Somebody’s having fun making things go “boom” in Chicago.
And somebody else — Alderman Gibbons (Delroy Lindo) — is having fun reminiscing. And working on creating his own little explosions.
First, however, let me say this: for the first three episodes of The Chicago Code, I’ve been pretty enthralled with the program. It’s smart … quick … keeps you on your toes. Snappy dialog. And the stories have been jaunting along at a pretty good clip thus far.
And that’s why I was surprised to see one of the goofiest moves of all time take place in this episode: Jarek and Caleb are tailing their suspect, who may or may not have current Chicago Liberation Army ties … and he pulls off one of the most comical “fake outs” ever seen this side of a Keystone Cops short. The dude knew he was being shadowed, and he thought he was actually going to lose our detectives clambering up that stairway? Come on …
Outside this obvious stutter-step, the episode was solid and straightforward.
Whereas the planted bombs and subsequent bustling about to prevent more things being blown up was entertaining, it was the back story; Gibbons’ voice over was the more intriguing part of the hour. We heard his story, we saw where he grew up (“Cabrini-Green”) and what some of his dreams were as a boy.
Later, we saw the methodologies he employs in order to get his way, some of the things which hold sway over others. In this case, winning over the boy who would have carried out the “hit” on Gibbons to ultimately gain the name of the thug who had it out for him in the first place (Was there really any doubt Lil Monster’s fate was sealed? And by the end of the episode? None. None whatsoever.). Gibbons can obviously hold that much influence over others … always the sign of a good villain. We witnessed some of that influence last episode when he framed Killian on that child pornography sham, and we’ll see this over and over in the coming weeks.
Additionally, I’m caught up in Caleb Evers’ (Matt Lauria) place in the show. He definitely isn’t sucking up to Wysocki — he’s questioning him, nudging him, doing what he needs to do to stay his partner without kissing his ass.
This police procedural is infectious. Are you being pulled along in its wake the same as I am?
Clacked by Michael Noble 
on Mar 01, 2011 @ 05:11 EST5EDT
I’m waiting to find out that Gibbons had another, hidden motivation for the destruction of Cabrini-Green.
And I’m with you … in a show FULL of interesting characters, Caleb Evers does not get lost in the shuffle.
This show is amazing. I’m really surprised that more folks aren’t watching. Hopefully, Charlie Sheen’s antics will actually keep the show from getting canceled. The story about the Gibbons keeps you interested plot-wise. The story of the week to let us get to know the very interesting characters. They’ve also created a very interesting character in Gibbons, who is unequivocally the bad guy, at least in my mind, but still elicits a lot of sympathy from the audience. Usually shows take the easy way out and do this by simply making the good guys do bad things to make the villain look less villainous in comparison.
To be honest I find “The Chicago Code” horrible. For me, nothing works on this show. The special effects are bad, the dialogue is bad, the actors are bad, the setups are bad. I guess you have to be Irish to like this show or just love Voiceovers. Nothing on the show, for me, is cool. It’s all just insipid bla bla. I don’t care for any of the protagonists and I am not angry about anything the antagonists do.
Voiceovers are a cheap way to get exposition done and I hate that. The special effect where they had the camera pan over the two cars in the pilot during the chase scene was CGI and I hated it. I know that those angles aren’t possible and I see the smudgy parts on the video where the artists fudge things because they are on a constrained budget (compared to a movie).
I don’t get why Wysocki thinks he can boot his partners. I don’t understand why the old cop shot the copkiller in the second episode. That was vigilanism and it was lame. I see every story twist coming a mile ahead. I don’t care about Chicago. I don’t understand why I should care about these people. They aren’t likeable.
I think you have to be either Irish or live in Chicago to care about anything that’s going on.
I don’t understand why the Alderman is bad because the show doesn’t tell me how a brighter future for Chicago would look like. Now they tore some buildings down in the city. Why is that bad? Why is it good? Why should I care? Who are the protagonists? What is their background? Why should I believe anything that’s said in voiceovers? Why should I believe that the newbie has been on the force longer? All I can think about is that Lauria has been throwing footballs until recently. And Jennifer Beals is too beautiful to be a cop, sorry. She’s just wrong for the role. I could see her as a college grad DA on a court drama but not on a cop show. CCH Pounder worked for me, she definitely doesn’t.
