Women’s Murder Club: Father’s Day

The writer’s strike is over, and shows are returning. At least the established favorites. This year’s freshman shows either are on hold until next fall or are canceled. The only freshman show I know of that got any new episodes is Women’s Murder Club. ABC is giving it three new episodes with a new show runner before they decide whether to cancel it or bring it back. Tonight was the first of those. And it reminded me just why I love the show so much.

A drive by shooting turns into a shoot out, and a young bystander is hit. But the van involved is spotted down the road. Just as Boxer and Jacobi show up, the shooter in the hooded sweatshirt shows up and shoots the van so that it explodes. The driver was still in the van, and is burned alive. And the victim? An undercover narcotics cop.

Naturally, Lindsay and Jacobi are leading the investigation. But Narcotics is stonewalling them. And the stonewalling gets even worse when they identify the shooter as another undercover narcotics cop.

Meanwhile, Cindy has a new rival at work, Jill is enjoying the single life, and Claire is still facing marital problems.

And the Kiss-Me-Not Killer? Silent for four months. In fact, the FBI have decided that he’s gone back under ground. They aren’t guarding Lindsay and have packed up and gone home.

To be honest, I didn’t feel like that much has changed. Which is a good thing since I enjoy the show. But if it needs to change to attract new viewers, this didn’t seem like enough to do it.

The plot of the show was fine. I think it ended a little too early to allow time for the coda about hostages. It worked, but it wasn’t quite the ending I would have liked. And it seemed to be missing that twist they’d been giving the stories.

I like the idea of giving Cindy a rival at work. As I’ve said all along, she is the most under used member of the cast, so if she gets some storylines out of this, all the better.

I also liked the fact that they acknowledged the passing of time. I hope they haven’t dropped the Kiss-Me-Not killer completely, but letting us know that four months have passed for these characters was a nice touch.

And did anyone else notice that Jacobi buzzed his hair? At first glance I didn’t recognize him. Of course, as soon as he said something, I wasn’t confused any more.

As always, the main character was Lindsay. We got to learn about her relationship with her estranged father, played by Gerald McRaney. Martin Boxer was also a cop and was kicked off the force after it came to light that he was a dirty cop. The two haven’t had contact for seven years. Yet he was at her wedding. So just how long ago did Lindsay and Tom get married and separate anyway? But Martin did hint that there was more to his leaving the force than anyone knew. So I wonder if that will be an on going story if the show returns.

Lindsay also gets a potential love interest here in an attempt to soften her character. This is the biggest change I could see, and I didn’t like it. Grown adults acting like little kids? Not so fun. Frankly, it also seemed a little out of character to me. And why even introduce a character if you are just going to ship him off to another country in two weeks, which is what he claims will be happening to him. He’s an architect and will be leaving for a year to build a hotel elsewhere. Frankly, I thought it weakened the show. I’ll be interested to see where they go with it, but I’m not a fan right now.

Am I alone in thinking they should have thought through the romantic storyline a little more?

Mark