By Brandon Nolta
It’s an ugly fact that in the wake of natural disasters, insurance fraud of many stripes takes place, and sometimes companies are just as guilty. As K-VILLE opens this week, it looks like people who’ve been burned on both sides are raring for a fight, as an insurance investigator looks into a house fire of a place abandoned since the hurricane. The investigator, who obviously suspects the owner of setting the fire to get the insurance, is a bit snippy; the owner, who obviously didn’t get any money from her policy to fix up the place, doesn’t like the insinuation. Tempers flare, the investigator pulls back and trips over himself … and finds a torched and toothless corpse in the remains of the house. Here’s where our friends Boulet (Anthony Anderson) and Cobb (Cole Hauser) step in.
While Cobb and the fine fire marshal (Sarah Brown) circle each other like panthers sizing up a gazelle, Boulet stays on trying to ID the body, but he’s got distractions of his own. He’s broke, his house is rotting out from under him and, maybe worst of all, he’s fighting back his emotions now that his old partner Charlie (Derek Webster) has rejoined the force and has seemingly been promoted to Boulet’s squad right off the bat, a position it took Boulet years of hard street work to earn. Boulet’s got a lot on his plate, and it’s a big plate (no, that isn’t a fat joke).
Despite all the personal issues and sexual tension, things progress. An autopsy reveals that the body holds a key piece of evidence: traces of an accelerant that demonstrates arson. Several other fires in the city were suspected of being set, but the accelerant leaves no trace after combustion, so the fire marshals had nothing to go on. Now, between the list of suspicious fires, the insurance company that denied all the claims and a missing adjuster from the same company, the pieces start to fall into place. There’s more than one complication, though; a late-night meeting between Charlie and Embry (John Carroll Lynch) reveals that Charlie is working the IAB tip, spying on his fellow folks in blue. Embry suspects a fox in the henhouse, and Charlie gets to hunt it down.
Meanwhile, the paper trail shows that the deceased adjuster approved four claims, and one of those that got paid was a chemical engineer. Now, the boys are thinking there are two perps, but Cobb starts to think that his latest roll in the hay might have something to do with it. Bad mojo, but he’s not alone in feeling it; Boulet, recalling a story about money in a train locker left by a drug dealer, feels the temptation to go get some, but at the last minute, decides to stay on the right and narrow, only to get confronted by Charlie. What will Charlie do? Then again, what will Cobb do with his suspicions? Well, the boys do what they do best: run down leads and sniff out the truth. They find that the guys who got their claims approved all worked at the same company, and put it all together just in time. From there, it’s all over but the crying. Whatever the ratings or the network might say, K-VILLE remains an involving and well-acted drama, and this reviewer hopes that it doesn’t fall victim to the WGA strike or the fickle nature of Fox. Cobb and Boulet are two of the better characters on the tube right now, and their adventures in the Big Easy are worth keeping around. You getting this, Mr. Murdoch?
