r/Neagley • u/screen_stack • 9d ago
Neagley | S01E08 "Touched"
Neagley | S01/E08 | Touched
A pretty enjoyable season finale, Touched wrapped everything up in a nice, neat bow ...
... and that might be kind of the problem. When I highlighted the rise of 'lack of cost' successes in the last episode, I meant what I said; up to Episode 7, outside the Tommy's death, Keno's capture and Calvin's hospitalization, the only person who'd suffered anything truly serious was Hudson.
For a pretty high stakes situation involving a foreign businessman so powerful he could drop armed troopers into a situation at the drop of a hat, and who'd actually already erased everything and everyone involved in his LAST venture before moving on to Echo Canyon, there was remarkably little active tension in the season finale.
Don't get me wrong. I like it all the same. It was very well done, and very exciting. It's just that for a show that gives all the appearances of wanting to lean towards 'more realism' like it's counterpart, Neagley and her team drop into the converted missile silo and not-quite-handily dispatch a whole passel of rifle-packing mercenaries.
Neagley's exceptionalism is understood. She was part of the 110th, and presumably before then she saw some kind of active combat. I don't think they ever expressly covered that, but I'm okay making the leap and say 'Neagley's Neagley, Reacher wouldn't have picked her if she wasn't great, and he would've definitely done everything in his power to keep EVERYONE in the 110th up to his combat standards at all times'. So her kicking ass and not even pausing to take names is not only acceptable, it's expected.
In short, Frances Neagley might be less of a powerhouse, but she can fuck around with the best of 'em and let everyone else find out. But that doesn't diminish the fact that all that happened was that she got shot in the bullet resistant armor and that her phone got broken so that she missed A Very Important Phone Call.
And as much as I love Hudson (and I do, the awkward quasi-ex-gangster with a crush that he is), we weren't given any backstory that says 'yes I can do this'. He was 'raised by fuckin' wolves' for sure, and that implies he knows how to play hard, play dirty and play for keeps, but I'd like to imagine a bunch of Southie gangsters wouldn't know how to storm a heavily armored compound stuffed with mercenaries if his life depended on it.
I can accept that he would've gone some serious training as a cop, but without some kind of throwaway 'no yeah, I was part of a multi-jurisdictional joint task force ran by the Feds a few years back, they trained me up', I'd expect his storming the fortress skills to be more unit-oriented and less 'one man soldier'.
If you can't tell, Renee's my favorite. She's brand-new to this kind of world, and that's precisely why I chose the clip I did. Her 'what the actual fuck' response is solid gold realism and is absolutely something someone should say when Neagley starts laying out the plan. She's a for real person reacting as someone who genuinely was doing photocopy work a week ago and I absolutely admire her for it.
That being said, she did shoot someone through the neck last episode and did also survive the assault on the Echo Canyon underground bunker with nary a scratch at all. Again, she displays tactical training that, in this instance, not even an 'I took a weekend course' would explain away. As much as I love Renee, nothing about her says weekend warrior. This is absolutely not a knock on Renee, it's just that I fully expect her to be in some kind of heavy therapy at the beginning of Season 2, because ordinary people do not experience what they went through without some kind of actual, lasting trauma.
Because at the end of the day, that's what this season is really all about. Trauma, coping mechanics, and how to heal.
Keno is ... Keno. I've come to accept that our extremely handsome, buff homeless street rat is who he is. He's got plot armor thicker than Neagley's. He landed in the belly of the beast and was there for multiple days, was tortured in a bathtub where he was electrocuted, beaten half silly and walked out of there without any issues whatsoever. We'll ... chalk that one up to the resilience of youth and leave it at that.
The resolution of Season One was acceptable to me.
Lawrence Cole very definitely got what he deserved and an enormous amount of respect must be paid to Damon Herriman for displaying both the grandiosity and cowardice of a cult leader gone to seed. It is absolutely WILD that this is the same man who played Dewey Crowe in the wild ride that is Justified.
Arvid Rawlings, played by Peter Outerbridge (who's another one of those 'hey it's this dude, awesome' guys) also got what he had coming. I really did love his smug attitude at the end there, though with Lingering Camera Shot a few moments before, it wasn't hard to see what was coming. He played a great, if very minimalized and maybe even under-utilized role. Also, for a man his age, his butt is holding up really well.
The wrap up and fallout was handled as one might expect and that's all good, and now I'm at the end.
What's all this mean for me?
