Necessary Roughness – TK’s got a gun

The season premiere of Necessary Roughness resets the show in some ways: TK, who had just started getting over his issues, now has PTSD after being shot in the season finale. Of course, he is recovering physically six weeks later, and claims to be recovered mentally. But as Dani correctly predicts, having him go to a Hawks fan appreciation event is a bad idea — resulting in him almost shooting a fan! TK is clearly not okay if he’s carrying around a Glock. I am guessing that Dani helping TK … er, that is, KT,  get over his PTSD will be one of the arcs of the season.

I don’t mind this too much because Necessary Roughness is not a very deep show, though it is one that mostly works for me. I hope they can figure out stuff for TK besides regressing him, though, since much of his antics this episode were retreads of the crazy famous guy stuff we have seen him pull in the past. Sure, seeing him entertain three women in a hot tub (and his naked backside in the screener — thanks, USA!) and having him change his name to “King Terrence,” and so on, is fun. Mehcad Brooks is a good enough performer to sell  this stuff, and I guess it makes sense that PTSD would make him lose some of the progress he’s made, but that is not too dramatically interesting a premise. I think the show needs to find  a way to balance that side of his character with having him grow and evolve, at least a little.  The jury is still out on whether the PTSD story will achieve this, but I am willing to wait and see as long as the show stays fun.

Elsewhere in the Hawks universe, Dani and Matt have continued to be a thing through the off-season in a kind of low drama way, except for the usual “my kids can’t know” sneaking around we always see from divorced parents on TV shows.  I like them together well enough, and I am interested to see how they handle working together now that they are an item, which is better than keeping them apart longer for contrived reasons. Good work, show! Oh, and Dani is having tax trouble, but that is just a way for the show to stretch out her divorce angst.

Speaking of money, the Hawks are also in big trouble because Marshall Pittman is losing all his money in his divorce and going rogue. Nico has to deal with this as well as with finding the missing Juliette Pittman. He eventually finds Pittman himself, who, no longer mysterious, is now played by Evan Handler. Pittman is of course pissed that Nico was getting it on with his wife and seems to have staged the Juliette disappearance to get back at him? Okay, then. I kind of like the Nico intrigue stuff, so I am curious to see what the show does now that Handler has been cast.

So far, the show seems like it’s going to be building on what it did in Season One. I hope it experiments a bit, too, but for summer entertainment, you could do much worse.

Notes and Quotes:

• RJ’s new love interest … snooze. “Iron is to magnet as I am to you.” Gag. As soon as I saw them, I predicted she would put him off and then go for him. Can we just send both of Dani’s kids to boarding school?  Seems like even she wouldn’t mind that much.
• I love TK’s zipline intro idea for the fan event. The dance he ends up doing is cute, though, until he wants to shoot someone.
• Matt: “Whole new season, whole new set of crazy.” That’s not meta at all!
• Coach to reporters: “Oh, I really missed you guys — like I miss my annual prostate exam!”
• TK on the third girl in his hot tub, whose name he forgets: “This girl right here I met in the elevator yeserday. Talk about a full service building.” *wink*
• TK  on his new moniker: “KT … TK was last year. Terence King is gone with the wind. Reborn King Terence. Ergo, KT.”
• TK on carrying a cane: “It’s like Teddy Bear Roosevelt once said: ‘Speak softly and carry a big-ass sword-cane.'”
• The IRS guy on Dani’s tax problems: “Remember those vows ‘for  better or worse’? Guess which one this is.”
• Jaylen’s post about TK got me thinking of how much of a stereotype of an athlete the character is. I think Brooks’ performance transcends stereotype where another actor’s may not, but I kind of wonder if the character is meant to be a commentary on how athletes and other celebrities default into crazy personas because that is our culture’s script for what it’s like to be famous. Or maybe I am reading too much into a fun summer show, but I will keep thinking this over as the season goes on.

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Clacked by Christina Furtado
on Jun 06, 2012 @ 23:00 EST5EDT