By Brandon Nolta
It was old Willy Yates who said, “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold,” and although it was in a poem called “The Second Coming,” he could have easily been talking about New Orleans in the modern era. That’s the overwhelming theme of K-VILLE, Fox’s latest police drama, and our heroes Marlin Boulet (Anthony Anderson) and Trevor Cobb (Cole Hauser) waste no time in getting into the fire.
The Orleans Parish Jail has had a jailbreak, and there are three dudes on the run. Our boys help snag two of them, only to lose them to the Parish sheriff. Unfortunately, both escapees get killed on their return, making our heroes suspect that something far more screwy than a simple jailbreak’s amiss, especially as it turns out the last escapee has been in the jail for two years on a simple misdemeanor. Not only that, but the boy’s loaded, which quickly raises the question of why was he in so long and what motivated him to boogie the way he and his friends did.
Boulet and Cobb go to Orleans Parish Jail to try and shake loose some answers, but that’s a tough mission on its own; as viewers discovered last week, Cobb was a former guest in that institution who escaped during Katrina, disappeared into the military and took advantage of the chaos around the city to start up a new life. Between corrupt officials, a dangerously overcrowded jail and ghosts that just won’t stay dead, Boulet and Cobb have got all the work they can handle headed their way.
Even before the hurricane, New Orleans and corruption went together like peanut butter and jelly, so the major idea of the episode—that the Orleans Parish Sheriff is on the take from a number of different sources, including an offshore oil drilling corporation with their fingers in some dirty pies—is nothing new. Where K-VILLE gets its flavor and punch is in how it mixes the traditional flavors of New Orleans shenanigans with the rough-and-tumble hero combo of Boulet and Cobb, one of the more intriguing partnerships on the tube.
Anderson and Hauser work damn well together, with Anderson continuing to impress with the rolling thunder intensity he invests in Boulet. Anybody who doubted that Anderson had the chops to pull off a dramatic lead—even after his fantastic turn on THE SHIELD—should be quieted by his work here. Hauser is just as good, alternating straight-arrow good humor (Boulet’s fond of bourbon on the job, while Cobb doesn’t seem to touch the stuff) with the demeanor of a man seeking redemption. The supporting cast hasn’t been given much of a chance to show their stuff, except for Lynch, who handily steals all his scenes, but after seeing two episodes, I’ve got to say confidence is high. Let’s hope Fox gives Anderson and Hauser all the time they need to develop the further adventures of Boulet and Cobb into must-see TV for everybody, because K-VILLE is (so far) head and shoulders above the usual cop fare.