I miss Cracked. CBC’s dark drama starred David Sutcliffe as Aiden Black, a Toronto detective who teamed with psychiatrists to help folks with mental issues. Sutcliffe returned to primetime TV during Thursday’s new episode of Rookie Blue, where he made an immediate impact as a father with a pretty strict belief system.
“Perfect Family” was in stark contrast to last week’s return, focusing more on circumstances outside the precinct rather than inside, though Dov and Marlo’s continuing investigation into the evidence room bombing uncovered a link between a missing munitions contractor and the force itself. Also, a tearful Andy confirmed to Swarek she’ll stick around to help raise his and Marlo’s baby, the spark between Juliet and Nick burned a little brighter and Dias is getting in deep with Jarvis.
But the bulk of “Perfect Family” was a character study and analysis of changing times and family values viewed as out of date. Written by Adriana Maggs, the script spotlit a missing 16-year-old girl named Hayley Hill (Orphan Black‘s Zoé De Grand’Maison). Bringing her family in for questioning revealed some interesting little tidbits about her father, Lloyd (Sutcliffe). The boss of the house, Lloyd was religious, believed in abstinence and wasn’t above doling out punishment with his belt or making Hayley sleep in the garage. None of what he was doing was against the law, but it was certainly disturbing.
I caught myself shaking my head at Lloyd’s backward thinking before I quickly realized there are people who think that way, and raise their children without cell phones, banning them from wearing revealing clothing and demanding respect from their elders. In Lloyd’s eyes, the world is going to hell and he was making sure his family wasn’t going along for the ride. Was what Lloyd was doing out of line? Not in his own eyes.
But by the end of the episode the blinders were off his wife’s eyes and she was ready to face him in court over his actions, which included making Hayley sleep in a freezer when she misbehaved. (I knew right away that son Jeremy would poison his sister’s pop; the way he looked at her when she drank it betrayed his actions.) Lloyd’s arrest after he beat the crap out of Connor, the boy trying to save Hayley from harm, closed the door on the case, but cemented in Swarek and Andy’s minds the type of parents they want to be—and not be—for the baby.
Notes and quotes
- I love the jangly rock music that started the episode.
- Travis Milne has a gift for physical comedy. That scene where he was checking Jarvis’ wife’s car had me snickering.
- Andy wishing she was a fish so that she wouldn’t feel emotions was alternately heartbreaking and hilarious.
- “People talk. Screw ’em.” Amen, Dov. Amen.
- “I know how to Skype a Thai hooker if I’m so inclined.” —Dov
- This is the second week in a row that Gail hasn’t had much to do. Fingers crossed that changes next week.
Rookie Blue airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Global.
