Tag: Damon Wayans

Lethal Weapon: Homebodies – Partners (Recap/Review)

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Just when it seems that Lethal Weapon cannot possible mine more comedy and pathos out of its existing formula, “Homebodies” comes along and pushes the envelope even further. This episode takes a closer look at the very disparate partners and what they want. As Roger worries about Riggs not doing anything on his weekend off, Trish tries to set Martin up with a date by playing matchmaker.

The case this week takes place against the backdrop of a silent rave and Koreatown.  A promoter is killed at the party while handing out legal enhancing drugs. The rave DJ talks about a Korean gangster named Kang. She sats that he threatened both the victim and his supplier, someone called Owlsly.

Apart from the murder case on their hands, the two partners are still at odds with one another. Rigg’s will not return Roger’s texts and he is starting to get annoyed with his elusive partner.

It appears that Murtaugh has been thrown a lifeline when Avery assigns Detective Cho to help the two cops  crack Koreatown. Riggs acts on his own while Roger discovers Korean food and the joys of working with Cho, a man after his own heart.

Riggs finally agrees to a meal with Roger and Trish only to learn that she has set him up with a blind date. The evening does not go well and the case calls both men out.

Cho texts Murtaugh and tells him that the DJ and Owlsly are in danger from the Korean gangsters. The two men split up, Roger joins Cho and they find the DJ, badly beaten but alive. Martin finds Owlsly hiding under her apartment floor.

Roger and Cho learn that Owlsly had a thing for Adam and Martin is drugged by the pharmaceutical wiz. She has half a million dollars from the Koreans and she tries to run.

Murtaugh and Cho head to the girl’s apartment and they find a drugged Riggs riding on top of the Korean’s car. Martin is flung off of the car and he joins Roger and Cho. Murtaugh shoots out a tire and Owlsly kills herself with an overdose.

Once again Lethal Weapon creator Matthew Miller, who wrote this episode, crams a lot into an hour.  We have Riggs and Murtaugh still having issues, an interesting case, Trish crossing the line and a very funny bit between Cho and Roger who act like “lovers” who want to get together. 

(On a sidenote, Roger gets a new, and infinitely better looking, hat.)

“Homebodies” manages to fit in one murder, a bad attack and a surprising villain. It also has damned impressive car chase and a very brief shoot out in a Korean restaurant.  The episode also features a good bit of comedy.

Scorsese practically OD’s on Owlsly pills, and in the process works out a few kinks in the script he is writing. Roger Jr. has some issues getting a date to the dance and Riggs finally admits to Dr. Cahill that while he understands the urge to commit suicide, he is not contemplating it.

Lethal Weapon is still the best cop/buddy series on television at the moment. FOX and Miller have caught lightning in a bottle with the Wayans/Crawford dynamic.  The series also benefits from having a cast that all have tremendous chemistry and fit together like a glove.

The stories for the first season are all interesting and cleverly interwoven around the underlying issue of Roger and Martin ironing out the kinks in their relationship. This is cracking entertainment that delivers “above and beyond” on every single episode.

Lethal Weapon airs Wednesdays on FOX. Tune in and catch the small screen version of Riggs and Murtaugh and watch them blow the big screen version away.

Cast:

Guest starring Will Brandt as Adam Pressman, Jocelin Donahue as Kate, Lyndon Smith as Owlsly, Jack Yang as Kang and Chin Han as Detective Cho.

Lethal Weapon: Jingle Bell Glock – Ghosts of Christmas Past (Review)

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Lethal Weapon manages to gives us a “lump in the throat” episode for Christmas. “Jingle Bell Glock” is one of those well written stories that the series is already known for. We are given a ghost from Martin Riggs’ past, in the form of a fairly nasty bit of work who indicates that the depressed cop’s wife and baby were not killed in an accident at all, but on purpose.

Everything in this episode was neatly tied up, with references being harked  back to as events occurred in “Jingle Bell Glock.”  McNeile’s overabundance of Christmas lights and decorations are blended into the proceedings not once but twice.

Roger Murtaugh gets to use the word gaudy not once but twice and each time the allusion is about tacky Christmas decorations. The second time, however, it is all about the Eddie Flores’ face being visible in the giant silver Christmas bauble on a tree.

As another reviewer pointed out, the big tease last week (on the trailer) was the home invasion where Murtaugh’s family are being threatened.  This did play a part, but it was less about the danger Trish and the kids were in than it was about Roger and his wife being on the same wavelength.

