I had really high hopes for this new show on NBC and I'll tell you what, it delivered. It was funny, exciting, and reminded me of a few great movies, The Italian Job and Oceans Eleven, two of the most famous. It's funny, entertaining and well written. It also channels a bit of 24 in the sense that it's nearly real time. The events take place over just a few days. Dougray Scott stars and I absolutely adore him, ever since he was Prince Charming in Drew Barrymore's Ever After. He was also the bad guy in Mission Impossible 2 but that movie sucked, so I've blocked it out. If you can't catch the first run of the show on NBC, it also airs on Bravo and USA as well.
Mickey and James waiting out the cops
Anyway, the show starts out following two stories. First it's Mickey (Dougray) and James, his partner, played by the talented Steve Harris of The Practice fame. He'll always be the commando from The Rock who tells Nicholas Cage "I'd take pleasure in guttin' you, boy". Hahah, sorry, I digress. Anyway, they're dressed as plumbers outside of a jewelry store. They have great banter as they disrupt the electric from across the street. They time the police response. 8 minutes, not bad. After the police leave they trip it again, this time 10 minutes. The third time, it takes the police nearly half an hour. They've officially cried wolf. Bad ass. They break in, but only steal a small statue.
At the same time this is going on, there's something weird happening near the train yard. A guy and a girl race a train in a truck and hit one of the cars with a few paintballs. Behind them are a few other cars who then break into the train car and steal whatever it is inside. I don't know why they had to do the paintball thing, but it was kinda cool. Once the group gets back to the warehouse with their stuff the cops are lying it wait. Turns out the girl is Robbery/Homicide detective, Amy Sykes.
At the jewelry store the next day we get to see Sykes out of her undercover outfit and dressed like a good girl cop. Bill, one of the detectives, doesn't think the case is solvable because the crooks did such a good job not leaving evidence and unlocking the safe. They're curious as to why they only stole the small statue, which was only worth about $8,000 when there was a bracelet next to it that was valued at $2937972308. I mean I don't know. But it was much more then the mini statue thing. When Sykes leaves the store, Mickey's watching her from the roof across the street and says, "Keep your enemies close". Isn't it keep your enemies "closer"? Maybe that's what he said.
At Mickey's warehouse three team members show up. A goofy guy, Ricky, a tough girl, Lola, and an old man, Pops. Ricky makes a pass at Lola and she hits him. He then says something rude to Pops and he hits him too. Hilarious. Mickey takes them to where they're going to pull the job off, Rodeo drive. Three of the most famous jewelry stores are on that one street. The only two I know are Tiffany and Cartier. He never says any of them and now I want to drive down there just to look for the third one. They want to know which one they're gonna hit and Mickey says, all of them. The take will be half a billion dollars. Yes, half a BILLION. They're going to do it during the Academy Awards since that's when they have most of their jewels out. And by jewels I mean big fake breasts. And jewels. To pull off a job this big they'll need some capital. And how do criminals get capital, they rob banks of course.
Here's where the cop logistics get confusing. Reno and Bill, good cop/bad cop, skinny cop/fat cop, black cop/white cop, aren't really on the best of terms. Mostly because Bill's a bit racist. He's not burning crosses and wearing sheets, but he's a good ol' boy. Oh, and did I mention he's also sexist? After Sykes brief's them all about the jewelry store robbery she keeps Reno and Bill back, saying she's making them partners. Is she the lieutenant? Or the sergeant? They call her "detective" which is confusing because they're all detectives too. I've watched enough cop shows to know the basic structure of a police detective division .
This poor kid
At a seedy motel, a kid delivers a pizza and gets pulled into the room by gunpoint. The next day, at a bank, James and Mickey are casing the place with a camera in James' briefcase. Again, they have great banter and I realize how much I like these two, and how much onscreen chemistry they share. As they fill out check requests or deposit slips, the pizza kid walks in. He's extremely nervous and James notices. He also notices the heavy coat the kid's wearing and points it out to Mickey. They hurry out of the bank and against Mickey's wishes, James calls the cops. They don't particularly like someone honing in on their territory. The kid opens his jacket and tells everyone it's a robbery. They get the money for him and because of James' call, the cops show up. Unfortunately, when the kid comes out with the money, the bomb on his chest starts beeping and he explodes. Oops, doesn't James feel like a tool now. He does. When Sykes get there they find a radio detonator and realize the kid wasn't the robber and was forced to do this.
We get a little back story on Pops when he comes home to his wife who doesn't recognize him at first. I'm trying to remember the actress' name that plays her because she's definitely played someone with Alzheimer’s before, I just can't remember it.
