off to spend with his family and to see Tawni’s play that evening. She’s angry when she realizes he’s home to ask her to look at a piece of evidence and even angrier when she realizes it’s a manicured fingernail, as though just because she’s a woman she’d recognize where a manicure came from. But when he pulls out the evidence bag with the fingernail in it, she does recognize it; it’s a color that is not sold in stores and can only be found in salons that mix their own colors and this particular color of blue is only made at Ma Cherie Nails. I sure hope we find out that Ayana is a manicurist or in some related profession because New Orleans is a big city and that is very, very specific information for her to just happen to have stored in her head. Otherwise, the show is asking a bit much of us, but it's a small point, so I'll let it slide.

Detectives B and C drive over to Ma Cherie and speak to the owner, Fong Trang (What? You thought they’d depart from the Asian-Owner-Of-A-Nail-Salon stereotype? Why start ditching stereotypes now?) She is so on top of her business that she is able not only to confirm that the nail came from her shop, but that it was made for a woman named Laine Rogers. That’d be a woman of the night, if ya know what I’m saying. She works at the Poplar House, which the show refers to as a "high class brothel." We quickly find out that it is frequented by judges, politicians, and other higher-up types, which is likely why it’s considered HIGH CLASS.

Hot Detective Cobb and Leading-Man Detective Boulet go to raid Poplar House and search for a murderer with nine pretty blue fingernails with magnolias on them, although these women all look the sort who would have such damage to a manicure repaired tout suite, especially considering that the other nine likely suffered some damage as well.

On the way there they called Captain Embry to let him know what they’ve been up to and where they were headed. He lost his temper and was clearly about to call them off the raid when he caught himself, realized the detectives were followinging protocol and that it would be suspicious for him to stop them. Hot Detective Cobb hears in Embry's voice how close he is to calling the raid off, though, and immediately suspects Embry is involved somehow.

The Buddy Detectives bust into the brothel, where they encounter Marquetta Dinovi, the owner of the girls, pimp, proprietor of Poplar House. She says, and it rings very true, that she is usually notified ahead of time of raids. Smartass Detective Boulet suggests she give them 20 minutes to get a warrant from a particular judge. Then he asks for 25 minutes so the judge can get back to chambers as we see that very judge sneaking up the stairs wearing nothing but a sheet. Hot Fingernail Detective Cobb begins going from room to room, gun drawn, checking the fingernails of each of the women, whether or not he’s interrupting them with customers (gross!), and asking if they are Laine Rodgers. The women are all gorgeous and well-groomed and nothing at all like the ones I saw on that special about the Moonlite Bunny Ranch out in Nevada. Just as Hot Bad-Timing Detective Cobb goes into the room of one Sarah Rogate, who does not have blue fingernails, and has his gun on her, Captain Embry comes in behind him and calls him off. Calls him off very emotionally. Embry looks absolutely terrified. Hot Cobb lookes absolutely intrigued. Something is not right with Embry and the Poplar House and Ms. Sarah Rogate. And Cobb, Super-Sensitive-to-Implied-Sexual-Tension Hot Detective, knows something is up.

Captain Embry

And: OPENING CREDITS!

Embry talks to Sarah, calling her by her first name without asking. She explains that Laine Rogers is her BFF, but she has no idea who Clay Beelman was. Downstairs Ms. Dinovi is making the same claim to Not-Always-But-Usually-The-Smartest-Bear-In-The-Woods Detective Boulet and the Somewhat-Shaken-But-Grinning-Like-A-Teenage-Girl- With-Some-Good-Gossip Hot Detective Cobb. In fact, Sarah and Ms. Dinovi both claim Clay Beelman has never been in the brothel at all. Dinovi is furious that Laine has been doing outside work, thus depriving Dinovi of her cut, and asks the detectives to let her know she’s fired when they find her. I didn’t know detectives performed those sorts of services when arresting prostitutes for murder, but whatever.

Not-Always-The-Smartest Detective Boulet does not believe Ms. Dinovi and threatens to arrest all of her girls, take them downtown and make Ms. Dinovi bail them all out. Dinovi is not impressed. She is clearly as, if not more, powerful in New Orleans than he is. Didn’t Boulet see that judge? And crack a joke about him? He just didn’t catch the significance of it, I suppose.

Outside, Hot Cobb comes to Disappointed Boulet and asks why he didn’t tell him about Embry’s girl, explaining what happened in Sarah’s room. Boulet denies that Embry could have a girl. As I was trying to say, he’s not always catching on so fast. And Cobb seems way too excited about this information, and not just for investigative reasons.

Back upstairs, Sarah and Embry, who she calls Jim, talk and she tells him that if Lane Rogers was seeing Clay, it was off the books. Writers? We already know this. Embry may not, but we do. Find another reason to let us hear her call him Jim. This is old news now. We already believe Dinovi that Beelman was not a customer at brothel. Sarah and her boss parroting one another is boring. Stop boring me.

Outside, Embry catches up to Gullible Detectives Cobb and Boulet and explains that Sarah is his confidential informant and nothing more. Her tips, Embry says, always check out.

