Another week closer to everyone’s fall favorites, means another episode of my weekly summer dramas coming and going. Both were solid efforts this week, and sometimes I wish the weeks would go faster so I can get the next installment. I’m not really a binge-watcher by any means, but sometimes I want to watch a movie’s worth of television! Anyway, let’s get into it.
First up on Animal Kingdom, there’s not much action this time around, but there is a crap-load of tension. Between basically everyone! Renn and Craig are being frosty towards each other because of her involvement in the heist. Also, she wants to keep doing jobs while Craig is firmly against it. Maybe she’d understand if he actually articulated why! Renn then spends the rest of the episode trying to get her clients back while Craig yells at Deran before going to party with some teens…weird. Craig seems to be spiraling, so I’m interested to see where that goes next week. Meanwhile, it appears that Pope is done with his vision quest, but it remains to be seen if he’s actually headed back home. Especially now that Smurf’s house is theirs again. For the moment, it looks like we might be done with Pamela Johnson? That was kind of lame if so.
The real interesting part of the episode comes from Deran and J’s end. It looks like what Deran did for Adrian last season is going to come to a head next week! I guess the rumor mill around Oceanside has everyone thinking the Codys offed Adrian, and then the cop that was on his case last season is back with a vengeance. This time though, aimed at Deran. All of that fallout trickles down to one of the first jobs they did this season, which brought them a bunch of cocaine instead of cash. When J goes to get an update from Pete, he learns that the DEA that was looking into Adrian came to Pete. That’s not cool, so Pete got rid of it…and that is not good news for J. Can’t imagine how they’ll react learning that next week. Finally, in the flashbacks, we see Janine sort of be a bad parent, but we also see Pamela re-enter her life. That makes me feel like their is more to the present-day Pamela story, but it remains to be seen.
This week on Roswell, New Mexico we are not left hanging in the balance like Kyle’s life was last week. Max heals him without managing to kill himself, but we do see that it’s now killing Liz. That cool little rainbow handprint she got from the first season is linking their lives together now, which is a cool new dynamic for the show! Even though they saved Kyle, the ash is still falling, so Maria makes it her duty to protect Kyle for the rest of the episode. Isobel almost loses her way in talking with Jones, Michael finally apologizes to Rosa for what they did to her all those years ago, and there was still no Alex in this episode! The big climax this week was Max finally agreeing to let Jones heal him so Liz and Kyle could be saved. I still think he’s evil, but it also sort of looks like Max blew up the cave they have him stashed in at the end of the episode? Anyway, the episode doesn’t end there because this week’s cliffhanger is almost exactly like last week’s, where we see some masked figure pop up behind Kyle, but it’s Maria on the floor by the time Max gets there.
Aside from all that action, a lot of what happened was spawned by the show trying to tackle some bigger issues here: racism and the police. A local man gets murdered and his death is blamed on the Lopez family. It’s pretty obvious to everyone that they are being set up, so Liz’s dad is helping with a rally. Eventually, Maria and Rosa take a stand and are held at gunpoint – yikes! Even though Max tries his hardest to fight back against his corrupt counterparts on the force, he ultimately makes the decision in favor of his job rather than his feelings/beliefs. Makes it kind of hard for people to think he’s on their side. Even more ridiculous, yet parallel to real life, there is a Roswell Regime that’s being called in (sounds like the Capitol Riots, right?) to wreck havoc on the “others” of their town. All of this was prime current issue stuff, but it all felt sort of rushed and crammed. I think these are things that could have lingered for a few more episodes, but I doubt they will. Remains to be seen, though.
Some interesting turns were taken this week, and while not all of them were homeruns, I appreciate the effort to move the storylines forward. It’ll be good to have Pope back in a hopefully more normal headspace on Animal Kingdom, and again, I would love to see Adrian back somehow. I don’t think it’ll happen this season, but it can’t be the end of him yet! And Roswell sort of re-hashed some old stuff this week, so I hope we see something a bit different, along with the return of Alex and Deep Sky. That has to tie into the main plot of this season somehow! Until next week!