It's
About Justice, But For Who? #ForThePeople #3weekroundup #recap
#review #ABC #newseries
All pictures courtesy of ABC
Is
it late? Yes, it's late. Very late. Like, super late. Like, the
rabbit in Alice in Wonderland kinda late. But I've been very busy
cooking up good stuff for you all, desperately trying to get people
to read and review my upcoming novel The Man On The Roof (#TMOTR) and
getting a thousand other things ready. I'm also trying to get The
Knowledge of Fear ready for release by the end of this month
(yikes!), and get work on the second season of Extraordinary done and
ready for summer release, not to mention start this new mystery novel
entitled The Ones That Stare, due out this December. I'm very busy
and booked to capacity, as bald-headed Tamar Braxton might say. But
I'm still reading and viewing some of the latest in entertainment for
you all. (I know I haven't put up a single book review in the life of
this blog, but it's comin' eventually. I think). With all the
excitement going on, I am set to miss more shows this year than ever
before, not to mention I have decided to skip this year for The
Writer (eek!). I might have mentioned this before, but yes, I am
skipping a year of my summer serial The Writer in order to try
(keyword) to catch up on some other projects that have been
languishing in editing or development and desperately need my
attention. How the hell I will finish all the work that I need to do
this year, I really don't know. Every year it seems like I'm slowing
down far more than I should be and I'm still not that old yet. But
enough about my deteriorating health, we're all here for For The
People. So, will Shondaland's new show bring it, or do its legal
antics already seem like old-hat? Let's find out together. (Oh boy,
that was a terrible opening paragraph. Sigh! This is gonna be rough).
ABC's
new show For The People comes straight from super-producer Shonda
Rhimes. Using her Shondaland production banner, she has recently
built an incubator of talent, often cultivating new show creators
from the inside, while also reaching beyond her own imaginative
bounds to grab intriguing intellectual properties. While the most
recent Shonda-produced show didn't fare so well (see: Still
Star-Crossed), the creator behind this one is hoping to piggyback off
of the initial concepts, tropes and starry-eyed qualities that made
Shonda's original hit Grey's Anatomy a phenomenon when it first
premiered some 14 (13?) years ago. For The People follows a group of
young, wide-eyed lawyers headed by Britt Robertson, Jasmin Savoy
Brown and Susannah Flood as they take on some of their first cases in
New York's famed Southern District Federal court, also known as The
Mother Court. This is supposed to be a show not like most other legal
shows. Both sides work for the government and are split up at the
very beginning of the first episode.
The
two sides we see are the public defenders and the US prosecutors who,
essentially, bring the cases against criminals for the people. You
get it? The show's name has a double or even triple meaning because
technically both sides are working for the people, the common man,
the little guy and oh my god, I'm explaining the meaning behind the
name as if I'm talking to a bunch of idiots or children. Sorry. When
you're away from reviewing for a while things get super sticky when
you come back.
 |
| Sandra Bell played by Britt Robertson |
Anyway,
we have on our public defenders' side: Sandra Bell played by Britt
Robertson in her first major TV role, Allison Adams played by Jasmin
Savoy Brown, and Jay Simmons played by Wesam Keesh. Sandra, while not
a loner, is a super-driven defender with a Meredith Grey-complex: she
expects to one day be either the best or the second best but doesn't
let her ego overshadow her drive to do what's right. On her first
day, after being sworn in with all the other lawyers (both defenders
and prosecutors), she immediately jumps at the chance to be the
“on-duty” defender, or the person who is automatically sent a
case by the court clerk because the case needs to go in front of a
judge that day, and hasn't been vetted and assigned by the defenders'
boss. The public defenders' boss, played by Hope Davis, tells her
that “on-duty” is usually for more experienced lawyers who have
gotten a handle on this high court. But she is brash and bullheaded,
so Sandra takes the duty anyway. Her first case: defend a young man
(college-aged) accused of terrorism (trying to blow up the Statue of
Liberty). Her opposition: Leonard Knox.