Sorry, I just don’t get it, and none of the reviews up until now gave me anything that told my WHY you guys like it. You recap the show and that’s all. I don’t need that, I watch the episodes. What makes this show good? Why do you like it? To be honest you guys give me reasons (or: affirmation) why I don’t have to like the show. The perp trying to get away via the stairs. The foreseeable plot line that the hoodie is going to die. That the cops weren’t going to get to the kid first. It’s all bla. “You stay safe out there” to the undercover guy was so… bla. Lame. Why say that? The delivery was monotone. Nothing showed she cared about the guy and we don’t know anything about the dangers to him other than an undefined, looming something. And she has no personal connection to him. If hey had some kind of a love connection and she would get a different line I might care about him but no, not this way.
I just don’t get why this show is supposed to be “amazing” and nobody here is able to tell me why it’s supposed to be.
The funny thing is that I thought the same about “Southland” during the first season of that show. Now I love watching “Southland”. Same goes to “Lie to Me”. Both shows were seriously retooled after the initial run and I just hope “Chicago Code” get’s enough episodes in so they can take the feedback they get now to get it done RIGHT. Because it currently isn’t. There needs to be exposition and I mean real exposition not people I don’t know blabbing “cool sentences” out of nowhere underlined by nothing. I can’t find something cool I don’t have a connection to. It’s as if the whole first third of a movie is missing and I’m just seeing the scenes where they are starting to deliver the one line zingers that are supposed to be great but I just don’t understand why.
I think we all realized a long time ago that you have no taste for TV. :-p
Tell me again why Season 6 of “24” was so awesome.
Please. Do tell ;-)
*POST AUTHOR*
. . . . .
*sigh*
Come on, Sebastian … you’re beginning to sound like a broken record yourself.
The actors are not bad in the least. They’re damned smart for a jam-packed, well-written show such as this. Wysocki is one cool character … one of the coolest police officers I’ve seen in a while. Bad dialog? No. What I believe you think is bad dialog is you’re inability to keep up, because you can’t be diddling around or sewing a button on your trousers or playing with the cat while you’re watching this program. You need to concentrate. You need to keep tabs on the interplay between the characters, especially when they’re talking to each other. That’s the way the writers are writing them, playing to the audience – an intelligent audience, mind you. An audience the creators believe can keep up with the dialogue, not an audience who needs to be kowtowed to. Is that it? Is that why the dialog is “bad”? Is it too much for you? I have a difficult time believing that it is. I’m confident you can handle it.
But something is griping your cookies about the show. More than your proclivity to whine about stuff. And it’s not the set ups and it’s not the actors and it’s not the dialogue. And give me a break, guy: I’m part Irish, but that’s not the reason I like it. That’s like saying you need to be nerd to like . Don’t give me that crap.
Voice overs? Love’em. Especially when they’re an integral part of the story. And Gibbons’ voice over was. You want to witness a bad voice over? Catch an episode or three of Sex In The City and listen to whiny, monotonous SJP do her thing. Then come back and listen to Gibbons again. Guarantee you’ll catch a clue.
If the show isn’t cool for you … if it’s “all just insipid bla bla” … if you don’t care about the protagonists or Chicago, look at it this way: You gave it a go. Terrific. Now move on. Do yourself a favor and don’t waste your time.
Jennifer Beals: Too beautiful to be a cop? That’s like saying Gillian Anderson is too beautiful to be an FBI agent. Sorry, but that’s one of the most ludicrous things I’ve ever heard. (For the record: I don’t think Jennifer Beals is beautiful at all. I dig her in this role, though. In her own way, she’s just as much a smart-strutting badass as Wysocki.)
Let me ask you something, Sebastian: You state you don’t understand why no one is able to tell you why it’s supposed to be a good show. Take the blinders off. Try tucking your “why’s” and “how’s” and “you have to be’s” in your pocket, go into the show with an open mind instead of with preconceived notions about how the entire hour is going to be painful for you because it’s bound to fail at answering any of your questions. There’s a novel idea. Stop taking your likes about other shows and putting them into your wishes for shows you don’t get. “CCH Pounder worked for me, she definitely doesn’t.” New Flash: Jennifer Beals isn’t trying to be CCH Pounder.