The Murtaugh’s come across as being so simpatico that they should be in their ’80’s. Roger and Trish are the perfect TV family and their relationship is the perfect counterbalance to Riggs’ solitary misery.

They are, in this episode, the ghost of Christmas present. Had Miranda and the baby not died, it is all too easy to see the Murtaugh’s as being representative of how the Riggs’ marriage would have played out.

Those flashbacks indicate that Martin and his wife were soulmates on a different level.

The memories of how Riggs and Miranda meet “cute” in the bar drives home the emptiness that the cop has to feel. Trish points out, quite rightly, that this would have been the first Christmas that Martin would have celebrated as a family.

Lethal Weapon began with a Santa Claus, aka Father Christmas, ringing his bell in front of a hi-rise apartment.  A screaming woman falls from a great height and smashes onto a car’s roof. This starts the proceedings which soon become about a cartel that Riggs has a history with.

The plot twist this week was a Texas connection between Eddie Flores, son of Tito, and Martin. An El Paso cartel member who, like Riggs, has relocated to Los Angeles.  A journalist is investigating Flores and the two detectives meet with Hannah to get information and to warn her off.

(Sidenote: It was brilliant to see Ray Donovan regular Alyssa Diaz in the small but pivotal role of the journalist. This actress is believable in what ever role she plays and she nails what amounts to a cameo in this episode.)

There are some moments where we feel Martin’s pain so deeply that it hurts. The twist, where Flores claims to be responsible for Miranda’s death, but Tito, his father, denies it, is interesting. Because Tito is talking to someone in LA. A person he tells to “keep a lid” on Riggs.

Is this Miranda’s father? The fan of Martin’s who keeps him on the force despite his over exuberance?  While we learned that Miranda’s death was not ordered, we are privy to the fact that Flores has someone in Los Angeles in his pocket.

On a lighter note, the comic chemistry between Martin and Roger is as potent as ever. The two-man interaction with Eddie Flores at his party was spot on.

Lethal Weapon is the best cop and buddy show on television at the moment. There are enough nods and winks to the film franchise to make it enjoyable for the Danny Glover / Mel Gibson devotees. Yet amid all the allusions to the movies, the plots and the writing are, dare we say, far superior.

The series airs Wednesdays on FOX.  Everything about this show works beautifully. The writing, the acting and the direction is beyond reproach.  Tune in and prepare to be blown away…in a good way.

Cast:

Guest starring Alyssa Diaz as Hannah, Raul Casso as Eddie and Andrew Patrick Ralston as Jim McNeile.

Lethal Weapon: Can I Get a Witness – Cheese Puffs (Review)

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In this episode of Lethal Weapon learn more about Riggs and Dr. Cahill.  In fact, “Can I Get a Witness” shows us why Martin Riggs is so endearing. The cheese puffs, which he very seriously uses to crack the star witness, Ethan, reveal a childlike side to the detective.

It is this side, which allows Dr. Cahill to be the adult in this small screen scenario. In the films, Cahill was the immature and easily fooled child to Rigg’s “adult.”  The change in the relationship status allows for a more fulfilling dynamic between the two and allows Cahill to be Rigg’s equal, and in some cases, superior.

For this week’s crime to be solved, Riggs and Murtaugh spend less time together. Apart from the beginning of the case when Roger stops Martin from betting the check from his house sale on roulette. Yet another revealing and amusing interaction between the two men.

Murtaugh teams up with Bailey to investigate the motorcycle cover, the one that Ethan noticed. Martin teams up with the cocktail waitresses son. The interaction between Riggs and Ethan is spot on. The youngster tired of being lied to by adults and the cop able to regress himself enough to bridge that particular gap easily.

Both Riggs and Murtaugh have the ability to “lose their adult side” and channel their inner youngster. The scenes with Roger panting over the motorcycle, which leads him to a new lead on the man who shot Sarah McFadden, are all about the older cop embracing his youthful side.

His near brush with death has Murtaugh fighting against his own mortality.  The running gag in this episode of Lethal Weapon, “You don’t look like a motorcycle guy,” is another facet of his denial to getting older and his open heart surgery.

The scenes with Cahill and Riggs, after she learns that Ethan stayed with detective and never went to foster care, reinforces that she is the real adult while Martin is still playing on  both sides of the maturity fence.

Ethan, who bonds so quickly with Riggs, does so because he shares the same ability as the adult cop. The boy has been wearing two hats for most of his young life; grownup and child.

