By Davina Gantz aka @gingercara

Raw. Gritty. Emotional. Intense. Edge of my seat. Non-stop action. Those are just some of the words I can use to describe the most recent episode of SouthLAnd. I was on the edge of my seat from the moment the episode started until it ended. Starting off with the gang shooting at the club where Nate’s daughter is witness to two gang members being killed to Sammy arresting Casper at the end. It is very obvious that Sal and Gil don’t get along as they discuss the killing at the nightclub.

Tammy. What can I say about Tammy, brilliantly played by actress Emily Bergl. She is out taking pictures all over town. Picture of a skateboarding teen that is carrying pot, to a gang member that Sammy and his team are investigating. She brings home the pot carrying teen and gets high with him despite being pregnant. She passes out, the teen takes her laptop and very expensive camera. She is flighty, ditzy, self-centered, wrapped up in her photography which may or may not become a career. It could be a passing phase like so many other things she gets into. Her relationship with Sammy is definitely strained. Should they still be together? Why are they together? I guess it’s true about opposites attract. Should they be having kids? Is Sammy trying to get her pregnant because he is feeling pressure from Gil and Nate?

The scene with Sherman and Cooper at the mall was hysterical. Sherman spotting a guy using a video camera to look up a lady’s skirt. Cooper taking the camera from the guy and destroying it. Giving the guy his business card to get the iPod replaced. From what I’ve seen most of the scene was ad libbed by Michael Cudlitz. Just goes to show what an excellent actor he is. Sherman trying to keep a straight face at the end of the scene was priceless. How he didn’t just burst out laughing I will never know.

Sammy gets himself in trouble by taking his work home. By meeting Casper’s mother to taking him to a movie and lunch gives the relationship a personal touch which clouds Sammy’s judgment. When a kid is killed and Sammy finds out it was Casper that killed him he sobs while holding Casper. The emotion was so raw and real. I was crying with Sammy. All three times I watched the episode. Incredible acting by Shawn Hatosy. If he isn’t nominated for some kind of award I will be shocked.

Mercedes calling Nate “Daddy”, Cooper and Sherman discovering the money and guns, Sal and Gil finally bonding, Nate and Gil finding the head in the box, Sherman and Michelle hooking up, Sammy discovering that Tammy is still smoking pot and not pregnant after all. Her lack of concern for his emotionally tough day while she goes on about her problems.

I could go on for paragraphs about how awesome this episode is but I won’t. Everyone that viewed it realizes how awesome it was, maybe even the best episode yet. The brilliant writing, the brilliant acting. This is a show most deserving of renewal.

From The Graveyard Shift:

This week things settle down a bit as we join Detective Adams as she does what a detectives do during the course of their day—investigate crimes. An investigator’s day is a busy one, but not normally as frantic as the 8 to 12-hour shifts worked by patrol officers. The difference? Patrol officers spend their time reacting to crimes as they happen. Detectives work the crimes in reverse, starting with the aftermath. And that process can be very slow.

In the opening scene of this week’s episode, Detective Lydia Adams is investigating the murder of a young woman, a college student, who once had everything going for her until her addiction to crack cocaine led to her downfall. Adams comments about the bullet wound in the girl’s back, a wound that was pretty typical in size and shape for one caused by a 9mm round, helped viewers see a pretty decent picture of what a real gun shot wound looks like in the field. This accurate portrayal was in sharp contrast to the bullet wounds we saw in another cop show that aired on Monday night.

Continued at http://www.leelofland.com/wordpress/?p=6431

By Latoya Bembry

After suffering through a torturous week long wait after viewing the heart-wrenching brilliance that was Butch and Sundance, U-Boat serves up yet another action-packed episode chronicling our favorite L.A. patrol officers and detectives. While I had initially crowned last week’s episode the season’s best, I had to quickly retract that statement and bestow the top honor on to this week’s offering.

Anchored by two main story arcs, this week’s show follows rookie Officer Ben Sherman’s transition from boy to man and Det. Lydia Adams’ difficulties in learning to let go. In true “SouthLAnd Style,” the episode kicks off with some form of explosive, pulse-racing, on-the-edge-my-seat action, this time a panic-stricken Sherman rushing up the steps of a home, trying frantically to enter while someone is being viciously attacked inside. Our oh-so-favorite narrator promptly drones “Sooner or later, every police officer learns that you can’t save everyone”…excuse me while I fight to contain my eye-rolling. Seriously, couldn’t they have found someone else to do the narration voice-over, I don’t know, someone who doesn’t sound like he’s just risen from the dead? (continue reading…)

From Ben’s Blog on TVGuide.com:

Photo credit Warner Television/TNT

By Ben McKenzie
Mar 16, 2010 11:25 AM ET

This week’s episode is a very exciting one for me. For the first time, my character will be patrolling the streets alone, without the help of his partner. It can be a nerve-wracking experience for any cop — much less a rookie — to go it alone. The LAPD always partners up patrol cops, except for the sergeants (who act more as supervisors than first-responders). This is primarily for safety reasons: With two cops working in tandem, each can guard the other’s back. If one is incapacitated the other can radio for backup. If one is making a poor decision in a given scenario, the other can often correct that mistake before it proves fatal. John Cooper’s tutelage of Ben Sherman, while seemingly harsh, is necessary so that the rookie learns to make decisions that are in the best interest of both partners. Rookies sometimes have a cowboy mentality — I’m gonna do this alone — and this is not only foolish but dangerous.

In “U-Boat”, however, I am alone. My character ends up responding to a variety of calls by himself. Two of the calls share something in common: One person is being harassed or humiliated by another person, yet there is little the cops can do about it legally.

Continue reading at http://www.tvguide.com/Celebrity-Blogs/Southlands-Ben-McKenzie-1016297.aspx

By Alexandra Sparco @cautionwriter

Cooper & Sherman in "Butch and Sundance"

The theme song to Southland has never sounded so eerie before. Maybe TNT remixed it a bit? It could just be my anxiety for the episode to begin, or the fact that I’m actually using headphones and watching it on my iPod as I write this. The point being, I’ve never had a television show theme song give me this anxious feeling before. A scary suspenseful scene, sure. A theme song, not so much. However, this is Southland people, it’s damn good television and it’ll do that to you every time.

We start with Cooper and Sherman, henceforth referred to together as “Coopman” for my convenience engaged in a car chase. Zipping around parking lots and nearly ninety degree turns, something’s bound to happen – and it most definitely does. The car they’re chasing (a Toyota might I add) clips a curb, flips several times, the gas tank is leaking and it’s starting to catch fire. Coopman rushes out of their squad car to help, but Cooper realizes nothing can be done, he pulls Sherman away from the car and they both manage to get away before the thing explodes.

Officer John Cooper knows, and Ben Sherman will learn, that sometimes…you see things as a cop that nobody should see. (continue reading…)