East New York

Amanda Warren is a precinct commander and Richard Kind her top aide in the new CBS drama 'East New York.' Peter Kramer/CBS.

To be fair, broadcasters have tried plenty of more daring cop shows through the years, and generally found that their audience, dwindling though it might be, keeps gravitating toward the TV equivalent of comfort food. He counsels Regina to “play the long game,” part of a strong supporting cast that includes Richard Kind as Regina’s fumbling but effective right hand and Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Kevin Rankin and Elizabeth Rodriguez as veteran, seen-it-all cops. It’s also notable to see a younger Black cop ask his more experienced partner, in the second episode, why he stopped a Black man. Indeed, all the talk of soul-searching about For now, though, it’s hard to escape doubts as to whether the show can stick to that approach and, given the enduring popularity of a simpler form of cop drama, attract enough viewers to provide “East New York” the chance to play the long game. A lot has changed regarding the view of policing since “NYPD Blue” premiered in 1993, an evolution that’s partially evident in “East New York,” which seeks to bring the cop show into the 21st century.

A new police drama hit the airwaves! Our East New York Season 1 Episode 1 review discusses the gritty series, its premise, and what...

What did you think of the pilot? Hit the big, blue SHOW COMMENTS button and let us know. Bentley also needs to learn a lesson or two about dealing with people in the community. Otherwise, the hour went fast and left me eager for more! They wouldn't have let the Deputy Mayor intimidate them if they wanted to arrest his friend. East New York tried to get around this by having Sandeford introduce everyone to Bentley at the beginning of the hour, but it didn't quite work. It was surprising, for example, that most of the hour centered around one case rather than different officers investigating different cases. The names sped by too quickly; we got a sense of what roles key players held on the police force, but not their names. When someone spray-painted her door, she quickly returned the hostility. It never occurred to me that she thought this move would look good on her resume or benefit her career in any particular way until Hayward mentioned it. Hayward is in a tough spot as the new Deputy Inspector. Some of the cops she now commands assume she got her job merely because of her race and that she isn't qualified.

Spoiler Alert. Peter Kramer/CBS. [Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the East New York series premiere.] The Amanda Warren-led ...

[Olivia Luccardi](https://www.tvinsider.com/people/olivia-luccardi/)), says she’ll do it immediately and doesn’t need time to think about it. The premiere ends with all the main players except Haywood and Suarez together at the local restaurant/bar, which Killian and his girlfriend Corinne (Caitlin Mehner) bought — after he stole a priceless bat from a nearby establishment where he worked as a bouncer. One of the younger officers, Brandy Quinlan ( But he thinks that her first days indicated she’d be around for the long run, and she made the right calls on the case. (She accepts.) It has to be; she knows she can’t ease into things, and whatever she wants to get done, she has to do it fast before they give her command to someone else.

Created by William Finkelstein ('NYPD Blue') and Mike Flynn ('Power Book III: Raising Kanan'), the show stars Amanda Warren as the recently promoted boss of ...

This idea provides the series with the faint sheen of progressiveness while allowing it to maintain the stance that nothing really needs to change on a fundamental level, beyond perhaps some personnel changes and a closer adherence to the rules. That said, a second-episode scene in which a man emotionally thanks the police for doing their jobs so he wouldn’t have to take matters into his own hands via unforgivable violence would seem a pretty strong indication of what this show wants its viewers to think of the institution it’s presenting, and the stories it’s telling about them. Calling out the disparate treatment of a wealthy victim versus a working-class one is one thing; pointing out that the former’s whiteness and the latter’s Blackness may have also had something to do with it is apparently a bridge too far, given the reluctance of even a character as opinionated Regina to point it out. But there’s only so far the series is able or willing to push up against the limits of its own genre, and East New York proves to be far more successful in replicating its comforts than in tackling its dark side. If the argument put forth by activists has been that bad policing is more than a matter of just “a few bad apples,” East New York‘s optimistic rejoinder is that a few good apples might be all it takes to save an institution from rot. While far from the first police drama to acknowledge the shortcomings of the institution, East New York makes those failings central to its premise. Amid such company, it’s easy enough to fall back into the well-worn rhythms of the police procedural: of high-stakes cases wrapped up in tidy 40something minute increments, of coworkers affectionately ribbing each other on the job, of montages of soothing competence punctuated by the occasional jolt of violent action. The series seems acutely aware that there’s only so far a cop show can go in reexamining policing without breaking it completely. Some of Regina’s team rank higher than others on the likability spectrum, but all are blessed with sharp minds and essentially good hearts. The first two episodes have the workmanlike polish of a show built by people who know what they’re doing. She encourages her officers to move into the very projects they patrol, bristles against top-down pressure to prioritize cases involving the already privileged, does away with traffic-ticket quotas in an effort to redirect her team’s energy toward the more serious crimes plaguing the neighborhood. On the one hand, it’s a procedural in the familiar hero-officer mold, focusing on a righteous protagonist doing everything in her power to do right by the community she’s serving.

Amanda Warren, Jimmy Smits, Richard Kind, Elizabeth Rodriguez and Kevin Rankin star in the ensemble procedural.

But with lots of talent on both sides of the camera, and a neighborhood that’s rife with true-life story potential, the show can become a solid, Blue Bloods-style staple for the network. The procedural part of the show will always be up and down; some of the cases will be ripped from the headlines and be interesting, and others will be a confusing pile of cop show cliches. There’s more than enough talent in front of and behind the camera to get this show going in the right direction. We’re recommending East New York purely on what we think the show can be, not on what we see so far. The writers will get the time they need to shape the characters and setting, which is what is going to attract audiences to the show. The talent in front of the camera, especially Smits and Kind, either aren’t given enough to do (Smits) or are being underserved because Flynn, Finklestein and their writers just don’t have a handle on the character’s tone yet (Kind). Most Pilot-y Line: Killian steals Roy Campanella’s bat from a bar where he moonlights as security in order to buy the cop bar. If Yenko was completely inept, he wouldn’t have reached the rank of captain, so there’s a good cop in there somewhere, right? We can write about how many problems this show has until our fingertips go numb, but unless it falls completely on its face, it has the same built-in audience that made Blue Bloods one of CBS’s longest-running dramas and is making the FBI franchise such a big hit for the network. Veteran beat cop Marvin Sandeford (Ruben Santiago-Hudson), who knows the neighborhood better than anyone, deals with some of the issues Quinlan is having in with her new neighbors, along with his rookie partner Andre Bentley (Lavel Schley) wanting to throw the book at a kid who stole his hat. It has lots of characters, so much so that they need to be introduced via some awkward, talky exposition at the scene of the van driver shooting. When the owner of the bar gets a higher bid, pricing Killian out, he resorts to desperate measures to make Corinne happy.

A march a week ago honoring homicide victims brought NYPD officers from across the city, including men and women from the 75th. "It's a nice area. You got good ...

"It creates a safe space for kids. It's a diverse neighborhood where community policing efforts are part of a shared responsibility. Yes, absolutely, it's going to take time," Whatts said. We just need the guns to go away, go away," resident Sherry Sutton said. "Fifty percent of our shootings are gang or crew related. "It's a nice area.