If you would like to read my review of last week’s episode, click here.
Synopsis: After the city’s gun buy-back program is robbed, the team is on a hunt for those responsible. Meanwhile, Murtaugh walks on thin ice with Trish, Riggs finds an unlikely friend in Ruthie, and Captain Avery is reunited with a college “frenemy” who has key information about the case. (IMDB)
Writer: Carlos Jacott
Director: Silver Tree
Rating: TV-14
Running Time: 44mins
So far this season, the trend is to focus more on serialized character development more than the case of the week. While this may be fun to watch, it does get old as many episodes retread familiar ground in hopes of filling up a standard network 20+ episode season. This season has been lagging as it has done next to nothing about the threat of Nathan Riggs on the horizon. This was pretty much another filler episode before we get to the season’s eventual end.
Now to the case of the week. An LAPD gun buy-back program was robbed resulting in the death of one of the robbers. One of their leads took them to a gang member named Booker (Sheaun McKinney) who claimed to be working undercover for the ATF. Murtaugh and Riggs to a lesser extent were skeptical of him. Murtaugh flaunted his alias from his 2 weeks of undercover experience. This led them to Booker’s handler Charlie Blum (Wallace Langham) for whom Avery had a past.
Booker wasn’t working a case but rather followed the man who killed his partner named Strickland (Adam Lazarre-White). Meanwhile, Avery and Blum shared their experiences working with loose canons. Booker later escaped custody by taking Murtaugh as a hostage and forcing Riggs to save Murtaugh instead of going after him.
While Murtaugh was actually working and followed Booker to Strickland, Riggs was sleeping in a drawer at the morgue. Murtaugh used his earlier alias to get inside. Riggs took Avery and Blum while he followed Murtaugh. Riggs used the same alias as Murtaugh to get in. As a test, Strickland wanted Murtaugh to shoot Riggs. That obviously didn’t happen as the gun wasn’t loaded. A shootout ensued but backup was there to save the day.
In other news, Ruth was still around and she and Riggs were becoming closer. She got a phone called that worried her and when Riggs tracked it, he learned that it was from her son that he didn’t know about. Her trailer was booted due to thousands of parking tickets. They didn’t stop her as she got them off anyway and left Riggs.
Also going back to the last episode, Trish was unhappy with Murtaugh. The kids saw what was happening and desperately wanted them to settle their differences. Avery and Riggs thought he should do the same. Over time, they eventually came to their senses, or when Trish accidentally on purpose ran over Murtaugh’s motorcycle.
Overall, this was a decent episode whose serialized character moments took over and made the case of the week feel like an afterthought. The best part of this was seeing Blum and Avery talk about Riggs and Booker. The ending of both subplots was inevitable but it was nice to see Riggs have someone at least for a little while. Hopefully this season will find the right balance and we’ll get to see a compelling case that won’t get swallowed up.
Score: 7.5/10
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The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.
