Author: Kevin Watterson

I had The Bridge all figured out.

Detective Sonya Cross is weird. Not goofy weird. Borderline psychopath weird. Her world is black and white. There are rules, there is breaking rules. It is against the rules to let an ambulance take a dying man thru a crime scene, so she tells the man’s wife to turn around. She can’t notify a husband of his wife’s death without starting her investigation, asking for his cell phone and about infidelity. She asks him in his own home if he would like a glass of water, multiple times. She thinks this is expressing emotion. She apologizes if she lacked empathy as he kicks her out.

Sonya Cross can’t process other people’s feelings. Her partner’s wife makes her dinner, she tells her it tastes bad. She tells a crying mother her daughter must remain in custody because she is on drugs. Later, when the girl’s father is killed, Cross interrogates her as if she isn’t in shock from seeing her father’s tongue pulled out thru a slit in his throat.

Cross has a sex life but no love life. Late one night she gets dressed, goes to a bar and asks the first man she talks to if he wants to have sex with her. Her style is submissive, as if she is fulfilling a role she thinks she is supposed to play even though she doesn’t understand why. The next morning she walks into the office and matter-of-factly tells her boss, “I had sex last night,” to which he replies in a way that sounded like this is a repeat occurrence. A few days later her conquest shows up at the police station to get her number and she reflexively responds, “I can’t have sex with you here,” right in front of her partner and her boss.

What’s the point of my amateur psycho analysis? I couldn’t understand why The Bridge made her this way. The show has enough mystery and drama to function just fine with its main character being normal. What about the show needed her to exhibit such a bizarre personality?

Then it hit me. The show features Cross and a Mexican detective trying to solve the case of a murder victim placed on the bridge between El Paso and Juarez. Half the body is in Mexico, half in the United States. Their investigation leads to a mission-oriented serial killer. My theory after a couple of episodes was that Cross is the killer. Based on her weirdness I posited she would experience complete psychological breaks and commit these horrible murders without even realizing what she was doing. Imagine Dexter with a split personality.

Under my theory they would investigate deeper and deeper. Nothing would make sense. Then, like a bolt from the blue, her boss would realize what was wrong with this strange young cop he mentored for so long. Talk about a snake in the mail box, what a great twist that would be! It had to be the reason they made her the way she is!

WRONG. Sonya Cross is not the killer. Her personality is the result of her sister being brutally raped and murdered when she was 15. She proves she is capable of emotion sitting in prison with the mentally disabled killer, holding his hand and crying as he draws childlike pictures of her sister with black eyes.

The first time I tried watching The Bridge I didn’t make it 10 minutes. Cross was that annoying. I gave it another shot, though, and I’m glad I did. It’s not a great show, but it’s a very good one. Diane Kruger does an excellent job as Cross and Demián Bichir is enjoyable as her partner from Juarez. Ted Levine plays her completely Texas boss who is mentally ready to retire. Annabeth Gish, who I think is just the best, plays the wife of the dying man in the ambulance. Her story unfolds separately from the murder investigation but it becomes clear that the two storylines will intersect at some point as the show nears the end of its first season.

I used On Demand to catch up with The Bridge’s first 10 episodes. Judging by the ratings I am not alone in watching it on delay. According to The Hollywood Reporter  its most recent episode gained a whopping 67 percent increase of viewers when DVR was taken into account.

With ratings like that, characters that are enjoyable and a good set of storylines, The Bridge is a solid addition to your TV lineup. Its full season is available thru Comcast’s On Demand so you can catch up as it reaches its last three episodes of the season.

The smash hit band of the summer! 

Actually those are the titles of two shows that aired on ABC over the summer season.

Motive is a Canadian series about two detectives solving murders in Vancouver. There are no standout performances from the cast. It doesn’t have any of the hallmarks you would look for in a great television show. Motive makes its mark in the way it presents its story.

Most whodunnits are about finding the bad guy before it’s too late. Motive gives you the killer and the victim each week in the opening scene. Viewers know this but the detectives don’t, so the show plays a little bit of a game with you. As you watch the detectives try to find the killer you are trying to figure out the killer’s motive, hence the title. I can’t think of any other show I watch that gives you the viewer a different reason to watch the show than the characters within it are experiencing. It draws you in to make you feel like you are solving the case along with them.

Like I said, nothing outstanding from the actors but nothing bad either. The chemistry is good, the dialogue is sharp and the stories are pretty tight. It’s a textbook procedural, so much so that the season finale was indistinguishable from a regular episode. But regular episodes are fun to watch for the different way they are presented. If you have Netflix or Hulu Plus, Motive is a nice simple show you can watch without feeling compelled to watch five more.

Mistresses

When you put four attractive women in a show, call it Mistresses and market it for the sex appeal you are inevitably going to get comparisons with Sex and the City. I would compare them like this: If Sex and the City was about sex, Mistresses is about consequences. Only one of the four sexcapades her way thru the season but it’s rarely gratuitous and always part of exploring her faults. That’s the purpose of sex in Mistresses: It exposes faults.

The premiere episode showed the conflict each of the four would face as their sex lives fail them. Karen slept with a client, Savannah can’t get pregnant, Joss can’t carry on a meaningful relationship and April is getting back into dating after her husband’s death. Unlike SATC they deal with their problems like adults whose decisions hurt other people. It’s a mature show in this way.

There is some good acting, most notably the chemistry between Alyssa Milano and her husband, played by Brett Tucker. Their scenes are the best of the series. It’s good to see Yunjim Kim back on American TV, but her performance is pretty ordinary. Jes Macallan is perfectly cast as Savannah’s sexually liberated sister. Shannyn Sossamon plays her client-turned-girlfriend. I don’t have anything to say about that other than Sossamon’s first child is named Audio Science Clayton.

The season finale appeared ready to go completely off the rails but righted itself in time to end with a cliffhanger that I totally bought. The show definitely earned itself a second season. I have an idea forthcoming as to a great way that could unfold.

What you see with Mistresses is what you get. It less opaque than a show like Longmire. It is more like Motive. You don’t have to put much thought into it to enjoy it. In that way these two shows are perfect for the summer. In the fall or even the spring season they might not make it. When there’s nothing else on, both work just fine.