Childhood is supposed to be an age of innocence, where you're expected to have fun and make mistakes, a grace period before you inevitably learn the cold hard truths of the world and are suddenly expected to grow up. Some children coming from harsh environments have this moment very early on, some learn around the right time, and some have never left. I started watching dark, disturbing television dramas like The Sopranos and Oz when I was fourteen years old, in between sneaking glimpses of naked women on HBO's weird sex shows. Later on, I got into The Wire and The Shield, and because I identified with and highly respected the characters and writing, I too wanted to be a morally flawed protagonist in my own on-going narrative. I saw my generation filled with idiot youths who didn't know or have respect for anything real. I resented being pandered to due to my age. I spent my teens and early twenties just waiting to bypass the required bullshit training of public school and expensive bubble of college, doing the bare minimum so I could finally get my life started and start laying real foundations through a real world schedule that didn't have summers off. I kind of had this weird fantasy of becoming a forty-year old bachelor with a substance abuse problem and a couple of ex-wives while making pithy remarks to my nemeses about how great things were before cell phones and the Internet. While friends looked up to athletes, politicians, and philanthropists, I wanted to be a combination of Tony Soprano, Vic Mackey, and Jimmy McNulty. And as a result, I went through those years angry, engaged in self-destructive acts, shied away from any kind of personal growth, and alienated friends and family, but at least I was right, dammit. About what, I don't even know. So Dutch's realization at the end of “Cherrypoppers”, where he starts to blame his childhood on his rant towards Danny and then back-tracks, after witnessing the horrors of pre-pubescent sex shops and underage prostitute murders, really rung true for me. At least we had a childhood free of impending doom and exploitation. We both had families that wanted nothing but the best for us and did what they could, but due to some faulty programming in our fucked-up heads, we convinced ourselves that it wasn't good enough.
“Cherrypoppers”, another solid yet disturbing Shield episode with plenty of “this ain't your mama's cop show” moments, examines our characters having their first experiences ruined by random forces. Dutch spends hours grilling his first viable suspect in the hooker murders, only to have the rug pulled out from under him when it's revealed he's been pranked. Vic does a good deed by busting a kiddie sex shop and sending a pre-teen girl back to Korea, but she'll probably be on the first boat back to America. Both characters have their moment of catharsis, with Dutch unloading a sarcastic rant on Danny when she asks his help to study, and Vic having to beat up his surrogate daughter Connie so she's not convicted of murder. And then the pipes in the Barn pop, fluid gets everywhere, and the plumber only takes cash.
Vic's descent into the horrible world of kiddie prostitution is almost too sick to watch. The group of Koreans joking about pimping out Sally and her ecstasy dealer exuding confidence in his right to a reward for information is truly deplorable, mainly because it seems to be an accepted part of life. While it can be funny to watch Vic force a friendship on Ted outside the sex club, what happens inside is quite the opposite. From the music box lullaby to the man in the cowboy boots on stage, we see everything through Vic's eyes, which get so angry that they look ready to pop out of his head. Props to FX and the producers for having the balls to depict this world seldom seen on television.
Dutch is one of those sad characters who never gets the respect he think he deserves, so he studies up on FBI criminal psychology in order to prove he's smarter than everyone else. We saw glimpses of this in “The Spread” and it comes to fruition in “Cherrypoppers”. He gets to lead the investigation, shouting out “I'm gonna get this guy!” to his fellow officers, brings in the FBI (who he probably stole the phrase “unsub” from, another callback to the pilot), and proves that he's great at interrogations, especially ones that he evokes a personal stake in. He nearly loses it when he wasted all those hours and resources on a couple of jokers, and with damn good reason. But in a way, he wins in the end, having a “mean grilled cheese” with Danny. But the green car with the broken tail light is still out there...
Canvassing Notes
- Despite the dark subject matter, there's still a few hilarious moments, such as the clueless gas station clerk who thinks the cops can dust for fingerprints because “it's his three dollars!” and Sally taking on Struthers as her surname. And I never fail to laugh at Kurt Schmidt, the kiddie porn filmmaker, and his justification that “I'm an editor, man!”
- Julien continues to press Aceveda to move forward in testifying against Vic for stealing the bricks of cocaine, mainly because he can't live with himself and has to answer to God. I'm not familiar with Christianity, but are drugs that big of an issue? Didn't God make the plants that cocaine is made out of, and the drug war is nothing more than a man-made catastrophe?
- The episode was written by Scott Rosenbaum, who later went on to write for Chuck and V, and was directed by DJ Caruso, who started out directing TV movies and recently did Disturbia, Eagle Eye, and I Am Number Four.
- Some great guest stars: FBI Agent Jim Wright was played by Richard Portnow, best known as Hal Melvoin, Uncle Junior's lawyer on The Sopranos. Also from that show was Will McCormack, who played Dr. Melfi's son. And we had Jay Harrington who later went on to play the titular character in the under-rated Better Off Ted.
- “What're you boys chewing? A little grilled Snoopy, side of Woodstock?”
- “Suspicious how?”“Well, he was white.”
- “She's a kid. She was.”
- “Serial cases are marathons, not sprints.”
Pre-Cog Report (SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE SERIES)
- The real hooker killer will be caught in “Dragonchasers”, one of the best Dutch episodes ever, also written by Scott Rosenbaum.
- Funny how Dutch accuses Steve of “killing cats”, since Dutch will kill himself a cat in a later season, just to see the light in its eyes go out.
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