The
other side or the US prosecutors are led by (meaning led by star
quality, in my opinion) Kate Littlejohn. Played by Susannah Flood,
Littlejohn is the essential Cristina Yang of The Mother Court. While
Sandra shows up first to the swear-in, hours before they are supposed
to be there, Kate shows up a close second. She is the rule of law
hawk, the stickler for details, the
everything-must-be-done-by-the-book woman who tolerates no fool, not
even her boss or fellow all-male colleagues. Let me mention here that
it is a very intriguing power and sexes (genders) dynamic that this
show has setup. I will discuss it more in the critique section, but
just know that battle lines are clearly drawn almost exclusively by
gender and the gender politics are quite easy and rather blatant to
pick up.
 |
| The Prosecutors (Lto R): Littlejohn, Seth, Knox |
Anyway,
the prosecutors team is rounded out with golden-boy and God's gift
to... himself Leonard Knox, played by Rege-Jean Page; the oafish
everyman Seth Oliver played by Ben Rappaport; and their boss played
by Ben Shenkman. We all know that every lawyer is arrogant because
they have to be in order to think that they can win their cases, but
Knox's arrogance has been taken to another level, and for good
reason. Reasons we'll get to in the next episode. But in the first
episode, upon getting assigned their first cases, Knox asks Seth what
case he got, only to find out that their boss handed Seth the
terrorism case. While he pats Seth on the back, he wholly plots to
snatch the case from him because the case he's been given isn't
high-profile enough. His next stop is his boss's office where he
lobbies for the case and wins, already dumping on poor Seth who
recently worked in a rinky-dink law firm.
So,
it is Knox versus Sandra in trying to convict this young
brown-skinned Muslim man (kid, really) of terrorism. Meanwhile, as
Sandra ignores her boss's advice to not let the case go to trial
because she will inevitably lose, Sandra's friend and current
roommate Allison takes a case about a man's embezzlement that has
affected his family. That case just happens to be the one that was
handed off to Seth after Knox pulled the robbery. Seth just happens
to be Allison's on-again off-again boyfriend. They made a deal to not
let their relationship get in the way of their work, but didn't know
they'd be pitted against each other on the first day because I guess
they've never seen any TV involving any kind of competitive
environment and romance, like, ever! Seth's boss has given him what
he thinks should be a complete gimme (Knox knew this) but somehow the
young attorney manages to mess it up by leveling with his girlfriend
during an at-home argument. Allison doesn't want to use the
in-private information he freely gives her, but she does and ruins
his case, allowing for the wife of the embezzler to slide, resulting
in Seth losing his first case. Now, he's on probation.
 |
| Jay Simmons played by Wesam Keesh |
Back
to Sandra and Knox who both give it their most valiant effort. Sandra
learns that her “terrorist” client was not alone in the attempted
bombing and that he was, in fact, set up by undercover FBI agents who
posed as college kids, coached up what little radicalism he had for
18 months, picked a soft target for him to bomb and even built him a
fake bomb to carry in a backpack. While all of this evidence is
admissible and heard by the jury, she loses the case based on jury
bias (he's a brown-skinned Muslim with a bomb. Doesn't matter if he
was completely setup, he fell for the trap), and her own outburst at
one of the ferry captains that day—a well-strategized ploy from
Knox to draw out the jury's bias.
 |
| Left to Right: Boss played by Shenkman; Knox |
Episode
two sees Jay have to step up to defend a white supremacist who was
accused of shooting and wounding a congresswoman during a protest
clash. A skinhead, a myriad of offensive tattoos adorn the man's
body, including on his neck and face. He believes in the RaHoWa,
which, if you aren't familiar with it, stands for the Racial Holy
War: the belief that one day all “minority” races will rise up,
band together and come to attack whites... and the whites will win
and eventually dominate the planet as one race. Side note: I found
out about this theory while doing research for my as-yet to be
released future sci-fi novel Mulatto. It's an insane belief.
At
first Jay wants to cover the man in makeup and present him to the
jury as a regular citizen who happened to be in the wrong place at
the wrong time, but he changes his mind upon hearing about the
RaHoWa. Instead, he seeks to prove that the US hasn't brought in any
good witnesses that can effectively ID the racist as the shooter, and
shows three pictures of other tatted-up skinheads that attended that
protest. He wins the case, but feels terrible about himself. He goes
back to his parents dry cleaners only to have a good pep talk from
his father who, even though he dislikes that he got this racist man
off, tells him that what's most important is that he was able to
utilize the law and actually have a trial because in many places in
the world that is not guaranteed.