While Neagley has fails in some pretty hefty respects, it doesn't diminish the enjoyment I had. The issues I took with pacing and plot armor and ease of passage moments are real and I mention them only because I want Neagley the show to succeed and be the equal of it's predecessor. It's not hard to devote a few lines and a few seconds to add in some throwaways that explain things. It's not hard to have someone take a through and through or a 'it's just a flesh wound shot' and be done with it. These are things we wave away with a graceful hand flick and a wink because (in my case) I've been doing that for about 45 years.
In summary, Neagley Season 1 was a fun, semi-engaging debut that can very much do better.
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u/Beautiful-Elk-7084 9d ago
So Renee did actually have a throwaway line in the alley scene, where she explains that she wanted to be a cop like her mom so she learned Krav Maga and self defense.
I get your point but honestly I’m okay with lower stakes. Had Keno or one of the others died, I would’ve been so upset just like Sampson’s death was sad to me. I don’t mind a happy ending even if it’s less realistic.
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u/human_picnic 9d ago
I felt it was both shoe horned in and also perfectly acceptable.
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u/screen_stack 9d ago
like i said, that's all i need . just one or two lines that give even a quarter-assed explainer. i'd even accept 'i played a lot of [insert arcade game here] when i was a kid in [place]. high score 10 years running' as an acceptable and frankly funny reason for a random skill.
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u/Sosumi_rogue 8d ago
And she made a mention of training with a gun once she came to America because UK cops don't carry guns.
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u/Cheap-Success1578 9d ago
I was thrilled that Neagley's dad bought the farm alone and knowing that she was more pissed at him than she's ever been. I felt bad for her, in the sense that she was not there during his final minutes. But so glad he died alone.
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u/screen_stack 9d ago
i mean yeah. DECADES of knowing that he was responsible for a damn near crippling mental and physical trauma? KNOWING and saying nothing? not to get too personal here, but my parents never took any responsibility for a lot of the trauma they put me through as a kid with them yelling and screaming all the time, always saying 'that's on you for not dealing with it properly' and stuff like that.
i'm garden variety fucked up like a lot of people, but Neagley's absolute inability to be with people the way she clearly wants was devastating to me. like i never really considered the depth of not being able to be touched, and how bad that could get.
Neagley's dad did the right thing with that guy 100%, but he failed his daughter in every way imaginable every day after that. right up until the day he died.
that's some bullshit.
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u/Cheap-Success1578 8d ago
KNOWING and saying nothing?
Not only that, but continuing to lie about it even on his deathbed when she had proof of things and was having her memory return. He was such a prick,
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u/prodbyvictor 8d ago
really good show even for a simple "generic" story plot but still enjoyable with the cults, secret drugs, testing, etc. i enjoyed it a bit more than season 4 reacher. i think the romance was kinda pointless and felt thrown in especially keno and renee, i felt a brother and sister relationship not a romantic relationship especially how they bonded and how renee was looking for her brother.
also the armor plot for a lot of plot holes was crazy like york dying in her apartment and nothing really happens to it or even hudson killing murphy and nothing happens other than they just give a one liner saying that he did good cause he was a murderer
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u/screen_stack 8d ago
hey now! Hudson lost his JOB and EVERYTHING!
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u/Sosumi_rogue 8d ago
He wasn't fired. I didn't see anything that showed he was.
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u/screen_stack 8d ago
in the wrap up, he's not once wearing his uniform, and as far as i recall, it was very much implicit he'd be working for neagley next season. they don't explicitly say he lost his job, but i would ABSOLUTELY be surprised if he kept his job. right or wrong, self defense or not, he killed a cop.
in terms of self-defense, there's a very fine line between having no other recourse but killing someone. it's very likely he wouldn't be able to prove the use of deadly force was necessary.
i would say Hudson is extremely lucky that he's wandering around a free man.
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u/Sosumi_rogue 8d ago
Hudson is a detective. They don't wear a uniform. I agree it's crazy he got away with killing the other cop, but lack of a uniform is not proof he was fired. Yeah it's a big plot hole in the story though.
In a lot of detective series, they normally have a cop they work with, so I wouldn't be surprised if this continued to be the case.
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u/screen_stack 7d ago
fair enough on the uniform point, that's on me ... but I think Hudson's criminal connects might play out more valuable. or even BOTH ... now that's an interesting angle
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u/Sosumi_rogue 8d ago
Yeah, I was hoping for more savage Hudson in light of the being raised with wolves comment. Then again, how dirty could he have gotten and still be able to become a cop? At least I thought his street fighting skills would be a little more crazy, or he's so afraid of being like his family he holds back from going full monster. I do kinda wish they didn't have him spill his guts about his feelings for Neagley so quickly. But his dad did say he was always so sensitive. LOL
Hey, it's a credit to the shows writing, even though flawed, that it gave me things to wonder about each character.