And here’s the thing: I know you can do it. I know you can be objective about a program. How? You state it your ownself: “The funny thing is that I thought the same about “Southland” during the first season of that show. Now I love (it) …” Things can improve with input and direction and feedback. Again, you said that.
Get off this show’s ass, guy. It’s just been born, for Pete’s sake … barely four episodes old. Cripes … I’ve stuck with No Ordinary Family and it’s finally come of its own … and I’m diggin’ it right now. Talk about a show that was insipid in the beginning. It took some work, but it’s working.
Last thing I’ll mention: There needs to be “exposition”? Not “people I don’t know blabbing “cool sentences” out of nowhere underlined by nothing” … ??? Have I got a couple shows for you. Catch an episode of Idol or Bob’s Burgers.
You’ll love’em … I know you will …
Hmmkay first of all Gillian Anderson is the perfect example how to look to be an FBI Agent because she’s not the model type beautiful Jennifer Beals is.
Second: I don’t understand why I loved “The Wire” and “The Shield” as well as “The Unit” from the firt episode on when all that is the problem is my inability to “keep up”. I mean it’s great that you make this all about me and my inability to concentrate. I’m so glad you don’t get personal but I guess I had that coming because I’m getting kinda personal in other comments, eh? :-)
I watch “Bob’s Burgers” by the way and love it. The dialogue doesn’t demand of me that I think the characters are cool, because they aren’t. They are self deprecating all the time. And that’s why I don’t like “The Chicago Code”. The characters are doing nothing to warrant their actions. Why is Wysocki cool? He behaves like a total ass and that’s all. Thanks for the affirmation that you have to be irish to like the guy and the show. Seems I was dead on :-)
The dialogue isn’t intelligent. It makes me want to pull my hair out. It’s the same deal with Lyman on “Lie to Me”. I hated the guy for the first ten episodes and then they gave him some f***ing background. They showed him with his daughter, they showed him talking about his mother with her. They explained his relationship with his wife. That was something to make us understand why he is that way. “The Chicago Code” makes the same mistakes. Why should I like this cop? I don’t know him. All he does is treat others like sh*t and the funny thing is his new partner is supposed to be so spiffy and intelligent, all the while he is groveling like a puppy to stay with Wysocki. That line at the end of the last episode? “I think that warrants another week of riding with you?” – sorry but how lame is THAT?
And the special effect. Man. I mean it’s kinda cool when you look at the first episode and the camera panning from the cop car over the hoods of that car and the guy they are chasing. It kinda reminded me of “The Blues Brothers” when they were chasing under the L and how the perp held his gun in Wysockis face. Problem is: that shot is only possible in CGI, because you can’t have a camera move that way. That means the two cars were standing, that means that this isn’t a “cool shot” because it is all created in the computer (compared to the hundreds of cars that raced through Chicago for Blues Brothers) and THAT makes it LAME in my eyes because anything that is just in the computer and not dangerous at all to create has to wow me in a complete different way to be cool. Like Avatar. This scene was like throwing that fake polar bear pelt at the screen on “Lost”.
Same goes for the first explosion in the last episode. All those rocks being thrown in the street – total fake. All blurry and so extremely cheap. Laughable. Like the caverns in any episode of Star Trek (Original Series). Rocky, uneven walls – and absolutely flat ground. Or shows that show me characters “walking and talking” and they make four lefts – meaning they end up where they started and they just re-dressed the starting-point. Sorry that I am able to understand the basic principle of “going ’round the block”.
And again: that talk with the Undercover Cop “stay safe”. Yeah you don’t give a f*ck about the guy. I tell you how you are pretending to like someone. On the second episode of the second season of “The Listener” there’s an guy going undercover. You know how they make me at least care about him A BIT? They had the guy and his handler (a blonde cop, kinda beautiful but not with a perfect face – you know – someone you could believe is in the force compared to that supermodel on “The Chicago Code”) talk about how she dated his brother. That’s all that is needed. Give them a personal connection.