Ricky and Lola are riding in a car and Ricky's made a 'heist' mix cd. I love it! Lola goes into the locker room at a gym and Sykes is there. When she leaves she lifts her wallet from her locker and takes it out to the car. She runs all her credit cards through the computer and hurries back to return the wallet. For some reason Sykes is back and Lola has to think of a way to return her wallet without her noticing. She does the old 'you dropped something' trick by taking the cash out of Sykes own wallet and throwing it next to her. While Sykes bends down to get it, Lola throws the wallet in the locker. Of course Sykes, being the ever observant cop, doesn't realize she's putting her own twenty back into her wallet. She's useless, the character and actor, but again, I'm trying to hold off judgment, at least for a little bit.
Oh look, St. Ives is on sale
At the hide out, Lola finds out that Sykes takes dancing lessons, which just happen to be that night. Lola's going to go until Mickey tells her that he'll do it. I think he has a little crush on Sykes. He watches Syles during the class, and afterwards in the grocery store. He also watches as she steals some razors. I'm not really sure why she steals them, I think she likes the rush of stealing. Not the best job if you like stealing, working in the Robbery division, but whatever. Mickey approaches her and pretends he's grocery store security. If grocery store security looked like that... I don't know what, but it'd be something dirty. She knows she's seen him before and he reminds her that they were just at the dance lessons together. Again, she's not a great cop.
Next Mickey goes to a little girl's violin concert, but stays out of sight. Later, when the concert's over, the little girl, Katie, seems distracted. Katie's mom tells her husband, Sam, that Katie's a bit upset because she thought she saw her father at the concert. Sam thinks that's strange since Mickey's been dead seven years! Yes, come to find out, through the magic of flashbacks, Sam and Mickey were partners. During one of their heists Sam betrayed Mickey and pumped him full of led. Luckily for us, Mickey didn't die, but his family, and Sam, thinks he's dead. And to add insult to injury, literally, his wife is now MARRIED to the bastard.
At the precinct Sykes is pissed because there are only seven reports from the bank robbery gone wrong and there were eight units there. (obviously this will come up later) Anyway, they learn that another pizza guy has been reported missing and since she's Columbo, she realizes that this must be the robbers' MO.
Mickey and James look at surveillance from the bank robbery and see a cab parked near the bank. As the cops get there the cab takes off. They realize the cab is probably the getaway car. They're able to trace the cab to the driver and Lola and Ricky follow them. Ricky flirts with Lola a bit and climbs on the roof of the motel the robbers are staying in. He puts a microphone in the room as the pizza delivery guy is gagged and in the tub. Ricky doesn't see this. The robbers go over their plan so now our guys know exactly which bank they're hitting next.
"Hi, I'm an idiot"
The next day, Sykes has figured out where the most likely target's going to be for the bank robbery. Lola and Pops get into the waiting cab with the robber in it and are able to subdue him and put him in the trunk. Lola drives off and Ricky and Pops get into a new cab and put on ski masks. James is driving a semi truck and parks it under a bridge, and Mickey's in a cab of his own, driving around the city. The pizza delivery guy walks into the bank and demands the money, with a bomb strapped to his chest. He gets the money but not before Sykes and the cops have figured out where they're gonna hit and show up. The kid heads out of the bank and since he has the bomb, they let him through to the waiting cab. When they pull away all of the cop cars follow, not wanting to blow the kid up. Ricky and Pops have really cute banter (of which there is a lot on this show) because Ricky doesn't know which wires to cut. They argue about it and just go for it. Then they start laughing at how scared the kid was. I love these guys. Lola's at a stop light and fidgets with the signal. When Pops pulls up to it, she turns it red so he has to stop. The cop cars hold back and don't see Ricky slip out from underneath the car into the man hole (ha, I said man hole). He gives Pops a ten thousand dollar stack of money before he goes. Once Ricky's safely away Lola switches the light back to green and they go.
Sykes is replaying everything that happened in her head because she knows something's not right. She thinks the robbers are always one step ahead of them and wonders how that is. She remembers that there were only seven reports and eight cars and figures out that one of the cars has the robbers it. She tells all the patrol cars in the chase to go to a secure line. Of course she does it in police talk. When all the good guys are on a secure line she tells them to slam on their brakes. The one that doesn't is the bad guys. I would think there'd be a better way of doing it, but none more efficient. They get out of the car and Sykes orders for the helicopter to follow the cab. James, by now, has pulled underneath an overpass and Mickey has his cab driver pull in front of the truck.
Since only the helicopter is following Pops' cab, he goes underneath the overpass and into the awaiting semi-truck. Mickey's cab, after getting Mickey's fare, pulls off. The helicopter thinks it's still following the same cab. The cops find the bomb detonator in the cop car and Sykes orders the cab to be stopped. When they stop it it's just the cab driver Mickey had. Later, we see the pizza delivery guy open the back of the truck and leave, with a wad of money. Now that they have the money from the bank, Mickey and his crew are ready to start the real heist.
I love this show. I think it has so much potential. Let's just hope NBC doesn't frak it up. I highly recommend everyone check it out.