Show creator Matthew Miller has managed to pull of the near impossible.  Giving us action in the form of a one-sided shootout between Riggs and Gottlieb’s motorcycle gang. (It is all too easy to bliss out with this scene. Riggs decimating the bad guys to Creedence Clearwater’s “Running Through the Jungle” as the boy Ethan hides in the refrigerator and Roger showing up to save them from Gottlieb.

The payoff of the above scene is the reinforced running gag throughout the episode. After Murtaugh dispatches the villain with two well aimed bullets, Riggs looks at his partner and recites the punchline about Roger not looking like a “motorcycle guy.”

Of course the real magic of this episode, above and beyond Rigg’s giving nearly $150 thousand cashier check to the single mother, is the effortless switch between emotions that Lethal Weapon manages to deliver more often than not.

There are not many shows that will allow you to groove to action with Creedence Clearwater and then suddenly, and successfully, get the old tear ducts filling up.

Miller and his cast seem to pull this off on a regular basis. Lethal Weapon airs Wednesdays on FOX.  Tune in and get caught up in this brilliant series.

Cast:

Guest starring Lindsey Kraft as Sarah McFadden, Teo Briones as Ethan McFadden,  Dasha Flynn as Kristi James, Kurt Yaeger as Billy Gottlieb and Catherine Kamei as Madeline Tate.

Lethal Weapon: Fashion Police – Join Me (Review)

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Lethal Weapon just keeps getting better. “Fashion Police” sees the guys becoming tighter as partners and falling into a rhythm.  In this episode Miranda, Riggs’ dead wife comes back to haunt his dreams.  The message she conveys in each one is the same, “Join me.”

And Riggs still wants to.

“Fashion Police” had just the right amount of tragedy with Martin trying to fight off the urge to join his dead wife. There was plenty of action and a hint of romance in the air for Riggs.

Speaking of action, the flying through the air attached to a covered truck felt very Beverly Hills Cop, but it did not detract from the storyline at all.  The two detectives stumble onto a DEA operation while they investigate a murder.

A man is shot and then has his legs broken to allow the body to fit in gym bag, sort of like Blindspot without the tattoos. Riggs notices that a couple are avoiding the crime scene. He and Roger speak with them and later discover a false wall in their place of business.

Behind the plasterboard wall, they find millions of dollars.  While Captain Avery is impressed, DEA Agent Karen Palmer is not. The Korean couple’s son is responsible for the money and Palmer is using the man to catch Caldera, the man the son works for.

Riggs and Palmer strike sparks after Martin saves her life. Palmer reluctantly allows the two cops to join her investigation. Later, the two  share a stakeout and when Riggs is not eating spray cheese, he dreams of Miranda.

Palmer seems to have a lot in common with Martin.  She too acts on impulse. When Riggs goes to plant a bug on Bambi Mortenstern, Karen joins him and pretends to be his wife.

Away from the money laundering case, Roger is baby sitting his littlest child while Trish and the older kids are away. His scheduled card  game does not happen and he ends up joining the Bambi stakeout.

Dr. Cahill and Riggs talk through his dreams and the fact that Miranda calls for him to join her. Martin tells the doc that it is hard not to go.

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Dr. Cahill

While the trio investigate Caldera, Martin has Cruz throw a scare into Bambi.  She arranges a meeting with Caldera and Riggs stows away in the trunk of her car. At the meet, Caldera realizes something, or someone, is in the trunk.

He forces Martin out.  Roger and Karen track the car down but when they get there Riggs is gone. Caldera has taken the detective and left the bug.

Caldera has hung Martin upside down. When he pulls a gun, Bambi starts to panic. She begins a short diatribe in protest and Caldera kills her.

He tortures Riggs by putting his head in a barrell of water. As the treatment goes on, Martin sees Miranda again. She asks him to join her and at one point Riggs tells Caldera to kill him.

When Caldera threatens Roger’s family, Martin manages to escape. He chokes the gangster and Caldera runs out of the building. Riggs chases after him. Caldera pulls a gun on him and once again Martin tells the man to kill him.

Karen and Roger arrive and the DEA agent knocks Caldera flying with her car and  runs over Martin in the process.

Lethal Weapon is settling into a nice pattern here. In this episode alone the series gives a  number of nods to the big screen Riggs. The “mutt” that adopts the cop and Martin’s, and apparently Roger’s,  love for The Three Stooges, and the affection that Martin has for Murtaugh’s family.

There is a careful blending of humor, pathos and tears in this  series. This is something that the films never managed to pull off in terms of Martin’s dead wife.  There are two moments in this episode  alone that will guarantee that there is not one dry eye in the house.

