The Good Cop — A Binge-watcher’s review
The Good Cop, is a show about a corrupt cop and his son. It’s a Netflix Original, and like all Netflix Originals, I watched it over one weekend. The Good Cop is one of those shows which you can watch and forget about. It has been produced to fit every kind of audience. It offers almost nothing out of the ordinary, but at the same time, it gives you everything that you want in a 40 minute episode.
It’s format is the classic One-Mystery-per-Episode. However, unlike most shows in that format, it doesn’t have a strong slow-burning story arch. Tony Caruso Sr. is a corrupt cop who has served prison time for his misdemeanors. His son, Tony Caruso Jr. (TJ), is the exact opposite of his father. TJ’s character has been sketched with the explicit purpose of being opposite to that of his father. TJ is a by-the-book cop, who points out infractions time and again. He cannot let himself have fun, because he has to take the hard-way all the time. TJ doesn’t drink or laugh at anybody’s jokes either.
TJ’s squad has Det. Cora, who used to be Caruso Sr.’s parole officer. There is the obvious cliched sexual tension between TJ and Cora, however, by the end of the 10 episode, no real progress happens. Then there’s the lazy, near-retirement Det what’s-his-name who makes it a point to show episode-after-episode that he has no desires to work (because he’s about to retire). The only person who stands out in TJ’s squad is Det Cora. She’s pretty, and is much livelier than TJ. But the characters in the show are one-dimensional and there’s absolutely no progress. Even if something huge happens in the previous episode, the characters seem to have forgotten all about it.
The cases aren’t real mysteries, and the detectives aren’t really geniuses. In one of the episodes, TJ and the squad go up to a Skiing convention. TJ flirts with a girl, who is later accused of killing a cop. Everybody except TJ is convinced that the girl did it. And why is TJ so convinced? Because, she bats her eyes and gives him ‘one’ less-than-passionate kiss. It is, of course, later discovered that the girl in fact did it. What a moron of a detective.
The slow-burning arc in the season 1, is TJ’s mother’s death. Caruso Sr. is pining for his dead wife. She was killed in a hit-and-run 5 years ago. It’s only in the last two episodes that Tony Sr. finds out who was driving the van that killed Connie. The show ends with Tony Sr. finding out that someone had hired the van-driver to kill Connie (what a surprise!).
I watched all 10 episodes because it did one thing — it was a distraction from everything else. While all Netflix shows are for that, but when you’re watching The Good Cop, you know that you are not watching some prestige play or some uber-famous TV show. You are just trying to while-away your time, till you find a better show to watch.
All in all, I would give The Good Cop. a 2/5.
