Deputy is Flawed but Fun

Usually I watch TV previews over and over again for shows that look impressive. When it came to the Fox drama Deputy, I actually re-watched the preview several times thinking, “Someone actually thought this would make a good show in 2020?”

So imagine my surprise when the pilot turned out… entertaining. And fun.

There are many flaws —and you may find more accurate and believable storylines in Doctor Who or Star Trek this January — but if you’re willing to throw plausibility out the window, there are many likable things in Deputy that make it one of the more entertaining police procedurals in a while.

The series follows a sheriff department deputy, Bill Hollister, (Stephen Dorff) who seems to be always in trouble. Some of these strikes against him are for conventional police department things, like using excessive force. But others are for more unconventional reasons, like refusing to participate in ICE raids. Yet the shocking twist (unless you’ve seen any of the gimmicky previews, of course) is this “deputy” ends up running the entire department and becomes sheriff after the sheriff-elect dies of a heart attack, because an archaic county rule says the oldest officer of the “posse” becomes sheriff until a new election can be held.

Now before we get any further, you may ask yourself: If the deputy becomes sheriff in the first few minutes of the first episode of the show, why don’t they call the show “Sheriff” or “Unexpected Sheriff” or “Newly Appointed Sheriff” or something like that — since it’s no longer about…you know, a deputy? And my answer to you is… um… that is the first of many, many problems that apparently Fox didn’t bother thinking about.

If you’re going to run with the ridiculous premise of an old West cowboy-style sheriff running Los Angeles in 2020, actor Stephen Dorff (True Detective) seems to be about as believable as possible in the role. Early in the pilot, he testifies he comes from a long line of “lawmen” and his gritty, non-political, no-nonsense style does seem to come out of Central Casting for a Wild West Show. Whether his Wild West performance is more worthy of a Clint Eastwood flick or a really bad Disney resort skit is still up for debate. But he looks the part and, as a character, he seems invested in doling out justice without caring about what is popular, politically correct, or conventional. He’ll do the right thing to get the bad guy.

Brianna Bishop (Bex Taylor-Kluass from Arrow and the Scream TV series) is delightful as the driver he is required to employ now that he’s sheriff. She is equally sarcastic and smart, as well as capable former federal agent. She quickly realizes he’s not what he seems and he realizes there’s a lot more to her than meets the eye. Since he’s married with a teenage daughter, it doesn’t appear that the show will be pairing these characters romantically, and that’s refreshing times a thousand.

Red State folks may like the Old West shoot before thinking because bad guys deserve justice angle here — and Blue Staters will like that Bill hates federal ICE agents and gives sappy “lead with your heart” speeches that seem right out of a Democratic convention playbook or could’ve been written for The West Wing. But I don’t think the show is actually smart enough to be pandering to a specific audience (yes, it’s an election year, but it’s not a candidate). And for all his antipathy towards elected officials, maybe Bill should be the next elected official himself. He probably could win the Iowa primary for that matter—he is an old white guy, after all.

Like most poorly written TV dramas, Deputy tries to make us care about Bill’s home life. He is haunted by his former partner’s death (a typical cop cliché?) and is now worried because his godson/former partner’s son is on the force and Bill doesn’t want to lose him too. We get a strange subplot about one of Bill’s deputies wanting to adopt children from parents they… shot? Which almost made me tweet #really? But I will save that tweet for even more ridiculous things, which I’m pretty sure this show will come up with in the upcoming episodes.

Bill bickers a bit with his wife, Dr. Paula Reyes, (Yara Martinez) although most of these scenes are at the hospital after he’s been injured. She’s a surgeon and seems to like stitching him up, so she can tell him he’s wrong about things, and since he’s getting hurt a lot I guess it happens a lot? But otherwise it’s nice to see that they have a somewhat normal relationship.

As I was watching the car chases and shootouts in this “Wild West style” meets modern day police show, I couldn’t help but think that all the pilot episode needed was horses. And the TV drama Gods delivered about 40 minutes into the episode with … a scene involving officers riding horses. Because… well, just because. It’s TV. And it’s crazy. I’ll let you enjoy it.

To sum up Deputy: It’s wacky. Its writing is terrible. And even if it’s a “Western” style show, I’m a bit nervous about how gun-crazy, shoot-first these deputies seem to be in a world of some not-so-perfect police officers. But this is TV where there aren’t bad cops, right? (And, if there are, they are clearly delineated from the good ones.)

Still, were the 1950s and 1960s Westerns really good? No. They were fun. And the best thing that can be said about Deputy is it’s fun, too.

Deputy airs Thursdays at 9 pm Eastern on Fox. It can also be streamed at: https://www.fox.com/deputy/