And that’s what’s missing EVERYWHERE on “The Chicago Code”. They are just throwing things in the ring and expect me to care and I just don’t know how.
And again it’s kinda ridiculous that you tell me I’m not able to keep up with the content of the show. I watched “The Good Wife” while playing a game on my computer and somehow I managed to notice that – compared to that other guy who writes reviews about the show here who kinda seems to not be able to manage to keep up with what’s going on on screen even though I think you are supposed to make notes while watching the show. Compared to ME who ISN’T.
Also I think it’s borderline ridiculous that you tell me I have to stick with the show. In my comment I said that I will stick with it because “Lie to Me” and “Soutland” both managed to turn the car around later on because they seriously re-tooled the shows and that I sincerely hope that Shawn Ryans previous exploits warrant me sticking with it (namely: “Lie to Me”).
But seriously – bringing up NOF? The last episode review read something like “Finally no lipstick villians anymore”. Which episode are they at now? 18? At least pick shows that warrant me sticking with them. Smash and grab dillydally 7 months in. No thanks. Who’s even still watching that show? Are they all Irish as well? ;-)
But honestly, if you ask me, this show shows that he tried has the same approach time and again. Throw people in and then wait to see what comes of it. And he doesn’t know how to do it right. Terriers was a ratings failure. “Lie to Me” is close to cancellation. TCC is tanking as well and IMHO only surviving right now because of Charlie Sheen.
Either they manage to give the characters some background fast or they are done. I don’t understand why that is so hard to understand. It worked on “The Shield” didn’t it? They made us care about the characters on the show and what especially worked was that we didn’t know who the protagonists and who the antagonists were. People were flawed on this show and they aren’t on TCC. They don’t even have families to care about. All I know is that Wysocki has a niece who’s also on the show who had five minutes of airtime in the pilot. That was the ONLY scene I cared about ANYone. I didn’t want HER to get killed. Because Wysocki cares about her. The rest is just a big stinkin’ pile of meh.
*POST AUTHOR*
. . . . .
*sighs anew*
Hey let’s agree to disagree and wait how things turn out ^^;
I’ve liked Vonda in ALL of the episodes she’s been in. Which has been, you know, all of them.
Mike, you’re a better man than I. Thanks for covering the show for me this week.
I just came back to gloat :-)
*POST AUTHOR*
. . . . .
“Gloat” … ???
You mean … you weren’t gloating above? Because I’ve seen gloating before … and that looked like gloating.
*pulls out a singular “A Few Good Men” quotation*
“I can bring in the court reporter and …”
The last article I wrote that got published on CC was about “Terriers” and my examples were almost all about Shows where Shawn Ryan did a better Job and you get Schadenfreude about him failing to do a good show here? The last paragraph I wrote here before coming back was about the re-tooling of “Lie to Me” (and “Southland”).
Or… Wait. Don’t tell me you thought I was gloating about the article. I mean I know that I am NOW gloating about me being right about the show but do you guys really only see comments as direct criticism of YOU?
I wrote those comments because I wanted to express how bad I think the show is done bad and my whole first couple hundred word long comment is about why I don’t get why you guys think it is good, that I want you guys to tell me why you think it is good and all you get is “your review sucks, you suck”?
Wow.
No wonder you guys are all so pissed. I didn’t know that CC was about the author and not about the topic. No wonder Scheckie had Deb ask me whether I meant her in that BBT comment about Penny.
You guys are weird. Honestly. There’s rarely a comment I leave that is less than a screen long and all you get is “u suck”. Talk about taking things personal.
*POST AUTHOR*
. . . . .
Sebastian:
For the record, I’ve never (yes, I used “never”) said “u suck” to you. Additionally, of all the comments you’ve written on my posts, I’ven’t ever surmised and condensed your words in a “your review sucks, you suck” manner. Ever.
For the record, yes … I’m weird. I cannot, however, speak for the rest of the team. (Well … except for Tara. I know her “best” in a manner of speaking …)
And, for the record, I’ve never known any topic at hand being “about the author and not about the topic” unless the author specifically states it as such.