9/3/2023 0 Comments Coyote seriesTo be blunt: a show that asks its audience to connect to a rogue Border Patrol agent with literal blood on his hands needs to work harder than this one does to justify its premise. It’s one thing to show how quickly the ground can shift beneath Ben’s feet, and quite another for the series to constantly rewrite its own priorities. It opens with an in media res flash forward to a random cartel altercation and Ben trudging away from the border wall through the desert before cutting back “5 days later.” It then takes an episode and a half to reach that moment, before the show upends its own premise and throws Ben headlong into the insular politics of the cartel, headed up by its own cliché of a ruthless leader (played by Juan Pablo Roba). It doesn’t help that the show’s structure is just as confusing as its protagonist. No amount of sweeping coastline shots - and there are plenty, thanks to director Michelle Maclaren’s keen eye - can distract from the fact that this guy just isn’t smart or interesting enough to follow to hell and back, as “Coyote” otherwise requires. Maybe that appeals to some viewers, but to this one, watching Ben charge through every scene with righteous fists at the ready quickly becomes exhausting. It barely fleshes out Maria’s character, nor that of Silvia (Adriana Paz), a Mexican local who sees something special in Ben that “Coyote” assumes the audiences will understand without giving any tangible reasons.Īs played by Chiklis, a veteran actor of flawed TV authority figures, Ben’s rarely more than a blowhard who sees himself as the one true arbiter of justice. The series frames his willingness to help her as a compassionate turning point in his life, but fails to find much of interest therein. In the case of Maria, however, Ben recognizes that she’s about the same age as his daughter, thus activating some latent paternal instinct deep down. He’s rarely thought about the people he arrests as three-dimensional figures he apparently never even learned more than a few scattered words in Spanish throughout his 32-year career. In fact, as we learn in one particularly upsetting trip down memory lane, Ben is prone to shooting first and asking questions later to no real consequence. As we learn in sporadic flashbacks, Ben was hardly the most compassionate officer while on duty.
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