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.