Sunday night marks the third episode of "Low Winter Sun."
Lennie James as Detective Joe Geddes in episode three. (AMC photos/Alicia Gbur)
In the first episode, two homicide cops, Frank Agnew and Joe Geddes, kill a fellow cop Brendan McCann, then try to make it look like a suicide. In the second episode, the medical examiner declares it a homicide.
Deadline Detroit's Darrell Dawsey and Allan Lengel provide rolling commentary.
10:07 AL: Pretty gory. Flashback. Homicide cop Brenden McCann is dismembering the body of a snitch for internal affairs. McCann is the cop who is murdered in the opening episode.
10:08 DD: Pretty sloppy, too. I'm no CSI expert, but it seems like a stretch to expect to get away with a crime with that much DNA all over the place. These are seasoned homicide cops? Geddes has a heart after all, eh?
10:13 DD: The last line in the opening scene was good...Get past Lennie James' bad Detroit accent (apologies to Tom Barrow) if you can, and you have one great actor. Everybody's still too tortured for my tastes, but James is still worth watching for now.
10:15 DD: Lol..."alacrity."
10:15: AL: Nice line by the head of homicide: "Have you seen my ass, I just got it chewed clean off." He's talking about the deputy mayor reaming him.
Lafayette or American? Table or car hood?
10:19 AL -- The strongest part of the show is the tension between detectives Frank Agnew and Joe Geddes. That seems to be working well.
10:22 DD -- Agree about the tension...But I wish there were a bit more subtlety in some of these exchanges.
10:22 AL: Agree with that.
10:25 : AL: Not sure how much I love Joe Geddes living with his mother. The house that was filmed at was on Klenk Island in Detroit off Alter Road.
10:26 DD: The mom is there to humanize his character, obviously. Weak device if you ask me.
10:28 DD: Erika Alexander gets finer with age.
10:36 AL: Love the shot looking out to the street from the International Bar where you can see the Broadway clothing store.
10:37 DD: How much did they save on not hiring extras? I mean, I know Detroit has lost a lot of people but it seems you never see anyone walking down the street or sitting in that damn bar. The middle of a week day in Detroit still boasts nearly a million people who come into the city to work.
10:38 DD: I should say the population swells to nearly a million with the influx of workers.
10:40 AL: Interesting that internal affairs is already on to Joe Geddes. Too soon in the show for them to be doing that? Just asking.
10:41 DD: I was thinking the same thing re: IA. Simon Boyd's basically figured it out already. American vs. Lafayette, nice touch...But again, probably could have been handled with a bit more subtlety. At this point in their relationship, they're still not clear on who eats where?
Mark Strong, playing Detective Frank Agnew, tries to works off tension and guilt in the ring.
10:42 AL:Agree with the coney scene. But as a local, I'll go for that one. Who doesn't love to see Lafayette and American?
10:43 DD: The dialogue still feels like there were lines that essentially read "insert gratuitous Detroit reference here."
10:46 AL: Speaking of gratuitous. the line that still bugs me and seems so fake is when the woman at the bar in a previous episode uses the line about getting a handjob at the Dream Cruise. Who in the hell ever got a handjob at the Dream Cruise? Maybe a slice of pizza.
10:47 DD: Right. I'm pretty sure watching old people make U-turns in hoopties all day is the precise antithesis of wanting a handjob.
10:47 DD: On Lafayette and American. Both are fine...but I grew up on Onassis off Mack Ave. Let's push the envelope with the landmarks, people. lol Let's not act like National and Kerby's don't have game worth mentioning too...coneys.
10:50 DD: The obligatory union guy gets grilled in the interview room. OK, but can we tether any of these lesser characters to something other than quick and dirty local references? Too much symbolism, not enough humanity still for me.
10:52 AL: I do like the interrogation though.
10:53 DD: Yeah, it got better after the break. lol
10:55 AL: I like the way they're working the witness, trying to throw him off the trail. The coney remark.. mmm
10:56 DD: I don't care about Damon Callis one bit. Something about his ambitions seem petty. I'm still trying to figure out why I need to watch this guy.
10:57 AL: I agree with you about Callis. Not that great of a character.
10:58: DD: Ass whooping as catharsis? Agnew's got issues...lol...
11:00 DD: I guess the episodes wasn't that bad, but this still isn't close to great. I suppose the plot moved along, but right now I'm just waiting for that twist to tell me I haven't got this thing figured out. It either gets good from here or I get gone.
11:01 AL: I agree. It will keep me coming back for a while, but it needs to kick up a gear soon.
11:02 AL: The actors have said by the sixth episode it really cranks up.
11:04 AL: I like that detective Frank Agnew is headed to Canada, where his girlfriend is hiding out. Interesting.
11:06 DD: So far, so-so...I'm hanging on to see what goes on by Ep. 6, I guess. But I really hope they make it worth my while.
11:07 AL: That's a fair comment. I think it will be worth it.
"I don't care about Damon Callis [James Ransone] one bit. Something about his ambitions seem petty. I'm still trying to figure out why I need to watch this guy." -- Darrell Dawsey