Meanwhile,
because of Seth losing his first case and earning himself probation,
he is paired with Littlejohn as her helping hand for her case. It
comes from their boss's boss that they need to make an arrest that
has an effect on the opioid epidemic. The prosecutor's office has
been looking at a gaggle of doctors for over a year now, trying to
pin over-prescribing charges to someone in order for the president to
save face in this drug war. Littlejohn wants to comb through all the
info they have gathered on the doctors to see if anything sticks out
about their medical practices, and she wants Seth to sit quietly in a
corner with his hands folded, so he doesn't touch anything. His idea:
don't look at their medical practices but at their houses because
they could've slipped up there. He wants to get warrants to randomly
search 25 houses with no cause or evidence of any wrongdoing because
I guess he doesn't know how the law actually works. The judge shoots
them down, only for Littlejohn to use a twist of his idea and look
into the doctor's personal finances instead of their business books.
She finds that all but one of the doctors has a housekeeper. This man
has three children, a dog and a working wife, not to mention a giant
house and more money than he knows what to do with in New York. But
no housekeeper in a culture where it's natural to have one.
Littlejohn
and Seth get their hands dirty and go to see about the housekeeper,
suspecting that he not only has one but that she is illegal which is
why he doesn't have her on the books. Lo and behold, he does have
one. Not only does he have a housekeeper but she is actually his
unpaid (yes, you read that right) slave who has worked for him for 17
years so she can get back her passport, which he took, to go back
home. She doesn't even want to be in this country. Even more
shocking, he's been using her name to setup shell corporations to
funnel international drug money for a cartel that ranges in the
hundreds of millions. They not only bust him for human trafficking
(slavery), but for the drug stuff, too, and are able to guarantee
that his never-paid housekeeper gets no less than five million
dollars of the seized money.
 |
| Allison |
While
Knox mopes around the office, thinking that he has suddenly fallen
out of favor because he was given a simple gun possession case, and
Allison battles to out-wait Seth, so she doesn't have to be the first
to apologize, Sandra takes a non-duty case when she sees a black
woman come five minutes late to file some court papers concerning her
living arrangement. Here, we meet court clerk Tina Krissman, the
no-nonsense clerk who shows little to no emotion about doing her job,
and, similar to Littlejohn, is a stickler about following the rules
to a T. Sandra sees this as an outrage and decides to take the
woman's case when she learns that the reason the woman was late to
file was because she has poor living conditions. The stairs in her
tenement are crumbling and there is no elevator, so she had to
carefully and cautiously carry her special needs son down the stairs
and frantically drive him across the city to his therapy before
coming to court. She takes it to trial and gives a story about how
terrible it is for people (children especially) to have to live in
terrible conditions where they are always threatened with the idea of
having to move—something which she herself experienced, which is
why she refuses to unpack her things in Allison's apartment. She wins
the case.
So
while we learned that Knox is a rich-boy son of a US Senator and
calls his mommy to the office to parade her around his boss in order
to try getting him better cases, we also learn that Seth was
completely done when he moved out because he no longer wants to be
second fiddle to Allison who made all the decisions during their time
together.
Episode
three sees Allison take on a trial in which a young black man has
stolen something. It is a routine trial but the judge orders that she
will ultimately make her judgment with the aid of Evaluate, a new
computer program that uses a complex and complicated algorithm to
make a sentencing suggestion. After doing some research, she believes
the software could be bias against black and brown-skinned people and
needs a mathematician to testify on this point before the trial. As
it so happens, her brother is a mathematician (and possible college
professor) who lives a borough away from her. But they don't get
along as well as she'd like. She is the oddball out in the family
because she is the only one who didn't go for a math and/or science
discipline like her mother, father and brother. He thinks she is the
chosen one in their family because their parents gave her that
apartment to live in rent-free. Even worse, he knows of the Evaluate
technology and thinks it's brilliant, but he does tell her that bias
is human and that she needs to look at it with humanity. That leads
her to come up with the percentages of tough sentences, which shows
that the software recommends tougher sentences than both the national
average and the current judge. She would rather trust the judge's own
human-error-filled sentences than the machine's. She gets the young
man a light sentence.
Knox,
the slimey worm he is, tries to poach a case from the very woman he
is sleeping with when she, a lawyer for the northern court or some
other big court in New York, lets slip after their coitus that she is
pursuing the stalled boat of a billionaire embezzler—think Bernie
Madoff—trying to flee the country. Unfortunately, a storm is
coming, which makes getting to the boat nearly impossible, so the
harbor master is willing to let the boat drift to whichever island
the wind blows it. Knox uses Seth's meteorology expertise (he was a
weather nerd in his youth) to predict where the boat will have to
dock in the storm. It docks in New Jersey, but Knox knows this ahead
of time and sends a group of Manhattan cops to a restaurant that
literally sits right near the dock where the boat has to pull in, and
he gets his billionaire.