Cahill and Martin have a closer relationship in this verse of Lethal Weapon. The doctor cares about Riggs and he responds to her in a way the big screen version of Martin never could.

It would be nice to see Karen Palmer turn out to be a regular fixture on the show.  Sort of like the small screen version of Lorna Cole who lights up Riggs’ life in the films.  The chemistry is there and while this may be a one off, Palmer seems to be an equal that Martin could warm to.

This version of Lethal Weapon is knocking it out of the park. Damon Wayans and Clayne Crawford are the perfect double act. This buddy film hidden in a TV series is just brilliant. There are enough car chases to keep any action addict happy and Crawford fills Riggs’ cowboys with ease.

Lethal Weapon airs Wednesdays on FOX. Tune in and see if this small screen version of Riggs and Murtaugh  can compete with the film duo. We think they do and that they are surpassing  the originals with ease.

Cast:

Guest starring Hilarie Burton as Karen Palmer, Megan Stevenson as Bambi Mortenstern and Alejandro Edda as Lewis Caldera.

Lethal Weapon: There Goes the Neighborhood – Moving On (Review)

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Lethal Weapon “There Goes the Neighborhood” ditches Riggs’ flashbacks to his dead pregnant wife and shows him apparently moving on. The episode focusses more on the partnership and Murtaugh’s son. Roger’s attempt to introduce his son to the old neighborhood has consequences for all concerned.

Show creator Matthew Miller has opted to fast forward Martin Riggs’ grieving and let him settle into the day to day machinations of police work.  The move shoves the character out of the empathy zone and moves him firmly into eccentric mode. 

Clearly the television show does not want to waste time building any more on the short-term misery of Riggs’ character.  (It has really only lasted three episodes.)  “There Goes the Neighborhood” also echoes a plot from the films. The one where a friend of Roger’s son is killed. In the movie Murtaugh has not seen the dead teen for years. In this episode Roger has contact with the kid  who is saved, but only just.

Roger  has lost his wonky blue hat but he has also lost any vestige of common sense. Rather than thanking Riggs for picking Roger Jr. up and getting him out of a dodgy neighborhood, he hits Martin for interfering.

Murtaugh and Riggs are ordered to attend  a counseling session with Dr. Cahill. As the three talk, Roger claims that Martin is, “Crazy as a sack of cats.” The only problem with this is that Riggs is quite normal in this episode.

Washing his clothes at the beach does not constitute crazy but, as mentioned above, slightly eccentric. Riggs has calmed right down and as such this takes the show right out of Lethal Weapon territory.

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The overall plot theme was family and keeping in touch with “where you came from.” At the end of the episode, Riggs is truly  welcomed into Roger’s family by virtue of the barbershop scene.  A nice touch but possibly a bit too soon.

Lethal Weapon (the film) was always about Riggs’ gradual insinuation into the Murtaugh clan. Martin is the fun uncle, as Roger says, and everyone but the patriarchal head adopts him almost instantly.

The relationship and the grieving process of Riggs is moving on too quickly. So too is the “crazy” despite Roger’s claim of his partner’s continued “insanity.”

The storyline, a valet company run by an old high school coach setting up car owners for break-ins, was a solid one. It gave the audience an upsetting death (a teen girl trapped in a house invaded by burglars), one short car chase and an amusing scene where Riggs and Murtaugh have to tackle a naked “Black Hulk.”

However, the overall feeling of the episode was “off.” The two men lacked their normal chemistry. Murtaugh lost his familiar bluster and Riggs exhibited none of his usual characteristics. There was also the scene where Murtaugh tells Martin that he has no one to love but himself.

Really?

Would Roger actually take this approach? He, like the writers of this episode, has apparently forgotten Martin’s  recently deceased wife. Riggs lets this slide. He also ignores being punched in the face by his partner.

Without the issue of Martin’s grief and all that it entails Dr. Cahill may not be needed as a series regular at all. (Which may not suit Jordana Brewster  since she plays the deceased wife of Michael Ealy in Secrets and Lies, a role that cannot last beyond one season.)

Lethal Weapon “There Goes the Neighborhood” was, easily, the weakest in the first season so far.  Too much was lost as the series attempted to move on too quickly.  Miller needs to take a step back and reassert the winning formula he started.

The series airs Wednesdays on FOX.

Cast:

Guest starring  DeRon Horton as Marcus and Shashawnee Hall as Coach Marshawn Wiley 

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