by Christian Holumb | via Entertainment Weekly
After last week’s premiere introduced all the pieces, this episode of Shots Fired maneuvered them all a little further down the board.
The escalating tension in this North Carolina town is evident from the very first minute this week, as the father of slain white teen Jesse Carr approaches Joshua Beck, the cop who killed him. This isn’t a daylight office hours kind of meeting, either. Mr. Carr approaches Beck at night, as he’s coming home from work, and pulls a gun on him. Mr. Carr says his son never would have gone for Beck’s gun, to which Beck asks: “Oh, like you’d never shoot a cop?” Everyone can entertain crazy measures in crazy times, but luckily, Beck is able to successfully de-escalate this showdown. Mr. Carr drops his gun and agrees to figure out what happened that day the right way.
Preston Terry and Ashe Akino, the Department of Justice agents investigating the Jesse Carr shooting, are still on rocky terms after Ashe slept with Preston’s superstar brother last week. That isn’t helped by the arrival of Papa Terry, who cares about Preston but is clearly much more interested in his brother’s NFL career.
The main event on everyone’s plate at the moment, though, is Jesse’s funeral. Kerry Beck is glued to the TV, watching newscasters replay the viral video of Beck saying he wanted to “shoot crackers” as context for the funeral. Even when Beck shoos his kids out of the room after they start asking why people are taking pictures of their house, she doesn’t stop watching.
After a while, it’s easy to see why. The coverage of Jesse’s funeral is EXTRAVAGANT. Everyone from Gov. Patricia Eamons to Pastor Janae James is there. There’s a full choir singing a beautiful song, and the news cameras keep giving close-ups on Alicia Carr’s pained, crying face. Watching this spectacle from home, Shameeka Campbell is forced to silently wonder why her son Joey never got the same treatment, while Kerry knows that her husband will be crucified for this. It already seems like he’s getting tossed aside by the department, being excluded from roll call and everything.
Shameeka and Kerry aren’t the only ones angry about the unequal treatment here. Pastor Janae talks to reporters and demands, “What about Joey?” When Preston insists they need to track down who leaked the Beck video, Ashe responds that black people get called much worse by white cops regularly. When Preston responds that they’re not investigating those cases, Ashe says, “That’s the problem.”
On the other end of the spectrum here, Gov. Eamons wants Preston to explain why Beck hasn’t been arrested yet. Preston says that even though the “cracker” tape seems pretty damning, it’s not enough proof that Beck acted against Jesse with malicious, purposefully racist intent. While he continues putting the pieces together, the governor invites him as her guest to a big donor party. When he notes his dad’s in town, she extends the invite to him as well.
While Preston’s meeting with Eamons, Ashe notices that the governor’s right-hand woman, Sarah Ellis, already refers to Preston on a first-name basis, which intrigues her. I love that even when they’re investigating complex cases fraught with racial and social tensions, the characters in this show never stop thinking about sex.
While Preston and Ashe focus their efforts on tracking down the video link, Preston also starts to make inquiries of his own about Joey Campbell. He meets with a long-time restaurant owner in the town, who seems displeased with Preston’s mission to “lock up a black cop” but respects the prosecutor’s interest in Joey Campbell and agrees to ask around.
To read the rest of the recap, “Betrayal of Trust,” click HERE!!!
Hour One: Pilot | Hour Three: Somebody’s Son
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