We come back to Dallas this week with a bang. Literally. Jack and Dan are chasing an armed robber, to the point that Dan thinks he's going to cover himself in motor oil and stuff himself through a small hole in a steel door, at least until the SWAT team shows up and takes over. Dan exchanges words with the team captain, played by Michael Shanks (Stargate: SG-1, Burn Notice, Smallville), but having applied months earlier, Jack has an interview to get onto the squad. Oh, this is going to be awkward.
Before Jack can tell Dan, however, Samantha alerts them that she has found a missing trunk the guys were looking for smashed into the side of a restaurant. Three hours earlier, two not-too-bright guys believe they're going to drive the trunk into the restaurant and steal the safe inside. They manage the first part, but their getaway car doesn't start at first, giving the restaurant owner time to shoot at them and break his hand on the window. However, in the present day, he tells the guys that nothing was taken. Dan isn't buying that. "Every time I drove a truck through a restaurant, I had a damn good reason!" he replies. I can only wonder how many times, and what those reasons were.
Jack sends Dan to the car, where he answers Jack's phone and finds out Jack has his interview with the SWAT team. As a result, he drives off and leaves his partner in the middle of the street. When he finally makes it back to the squadroom, the two immediately start bickering. Dan uses the phrase "to lubricate myself in the cause of justice" and I choke on my soda.
The two not-too-bright guys have opened the safe and found the diamonds inside. They're of interest to a particularly bad guy (played by Carlo Rota from 24) who is in a panic.
Jack's interview with the SWAT captain is not going well. He's the kind of arrogant, smarmy guy that you just hate and hope is going to get his comeuppance at the end of the episode. It's as if Michael Shanks is taking his Burn Notice villain and drawing him even broader. So therefore it's a bit of a small mercy for Jack when Dan busts in claiming he has a lead on their case. He has a partial fingerprint and tracked it to a residence where they find bullet holes in the windows. Three hours earlier, our two thieves are inside trying to decide what to do with the diamonds when the bad guy and his henchmen show up and open fire. They make a narrow escape, although it should be said the bad guy has lousy aim.
Our heroes get into the house and begin to look around (well, Jack; Dan is busy drinking an open beer). They find the same wallpaper as is in the restaurant, and go to question the owner again. For the second time, he's way too skittish. When they leave, the bad guy threatens that either he recovers the diamonds by the following day, or gets a pretty big knife in the head. I've had a knife in my hand and that was bad enough; I certainly don't want one in the head.
"If you want to make Strike Force, you cannot let Dan Stark distract you," Ruiz warns Jack when the guys get back to the office. Dan, however, tells him that they have a lead. This translates into visiting Julius, who gives them a list of relatively minor crimes he's heard about. One of them, however, is a guy named Dave who's talking about diamonds he got off some thieves. Jack and Dan pay Dave a visit. But how did stolen diamonds get to a strip mall jewelry store? Hours earlier, the thieves are being parted with them for a pathetic four thousand dollars in order to avoid being stabbed in the head. Subsequently, they find the bad guy is lying in wait for them, to knock them unconscious.
Jack goes to his second interview, only to change his mind and go back to work. Warrant in hand, he takes Dan to pay another visit to Dave, who's had his head smashed into the counter by the bad guy only minutes earlier. He would have gotten stabbed in the back of the head had they not arrived, forcing the bad guy to make off with the diamonds but not kill him. Dave tells the guys everything he knows, sending them back to the restaurant to find the knife-wielding villain. They hear noises coming from the back and find the two thieves tied up, plus a few henchmen shooting at them besides. For protection, they lock themselves and the thieves in the restaurant's freezer. The bad guys can't get in, but as Jack points out, neither can they leave.
Dan thinks someone in the foursome can escape through a small vent where he's knocked out the fan. The bad guys bust into the freezer and open fire, but there's no one there, as everyone's managed to grease themselves up and crawl through the vent. Meanwhile, the SWAT team busts in through the front door and arrests the bad guys, much to Jack's indignation. Dan's content with busting the thieves and their long list of previous crimes. Back at the office, they watch the SWAT captain mug for the press.
"Supercops" isn't my favorite episode by a long shot. The Good Guys has always been fairly broad comedy, but the best episodes are ones where the bad guys or guest characters are just as funny and screwed-up (like "Small Rooms" or "Dan On The Run"). The bad guys here just aren't that interesting; although I've loved Carlo Rota since he played Mick on La Femme Nikita, he just doesn't have a lot to do here. That's a shame, because we know from 24 that Rota can be quite funny. Even the titles aren't as funny as usual.
Everyone else is pretty much a stock character, including Michael Shanks, who has always been very good at playing the holier-than-thou attitude, but really doesn't have as much to do as I expected he would. He's not even a funny kind of smug (like Gary Cole's SWAT commander on Psych). It would have at least been funny to see him get knocked down a few notches at episode's end, but unless you count Dan telling him "You suck," that doesn't happen. I'm not necessarily a fan of Shanks, but if you're going to bring in a decently sized name as a guest star, I'd hope that you make good use of them. (Now we know why the promo didn't put much emphasis on his character; he wasn't there much at all.) Hopefully, Joshua Malina will be used a bit more in the next new episode.
There's no new episode next week. In fact, there are only two more episodes left of The Good Guys: December 3 and December 10. The show is still very much fighting for a second season, so let's make these last two weeks count.
Looking for more of The Good Guys? Full show coverage is available in the The Good Guys category at Digital Airwaves.
(c)2010 Brittany Frederick/Digital Airwaves. All rights reserved.
