L&O: episode 5 & 6
Oct. 12th, 2024 03:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyMore Law & Order Toronto.
Episode 5 was such a let-down after the Rob Ford one. It's about a thief, forger, and romance scammer from Ghana who gets murdered—spoiler—not by the rich guy whose car he stole, not by the gang who smuggled him into the country, but by the sister of a woman he scammed.
The plot itself is pretty boring. I think the gang is being set up as a recurring plot point, as is some undercover cop with the gangs and guns division. The chief of police, whose name I haven't yet learned, refers to that guy's and Graff's relationship as a "bromance," though it seems pretty hostile. The guns and gangs cop is pretty hot, so maybe that's why Graff keeps turning down Bateman's clumsy advances.
Literally the only interesting thing about this was probably accidental, but it's revealing. The victim and his girlfriend are both immigrants from Ghana with forged papers. Bateman ends up giving the girlfriend the contact info for an immigration lawyer and promises to testify in her defence, but realistically, she's going to get deported. At the end, the girl that the victim was scamming (who the cops decide can't be the killer because she's into cosplay and writing fanfic) continues to be scammed by someone else picking up the account, and in fact they stand by and watch this happen. It says a lot about the truth that cops don't have anything to do with justice or protecting innocent people—something remarkably astute for extruded L&O content.
Plot: * (there was one)
Character: ** (we learn that Graff has some kind of history with an undercover cop in another unit, and also that Batemen thought that they were friends but Graff doesn't believe you can be friends with people from work. Oh, also he has a first name, which is Henry or Harry or something like that)
Toronto: * (some recognizable locations but it's very generic, anycity stuff. If I didn't literally know where some of these scenes were filmed, I wouldn't know it was Toronto)
Murder count: 10 (14% of all annual murders in Toronto)
Episode 6 was as surprisingly fun one! It was about the bread-fixing scandal, only in this story Galen Weston is a woman of colour for some reason. The opening weird montage has a bunch of protestors, one of whom is waving a very phallic raw hot dog.
Anyway, in this one the COO of Loblaws gets murdered by a hitman, which you find out in the beginning. What's more complicated is who hired the hitman. It turns out that Girlboss Galen Weston and a guy who has a bakery are fixing the price of bread (using graffiti on the Lakeshore to communicate, which is a nice touch), and the victim was on to them, so she hired a private detective and they found out she was on to them and had her killed. The bit that doesn't make sense is that the Loblaws board saw Girlboss Galen Weston and the price fixing as a liability and wanted to replace her with the victim. The point of a corporation is to maximize shareholder value, so the board should have been in favour of price fixing. Loblaws is a monopoly, so it can't be pressured by forces like angry people who don't like being squeezed for bread.
Other than that, though, this wasn't bad by the very low bar that episodes 1-5 set. It had some geographical weirdness, but it name-checked Fiesta Farms and, even better, had a shot of Leela's Dundas St. West location. For the record, Leela's has two locations, one in Little India and one on Dundas St. West, (plus Bombay Chowpatty, which I think is owned by the same people) and you can get the Lasooni Cauliflower at both. I would highly recommend it.
Plot: ** (would have been better if Girlboss Galen Weston died too)
Character: ** (Bateman gets a nice speech about the working class having to choose between food and diapers. Critical support for conrad Bateman, I guess??? The chief of police wears a fancy dress, really underscoring the running theme of "I can't be bothered with your bullshit" that she has going on)
Toronto: *** (a very recognizable Canadian scandal, multiple name checked locations, and seriously, that's going to be some of the best cauliflower you've ever eaten. If you eat there, say hi to Deed. He mostly works out of the Dundas West location and is a joy and a delight. This episode loses a point for suggesting that any of the payphones in Toronto work.)
Murder count: 11 (15% of all murders in Toronto)
Episode 5 was such a let-down after the Rob Ford one. It's about a thief, forger, and romance scammer from Ghana who gets murdered—spoiler—not by the rich guy whose car he stole, not by the gang who smuggled him into the country, but by the sister of a woman he scammed.
The plot itself is pretty boring. I think the gang is being set up as a recurring plot point, as is some undercover cop with the gangs and guns division. The chief of police, whose name I haven't yet learned, refers to that guy's and Graff's relationship as a "bromance," though it seems pretty hostile. The guns and gangs cop is pretty hot, so maybe that's why Graff keeps turning down Bateman's clumsy advances.
Literally the only interesting thing about this was probably accidental, but it's revealing. The victim and his girlfriend are both immigrants from Ghana with forged papers. Bateman ends up giving the girlfriend the contact info for an immigration lawyer and promises to testify in her defence, but realistically, she's going to get deported. At the end, the girl that the victim was scamming (who the cops decide can't be the killer because she's into cosplay and writing fanfic) continues to be scammed by someone else picking up the account, and in fact they stand by and watch this happen. It says a lot about the truth that cops don't have anything to do with justice or protecting innocent people—something remarkably astute for extruded L&O content.
Plot: * (there was one)
Character: ** (we learn that Graff has some kind of history with an undercover cop in another unit, and also that Batemen thought that they were friends but Graff doesn't believe you can be friends with people from work. Oh, also he has a first name, which is Henry or Harry or something like that)
Toronto: * (some recognizable locations but it's very generic, anycity stuff. If I didn't literally know where some of these scenes were filmed, I wouldn't know it was Toronto)
Murder count: 10 (14% of all annual murders in Toronto)
Episode 6 was as surprisingly fun one! It was about the bread-fixing scandal, only in this story Galen Weston is a woman of colour for some reason. The opening weird montage has a bunch of protestors, one of whom is waving a very phallic raw hot dog.
Anyway, in this one the COO of Loblaws gets murdered by a hitman, which you find out in the beginning. What's more complicated is who hired the hitman. It turns out that Girlboss Galen Weston and a guy who has a bakery are fixing the price of bread (using graffiti on the Lakeshore to communicate, which is a nice touch), and the victim was on to them, so she hired a private detective and they found out she was on to them and had her killed. The bit that doesn't make sense is that the Loblaws board saw Girlboss Galen Weston and the price fixing as a liability and wanted to replace her with the victim. The point of a corporation is to maximize shareholder value, so the board should have been in favour of price fixing. Loblaws is a monopoly, so it can't be pressured by forces like angry people who don't like being squeezed for bread.
Other than that, though, this wasn't bad by the very low bar that episodes 1-5 set. It had some geographical weirdness, but it name-checked Fiesta Farms and, even better, had a shot of Leela's Dundas St. West location. For the record, Leela's has two locations, one in Little India and one on Dundas St. West, (plus Bombay Chowpatty, which I think is owned by the same people) and you can get the Lasooni Cauliflower at both. I would highly recommend it.
Plot: ** (would have been better if Girlboss Galen Weston died too)
Character: ** (Bateman gets a nice speech about the working class having to choose between food and diapers. Critical support for conrad Bateman, I guess??? The chief of police wears a fancy dress, really underscoring the running theme of "I can't be bothered with your bullshit" that she has going on)
Toronto: *** (a very recognizable Canadian scandal, multiple name checked locations, and seriously, that's going to be some of the best cauliflower you've ever eaten. If you eat there, say hi to Deed. He mostly works out of the Dundas West location and is a joy and a delight. This episode loses a point for suggesting that any of the payphones in Toronto work.)
Murder count: 11 (15% of all murders in Toronto)