Glue Boy and Love Tap go to talk to Clay Beelman’s widow. They hear her explain his plan to bulldoze some neighborhoods to create green spaces to absorb flood water. Again, writers. Move it along. The last two episodes you crammed three episodes into one. Now you’re repeating yourselves. What up with that? The best pace is somewhere in between, ‘kay? Glue Boy and Love Tap are boring. So is Mrs. Beelman. The only reason for this scene is that Mrs. Beelman kept a folder of the hate mail Mr. Beelman received. The worst of it is from a man named William Herck. Now we know we need to find Herck. I'm still pretty bored.

Why so boring?

Really! What's with the boring?

Bad-Day-For-Them Detectives Boulet and Hot Cobb go to Laine Rogers' apartment, where they find her dead on the floor. Their day gets a tiny injection of humor when they find a man hanging onto her window, trying not to fall to the street, with a red gag ball strapped into his mouth, fishnet pantyhose on (He’s wearing boxers over the hose. It appears, though I could be wrong, that he did not kill her, but was interrupted and put on those boxers quickly to cover himself as he tried to get out quickly. So why leave on the gag ball?) (Sorry, no photo available. Yet.) His name is Thomas Macy, he explains once they pull him in and get the gag out. He claims not to have killed Laine. They believe him immediately and move to the next question: Who did? He doesn’t know, since he was in the bathroom when it happened. He says he was in their straightening his seams (no, I said that) and suddenly heard talking. It got very loud, but he can’t tell them anymore than that, because the entire, loud conversation was in Spanish, which he does not speak.

Glue Boy and Love Tap go to William Herck’s address. The neighborhood is absolutely desolate; Glue Boy and Love Tap are creeping one another out and making jokes as they drive there. Glue Boy and Love Tap think they are funny, but someone needs to do some better writing for them because they are not. Funny, that is. They are not being funny. A hint of a former affair between them or a hot one right now would help keep their relationship interesting as well. As it is, they just seem like 2 strangers in a car. Give us something more, even just a little more mystery or maybe some information about their separate private lives. Some smart sparring. Some interesting dialogue? Some background? A good kncok-knock joke? Anything. Just save them. Save us. From their scenes, ok?

As soon as they park and turn to look at the house, a man appears in an upstairs window, screams something in Spanish, and fires on them with an automatic weapon. Glue Boy and Love Tap roll out of the car to safety and Love Tap radios for help. Boulet and Cobb show up. Suddenly Herck slams his window shut (with a piece of wood he slides over it—this is seriously ghetto). Brave Hot Detective Cobb sneaks inside. The house is only skeleton inside—no walls, just beams. It has been gutted by both water damage and invaders. Hot Cobb sneaks up on Herck when he creeps downstairs to survey his kingdom.

Out front, Embry has shown up and Herck explains to them all that he wouldn’t have shot at them if knew they were cops—that he thought the cop cars were gang tricks. He sounds seriously paranoid. But, he goes on to explain, his neighborhood has been plagued by gangs and people have been killed. I think I believe him about his confusion about the cop car. Two neighbors come up and stand up for him, saying they wouldn’t still be there if it weren’t for him. The neighbors describe the gang that has been terrorizing their neighborhood and killing people in it—they have very specific crown-shaped tattoos on their necks. Know-It-All Detective Boulet recognizes the gang tattoo: The Latin Kings.

Cop Car or Low Rider?

Embry sends Cobb and Boulet off to find Boulet’s connection in the Latin Kings, Mateo Cruz. As they look around for Cruz, Cobb gossips again about Embry having a hooker. Boulet tells him to shut up, that she’s his confidential informant and that’s it. Professor-of-History Detective Boulet explains that Embry’s wife died six years ago. Just after that his daughter left for college and they have not talked since her mother’s funeral. What is up? Does Boulet have Embry’s phone tapped? No explanation is given for why father and daughter abandoned one another that way, but it sounds just awful. Cobb says he’s sorry to hear about Captain Embry’s wife and that it must be hard to be a cop’s kid. Boulet looks like he got punched in the stomach with the kid comment. That's what he gets for acting like Dr. Phil.

Now I’m confused. Have Sarah and Jim been involved? Or is she his replacement daughter? They seemed to know one another intimately, but it was not clear if it was sexual intimacy (that was only implied because their interaction took place in a brothel) or the intimacy of family and close friends. Or the intimacy of confidential informants. Ok. That last one I don’t buy at all. Something more than that but maybe less than sex is or has been going on.

Next week, Cobb gets in big trouble, it seems. Boulet says to him: "I told you if you were still a criminal, I’d take you down. You turn yourself in, or I will." A little strange, since we’ve been told he’s a petty thief. Then again, we’ve seen him drown his cellmate, but that was, it did seem, only in order to save his own life. Does he steal something from the 7-11 or kill someone? Also, some scenes look a little CSI and some look a little voodoo, which could be interesting. I’m looking forward to it. I have a feeling no one is going to be turning Hot Detecting Cobb in for anything that’s going to get him thrown off this show. And voodoo is really interesting.