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Southland Season 2 Episode 4

The Runner

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AIRED: Mar 23, 2010

6.7

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Episode Summary

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When a young woman is found is murdered at the S.U.L.A. campus in Compton, Det. Adams and her new partner, Det. Ray Suarez, investigate the case. Officers Cooper and Sherman attend a funeral in Indian Wells and visit Dewey in a halfway house.

Fan Episode Reviews (2)

Episode four was a little bit unusual...

7.5

By RCM86, Jan 13, 2011

Episode four was a little bit unusual because there was only one case – about the runner. This investigation was interesting, especially the part with the football player boyfriend and how the school was trying to save him. It wasn't new material to see on tv but it was still entertaining.

John and Ben visited Dewey in rehab. I don't know if this story should have been funny, even a little , but almost every scene kind of was. The friend's funeral showed us parts of John's past however nothing really important or worth mentioning.

What I don't understand: Why was Amaury Nolasco removed from the series? It is not that I would miss him, but there was no explanation why Det. Adams suddenly worked with a new partner.

http://rcmed.wordpress.com/2010/03/27/southland-2x04-the-runner/moreless
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If you are not watching this show you are missing out...

9.0

By JeffCaldwell, Jun 18, 2010

First lets get the new partner question, out of the way. It's unclear why they switched actors, and therefore partners for Detective Adams but they came up great with the replacement actor. Clearly this show is attracting actors of the caliber of Clifton Collins Jr. for a reason, and that is because the writing is fantastic. This episode was about the expectation we have and hold of the people we know, the prejudices good and bad about those we don't and the disappointment we feel when our expectations aren't met.

On arrival to the scene of the dead girl Adams feels sympathy for this girl, shes a "pretty girl" she says. The girl doesn't look like a gangsters girl, so Adams wants to solve her murder, she wants to empathize with the family, she feels some sort of connection with the girl. When Adams finds out that the girl had been given all kinds of opportunities, the kind that many in the same neighborhood were not given Adams attitude changes, completely. The contrast between Adams comments of how the dead girls story has warranted media attention because "it was the tragic death of a promising track star and university student" with Adams own turn of attitude to "this girl had every opportunity she just blew it" is striking. It shows how quickly ones attitude changes. For Adams the case is now not about getting justice for a dead girl, or solving her murder, it's about going after the underbelly of university sports, and specifically a university that she herself may have been shut out of, figuratively and perhaps metaphorically.

The second story line in this episode centered around Officers Cooper and Sherman. It is one of the most compelling parts of Cooper's character, that as much as he seems to know, as insightful as he is about things on the street, and mentoring new police officers, he still can be blown away by the actions of people. Though Cooper believes the police live in the grey, he does tend to divide the world up into black and white. You are a bad guy, or a good guy. A good police officer, or a poor one. Once you are one of those things you tend to stay that way in his book. You can do whatever you want, you can drink on the job, you can pop pills, you can bend the rules, even break them, as long as you are good at the police work. When Dewey confesses to drinking 30 beers a day, it for some reason comes as a shock to Cooper. Cooper had decided that Dewey was a good cop, and so once labeled that way, stayed that way. Cooper's grey area just bled into his black and white and he is clearly unhappy.

There was something perhaps underhanded about the way Cooper got Sherman to goto the gay officers funeral. You could see that Sherman was not so much offended, but more sideswiped, surprised, and set off balance. What would you do if the most masculine man you knew, your mentor, nonchalantly mentioned the fact that he was gay The audience knew this fact all along, whether or not its a secret within the ranks or something that the officers don't talk about is unclear. Again the expectations and the stereotypes of one of the characters on the show were broken in this episode. The most difficult scene in this episode occurs when Adams has to tell the dead girls father about who she really was and how it got her killed. The father rejects it outright, he can not accept it. Even Adams seems shocked that the father had no idea. "You don't even know who she was." The father: "Don't tell me who my daughter is." The fathers blindness caused by his tunnel vision about producing track star daughters blinded him to the reality of who his daughter was, perhaps he knew inside, and now his denial prevented him from helping her. He will have to come to terms with the fact that the memories of his daughter are not what they appear to be.

Isn't that the way that many of us live our lives, believing that we know people. That the people we love and care about, that we are closest to are the ones we can depend on to be a certain way. Many of those beliefs we create and maintain on our own, we never fact check them against reality. It is these standards, of being a good cop, a good daughter, a mans man, that prevent many from reaching out for help, with drugs, alcohol, or loneliness. We don't want to let others see our faults, our weaknesses, those things that reduce us from ideals to humans. This was an episode about the stories others tell about us at our funerals. Not the stories we would tell ourselves. Sometimes we cant fulfill or match these stories and ideals that others hold of us, and it leads us not only to question ourselves but forces us to admit that we may never truly know those we are closest to.moreless
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Cast & Crew: STARS

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Arija Bareikis	Officer Chickie Brown
Regina King	Det. Lydia Adams
Michael McGrady	Det. Daniel "Sal" Salinger
Kevin Alejandro	Det. Nate Moretta
Ben McKenzie	Officer Ben Sherman
Shawn Hatosy	Det. Sammy Bryant

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Cast & Crew: RECURRING AND GUESTS

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Jonathan Castellanos	Lil Casper	Guest Star
Gabrielle Dennis	Michelle Hill	Guest Star
Lee Garlington	Cathleen Kerik	Guest Star
Patrick Fischler	Kenny No-Gun	Recurring Role
C. Thomas Howell	Officer Billy "Dewey" Dudek	Recurring Role
Lex Medlin	Det. Andy Williams	Recurring Role

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Episode Photos

Lex Medlin, Regina King and Kevin Alejan...

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Regina King on Southland from the episod...

©2010 Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved.
Kevin Alejandro and Regina King on South...

©2010 Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved.
Regina King, Lex Medlin and Clifton Coll...

©2010 Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved.

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- Opening Voiceover: Every victim has a story. Detective Lydia Adams has seen this one before.
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