But
the biggest case comes when Littlejohn and Sandra go against each
other in a national security case ala Eric Snowden. A young NSA agent
and former military soldier procures some information that exposes
that the US government was apparently using medical records to track
down and deport illegals. While that might sound good to the Blood
and Soil type, they had to secretly dig through millions of medical
records, mostly of citizens. To the prosecution, the soldier is a
traitor. To the public defenders, she is a hero doing her civic duty
to protect the rights of citizens.
Each
woman matches the other's wits as they battle over this young woman's
life. Sandra goes to the press with the woman's story. Littlejohn
prepares to make a deal of 78 months in prison. The woman believes
she has started a movement and doesn't want a deal at all, but she is
too young and naive to realize what she is doing. Sandra counters in
court by saying that she wants all of the documents exposed,
otherwise the US should dismiss the case. Littlejohn knows that by
exposing all the documents or “evidence” they are opening up
millions of classified documents that could be harmful to national
security. Yet, she is willing to do it to win but asks that all the
classified information be redacted and blacked out, which she
estimates will take at least 18 months. The judge realizes they are
both going to go for each other's throats and tells them to hash out
a deal in his chambers. After Littlejohn tells a story about how she
never got to go on a field trip to DC to see the capitol building—a
lifelong dream—because some idiot thought the rules of the class
didn't apply to him, they hammer out a deal that sees the young woman
in jail for no more than a year and a lengthy probation. In the end,
we see the respective groups (minus Jay) hanging with each other and
the two leading ladies of each group feeling more comfortable around
the people they will ultimately call family.
What's
my grade? I give it a C+. Grey's Anatomy
this ain't. I know this is a cliché, and we writers are supposed to
hate them, but it is as they say that lightning almost never strikes
twice in the same place. It will be hard for Shonda to ever replicate
the success of Grey's, especially because of the steadily changing
landscape of TV (although, you'd be hard-pressed to see the change
with all of these crappy reboots). Again, Grey's Anatomy (along with
Desperate Housewives) was a show that essentially changed the entire
fabric of TV-viewing for a generation. It came with its own language,
its own way of doing things and its own style that made us care about
the characters and truly showed heart in TV making. It was, arguably,
far more emotional than ER, and felt like it came from a younger mind
with a different voice and way of looking at life. None of that is
really here in For The People. Grey's had an angle. While it was
definitely a good medical drama, it was far more of a contemporary
romance. Sure, some people tuned in for the medical stuff, but most
watched for the relationship drama that went on from week to week. It
was about the adult-coming-of-age story of finding your true love,
your clan and how that effects our work lives. Frankly, this is the
criticism of Grey's in recent years: it focuses far too much on the
medical and less on the romance, and while the medical has gotten
more cutting edge and wowing, there is hardly one single couple that
you can look at on the show right now and say, “Yes, I want that.
I'm shipping them.” And don't tell me you're shipping that
Avery/black Grey half-sister (I can't even remember her name most
times) because they are very boring and their romance is as tasteless
as tap water.
For
The People, essentially, comes from the same place. While recent
Shonda launches like How to Get Away with Murder and Scandal both
still tried to employ the old Grey's formula (HTGAWM's love story was
more familial with Annalise and Wes being like mother/son), For The
People drives hard at the legal aspect which, after 50 or 60-some
years of legal dramas, has to do something amazing to grab audiences.
While this may reflect well the life habits of Millennials—more are
work and cause-driven rather than relationship and sex-driven—it
does little for the audience and doesn't allow us to connect with the
characters nearly as much as we might want to. The one romance we
have is immediately disassembled on the first episode, and there
don't seem to be any other tenuous connections between anyone else,
save for the sad attempt of Seth to try bonding with Littlejohn on
some human level. Could they sleep together at some point? Sure. But
do I care? At this point, not really. That means that the show has
but one aspect to it and that is the legal aspect.
That
one aspect? Eh! It ain't that great. While I appreciate the
differences in using a higher court and in having everyone be a
government employee, there isn't much to separate this from any other
legal show. The one great thing it currently has going for it is that
there aren't many legal dramas on right now. This show feels devoid
of... feels. Do you feel a sense of family? No, not really. Sure,
that last shot on episode three went a long way in trying to install
some sentimentality, but it was held for so long and so little about
the characters own families or struggle to fit in in life is still
known that it almost felt synthetic, like they were trying to
manufacture a connection to these people. This isn't a quirky,
work-intensive bunch that all need acceptance and are super
vulnerable, it's just a group of young, attractive people who work at
an important place.
