Cops & Crooks in A Post-Katrina Muddle

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The New York Sun

On the evidence of its pilot episode, “K-Ville,” which makes its premiere on FOX on Monday, is a generic cop show in a unique setting — post-Katrina New Orleans. In Marlin Boulet (Anthony Anderson), a cop who refuses to desert the city he loves even as many around him do just that (particularly in its devastated Upper Ninth Ward), the show has a protagonist who packs an emotional punch as solid as his meaty frame.

The question raised by the pilot episode is whether upcoming story lines will be better than average, and how honestly the show will tackle the problems that continue to bedevil the city. Since tempers still rise at the mere mention of what has happened there, the burden on the show’s creator, Jonathan Lisco, to keep things reasonably true to the facts on the ground, as well as entertaining, is a heavy one. The good news is that the series is being shot in New Orleans, and will pump some money and jobs into its economy.

Along with the case that needs to be solved—who is sending gunmen to stage drive-by shootings at fund-raisers for the Ninth Ward, and why would anyone do so? — the series’ opener gets going with a host of issues. First off, there’s the wreckage of the ruined portions of the city itself. Then there’s Marlin’s marital situation; the story of what happened to his previous partner, Charlie Pratt (Derek Webster), and the arrival of his new one, Trevor Cobb (Cole Hauser), an enigmatic veteran of the war in Afghanistan.

Since Marlin is wound up to the point of a nervous breakdown, it’s a toss-up whether to start off with his professional or personal life, but let’s start at home. Essentially, he doesn’t have one anymore. His wife, Ayana (Elise Neal), has taken their young daughter to Atlanta and plans to stay there. It’s not because she doesn’t love Marlin, but because she won’t live in New Orleans.

“What’s so good about Atlanta?” Marlin asks her when she comes back to pick up some stuff.

“Nothing. But at least it’s not here. Marlin, come on, look around. Half the city still reeks of mold and toxic sludge, the schools are even worse, the crime… Baby, it is not the same place and it is never gonna be.”

“It will be if we fight for it.”

“Then you fight for it. Don’t make us suffer with you.”

So Marlin’s on his own. Even his neighbors are fleeing (“For Sale” signs are everywhere) as real estate agents gobble up properties like, er, real estate agents.

Another deserter is his old partner, Charlie, who fled the city in the middle of the hurricane, taking their police car with him. Now he’s returned, begging Marlin to put in a good word for him and get him back on the force. But so far, Marlin refuses to forgive. He doesn’t exactly embrace his new partner, either, but partners they are, and it just so happens that Trevor is white. So in a show with plentyof underlying racial tension, at least the principal crime solvers signify unity.

On the other hand, there’s another speech, by a white woman whose brother was murdered by blacks (they robbed him and then bashed his skull in when he stopped in the Upper Ninth to change a tire) four years earlier. Her view of the neighborhood contrasts sharply with that of Marlin’s wife. For the white woman (I’m being vague so as not to give away the plot) the Upper Ninth was a death-plagued disaster zone long before Katrina .

“And now we’re supposed to bring back that neighborhood,” she spits out scornfully. “Why? So we can bring back all those people who don’t value human life. That storm wasn’t a disaster, not for me and my brother. That storm was a cleansing.”

So there are a number of opposing views (to put it mildly) floating around this first episode: Hurricane Katrina ruined the Upper Ninth; it was essentially already ruined; the poor don’t want to return, and real estate agents are driving them out.

That’s a lot for a cop show to chew on, and one wonders if certain items will be masticated thoroughly while others are hurriedly swallowed. A bigger problem is that the opening episode’s plot is unconvincing and there’s a paucity of interesting characters. There are also too many of those ridiculous, shooting-out-the-windows, lanehopping car chases where, if anyone should be arrested, it’s the police, for endangering far more people than the criminals they’re pursuing.

To set a crime series in contemporary New Orleans is a terrific idea. But the trouble with terrific ideas is you have to live up to them. On the evidence of this episode, “K-Ville” isn’t there yet.

bbernhard@nysun.com


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