Posted in: Movies, TV | Tagged: Abraham Benrubi, apb, entertainment, fox, Gideon Reeves, television

APB Gets Personal In Second Episode… Maybe Too Personal

This article contains spoilers for the APB episode – Personal Matters.

.

.

.

.

.

After the first episode of APB, I told you guys that I thought it would do well if it clung more to its science fiction roots and stayed away from being a police procedural with a gimmick. I just finished watching the second episode… and let me tell you what I thought.

Often times you see changes from a pilot episode to the regular series. The network or studio may want changes but don't want to pay for re-shoots, so they run with the pilot as is and then make changes in the second episode. Constantine and a specific female lead in the pilot and then she was gone by the second episode. Other reason for changes are that actors work on multiple pilots and sometimes they're not available when the series gets picked up. We see something like that with Kevin Chapman from Person of Interest who played Captain Hauser in the first episode and is now gone, and Ernie Hudson's character Ned Conrad got a promotion to Captain. And sometimes its about tweaking the chemistry of the show. It was all cops with Gideon and Ada from the tech side… so this week they added Abraham Benrubi (Parker Lewis Can't Lose) as former wrestler turned engineer Pete McCann.

As for the episode, it was about a thief who specialized in hitting pharmacies and then getting away in a suped-up stolen car. When first being chased by Murphy and Gideon (doing a ride along), the bad guy turned into a park and hit a little girl. The mother said she took her girl to the park because she thought it was safer because of Gideon. Enter guilt trip. As the investigation progresses it leads to the stolen car which is set to explode and wounds a K-9. The handler, Brandt, is devastated and furious. When Gideon comes up with the idea of motorcycles to hunt down the thief, Brandt and his partner volunteer to be the riders. The bikes are crucial in capturing the guy. The little girl ends up being okay, the bad guy goes away and Gideon even gives the K-9 a robotic leg and Brandt got to keep him. Happy ending.

I like the addition of new Engineer, it does balance the show a bit and moving Hudson up gives a old school cop presence to play off of tech queen Ada… someone for her to explain what she's doing to. There was enough tech to keep the sci-fi feel for another week, but that's going to be hard to keep going. Cops on motorcycles is not really cutting edge.

But coming out of the episode, I saw two things that worried me. One was Gideon having dinner with Murphy and her son and mother and Murphy's ex heading a taskforce to investigate the 13th at the behest of the Mayor… and next episode being a hunt for someone who shot Murphy's training officer. The pilot was personal because it was Gideon's motivation to solve his friends murder. This one was personal because of the little girl and the dog getting hurt. Next week is personal because of the cop being killed… every week it can't be personal. Sometimes it just has to be the cops are stopping the bad guys because it's their job. Gideon's motivation to stick with it has to be more than a new personal reason each week. And the taskforce with her ex on it… that's just too soon for that.

https://youtu.be/qDJek8IEY9U

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!