Then
there is the subtle politics of today: gender politics. The fact that
almost every main character on the public defender's side is a woman
and almost every main character on the US prosecutor's side is a man
is not lost on me. In fact, it also doesn't bother me, which is
actually rather... saddening because I feel like it should bother me
a little. No, not because they are playing gender wars on the show,
but because the show is failing to exploit its fundamental design. A
great deal of these cases are, I'm assuming, going to be ripped from
the headlines and focus on hot-button issues of today that are highly
political and easily dividing. Yet, here, I have yet to feel a tear
in my heart about which side I should root for or come down on. For
instance, the terrorist case should've had me more invested and
questioning which side was right and which one was wrong. I should've
agonized (as much as you can about a show) over the fact that the
prosecutors easily won that case, even though it was clear that the
young man had been set up by the FBI. But... I didn't. In fact, I
really didn't care which side won. Granted, I sorta wanted Sandra to
win but only because I like Britt Robertson so much, which has
nothing to do with the narrative of the show. Would it have been nice
to see the arrogant Knox get put in his place on the first case out?
Yeah, and it might have given his character more dimension, but even
that idea can only induce a shrug from me.
The
show's premise is that the law is a two-sided coin. The exploit is
(or at least should have been) that the public defenders are the
compassionate ones, thusly why they are almost all female, while the
prosecutors are the ruthless, cold, calculating ones, thusly why they
are almost all male. And even though they do somewhat make that
distinction, they never drive it home in a meaningful way. Instead,
they fail to setup a good versus evil, and they fail to setup a good
you choose who to support debate. I want to root for the public
defenders and see Knox get crushed every time, but I am often left
asking why should I cheer for anybody?
To
me, this show feels similar to FOX's The Resident. Where that show
had people that I didn't feel I could properly root for, this show
feels like it doesn't have people I could properly remember. Everyone
feels like a walking, talking ideal, more of a symbol for something
rather than an actual person. Yet, they don't even feel like very
strong symbols and I can't particularly pinpoint why that is. Maybe
that is because it doesn't dwell in the extremes that often make
these shows watchable. It's cutthroat, but doesn't feel cutthroat
enough. It tries to be real like a Law and Order, but is far from
that level of grittiness. It doesn't employ the over-the-top
wackiness of Boston Legal and isn't the hard-driving
tough-issues-dealing kind of drama that The Practice was. It's really
sorta ho-hum, and I can see why it was a mid-season replacement for
the month of March. It couldn't even get a prime January spot.
Should
you be watching? This is a tough one because while I think that the
show could be ten times better, or that it could make a really great
summer show, I'm not sure it's worth a watch right now. Considering
what it replaced was Kevin (Probably) Saves the World, which I rather
adored because it showed middle-America in a nice light while also
mixing the good-naturedness of a My Name is Earl with a
pseudo-religious magic, I don't think this warrants a full season in
its current time slot. Again, as a writer and creator myself, I
really hate talking bad about someone else's creation, but this
doesn't ring the bell. It's a shame, too, because I think that it has
a pretty good cast. I like Jasmin and really like Britt, and think
that Hope steadies the show. For The People airs on ABC Tuesdays at
10pm EST.
What
do you think? Have you heard about For The People? If not, do you
think you'd tune in for an episode or two now? If you have heard of
it, have you seen it? Did you like it? Was I too hard on it? And do
you think Seth will get back together with Allison eventually, or
will he hook up with Littlejohn? Let me know in the comments below.
If
you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel
#AFuriousWind, the
NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or
the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen.
For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult,
check out #TheWriter.
Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected
here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast
action/crime check out #ADangerousLow.
The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the
mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinary
on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the
mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the
Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone
Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us
on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow
my blog with that Google+ button to the right.
Until next time, “...that it be for
the people, by the people.”
'Right. But remember that we also need
to do something for big corporations, too.'
“What? But they're not the people.”
'OK, I see your point. But check this
out, what if they were?'
“Ohhhhh!”
P.S.
It's still rather baffling to me that corporations can legally be
treated as people. I try not to make political statements on this
blog but it would seem that if we are supposedly so economically
sound now that we almost have full employment, then our next focus
should be on one of two things: healthcare, and a critical and sound
look and restructuring of the criminal system from new ways to police
and all the way up through to new ways of picking judges and how
trials are decided. Currently, our legal system is a mess and will
only get worse. That is something that politicians should do for the
people. I'll try to think of a better sign-off next time.
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