Flashpoint: Below The Surface

Posted by: S.P. Young • October 28, 2012 @ 12:55am

"They're going on an assassination run."

"Below The Surface," took place in the middle of some ugly biker gang politics. Inside of this mess, were Kate and Luke, who both wanted to see the biker gang go down. Like in most Flashpoint episodes, the people that get involved with the criminals, are decent people that also tend to be emotionally disturbed. In the case of Kate and Luke, they were both dealing with a severe case of grief.

Grief episodes usually follow a pretty predictable plot. The grieving person feels bad, wants to make things better, so they go out and seek revenge or justice. Next, somebody on the right side of the law intervenes by passionately stating that killing the bad guy will not bring their loved one back to life. In the end, one of two things happen. The griever either kills the bad buy, or more likely, spares the bad guy to save their own soul. It is a battle that can not be won, and it makes for lousy television.

Remember that clipshow at the end of the third season, where all of Team One were interrogated, and then put on probation for the next season? Somehow, it seemed like Kate, a police detective, never got any such psychological screening. Well, at least it was implied that she did not. Because if she had, she would probably not be on duty. To make things worse, Kate dead son's idiot friend, Luke, got himself into a biker gang to make things better for Kate. Because that is how seventeen year olds grieve after a drunken boating accident that killed their friend. As for Kate, she was unaware of (or disregarded) a little thing a called a conflict of interest, so she kept Luke around as a confidential informant.

This is not grief. This is stupidity.

Enter Team One, Toronto's elite team of social workers. Take a look at this scene, where Kate locked herself into the Police Mobile Command vehicle, to beat the truth out of a criminal, and to point a gun at him. Greg, unable to convince Kate to open the door, even had to shoot to break the lock. Not surprisingly, Greg convinced Kate to put the gun down.

To Flashpoint's credit, at least they changed the grief formula up just a little bit. Kate's dead son had nothing to do with the biker gang. It was just that Kate was really passionate about putting away bad guys, and she was violent against this criminal in order to protect Luke. But she still had to be talked out of shooting the guy.

Somehow, despite Spike getting a video feed to see what was happening inside the vehicle, Kate was not severely reprimanded on the spot. It turns out that there is no immediate consequence for a City of Toronto (and we know it is Toronto because they keep showing the CN Tower over and over again) police officer for eschewing the Miranda Rights in favour of using violence and a threat of death.

In the end, the bomb was defused, Luke was rescued, and the bad guys were all caught. Greg went home to his son, while Luke and Kate went to the cemetery to bury some trinket. That just about sums it up. A rather bland and unexciting episode of Flashpoint. But on the topic of the cemetery, one member of the Strategic Response Unit even sang a song about it. Enjoy!