Written by Megan LaBruna
Sunday nights are about to get extra hot this summer with the premier of Reckless on CBS. The new drama opens up with an attractive woman being pulled over by a cop, she says she’ll do anything to get out of a ticket, which leads to sex in a public place against a fence, but don’t worry; they’re both cops. Lee Anne Marcus (Georgina Haig) and Trey McCandless (Shawn Hatosy) are officers at the local police department and by the end of the episode they’re no longer as affectionate as they started out, mostly because Trey ends up being a slime-ball.
The show itself centers around two lawyers who couldn’t be more different, which is good since opposites attract…or so the saying goes. Jamie Sawyer (Anna Wood) is a lawyer from the north who grew up in Chicago and for whatever reason is now working in South Carolina. The show seems to pick up in the middle of an on-going trial, in which the opposing council is represented by Roy Rayder (Cam Gigandet), the charming southern gentleman type lawyer. It’s pretty clear there’s some sexual tension between the two, however Jamie is dating Preston Cruz, another officer with the local police department.
Based on his prior roles, It’s hard to believe Cam Gigandet as a loving attentive divorced father of two little girls and an attorney that is about to be promoted to city attorney by his ex-father-in-law. But, he actually plays the part fairly well. Sometimes with pilots the cast hasn’t found their rhythm and subtle suggestions about the characters feel like their very in your face, but I didn’t notice too much of that with Reckless. The characters seemed genuine for the most part, aside from Trey, but I think he’s probably meant to be in your face and unlikeable.
While marketing the show for the summer premiere, CBS mentioned that they wanted to “push the envelope” with Reckless. I think the pilot makes that abundantly clear, especially because the next case involves Lee Ann Marcus and basically her entire former precinct. Lee Ann was fired for emailing a sultry picture of herself to Trey using her work email, which of course he forwarded to all of his buddies. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Roy receives boxes of evidence piled against Lee Ann showing consenting emails and even video of Lee Ann having group sex with several of the officers one night atop a police car. Roy notices a portion of the video has been cut from the disc he received from the police department.
The audience finds out that Lee Ann has no recollection of this event happening and suggests that she may have been drugged, since the department has access to an array of drugs via the evidence lockers and that many of the cops brag about that fact. It would be very easy for the audience to assume that she is lying about not remembering such events, except that the night prior to this discussion, Jamie is pulled over by not one, not two but four cops for not real reason. They say she was driving inconsistently which is an obvious lie and they search her vehicle without a warrant and “find” cocaine. It’s clear she has been set up, and spends the night in jail until her boyfriend Preston is able to bail her out. Preston and Trey share a look making it obvious the set-up was personal. At this point the audience is about to give Preston the “boyfriend of the year award”, until Roy receives a package that contain the missing footage from the night Lee Ann can’t remember, showing Preston was part of the events that night.
CBS did in fact push that envelope with Reckless. They managed to tackle, sex in public, possible rape, a glimpse into a corrupt police department, and the inequality of being reprimanded as a woman in a male dominated field (not saying this is the case everywhere, but in the show, it’s clear the department is mostly men); and the managed to do so in one episode. Imagine what they can do with an entire season! I’m impressed, since the majority of the programs on CBS tend to center around family friendly or comedic plots. Reckless is more in line with the dramas being pumped out by other competing networks. Whether or not it will make it to a second season is hard to tell with a summer premiere, but so far I’m intrigued.
http://youtu.be/JV9LnzDOYMo
