Edie Falco's CBS drama Tommy may be too woke

Salon.com

The Paul Attanasio-created drama, starring Falco as the first female police chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, goes to great lengths to wear its social justice themes on its sleeves. And while that's admirable, Tommy showrunner Tom Szentgyorgyi might be trying to tackle too much too soon. "Some of this is a matter of hurried exposition; Szentgyorgyi and his writers must feel the pressure of creating a midseason show in an environment and on a network where such series don't have a great survival rate," says Melanie McFarland. "And this urgency translates into jamming as much about Tommy's life and the situations the LAPD faces in the course of enforcing the law in one of America's most diverse cities. Her ex-husband, by the way, is a smoking hot star of a zombie show. This series is nothing if not hooked into the zeitgeist. And within the first three episodes, Tommy wrestles with immigration, the over-policing of the Black community, sex trafficking, and a case with #MeToo overtones. That last bit in particular might raise a bit of skepticism among people keeping up CBS' continuing efforts to deal with active landmines left behind after the ouster of former CBS chief Les Moonves. Moonves famously got the boot when CBS' board could no longer ignore allegations of sexual harassment dating back decades. So yes, such viewers are right to be skeptical about the larger purpose Tommy is meant to serve in terms of its image rehabilitation." McFarland also points out that Attanasio may be noble in his goal to dramatize Los Angeles' first female police chief, but he also created Bull, which made headlines for Michael Weatherly-Eliza Dushku sexual harassment scandal.

ALSO:

• Edie Falco is too good for Tommy: "Falco crafts a compelling lead for the series, making full use of her commanding presence as an actor," says Kelly Lawler. "She's understated and humble, charismatic and magnetic. She doesn't take her symbolic role as both the first woman and the first lesbian to hold the job lightly.  Her leadership style is at odds with the forceful, often angry men around her. The series is at its best when Tommy is in conflict with her less-than-respectful underlings and wins with a softer touch. But everything except Falco's performance lands rather dully. The writers fail to make the supporting cast nearly as compelling. Kate is inconsistent, sometimes flighty and hysterical, other times grounded and responsible, making her hard to pin down."
• Who says there are no new ideas in Hollywood?: "It's early February and we're already up to our second broadcast drama about an unlikely candidate elevated to lead Los Angeles law enforcement, with both shows using the same conflict — the threat of ICE encroaching on local authorities — to illustrate that our main characters may be authoritarian, but they're authoritarian with an empathetic edge!" Daniel Fienberg says of the similar premises of Edie Falco's Tommy and Stephen Dorff's Fox drama Deputy.
• Edie Falco's Tommy has all the vulnerability of someone we feel we might actually know: "A problem the show has yet to solve is that the kind of power she exercises when in uniform would tend to make her unknowable, and keeping her as open and big-hearted in every moment of the show’s running time defies belief, after years of news stories about the manners in which cops are often out of step with the communities they serve," says Daniel D'Addario. "But Falco’s stern but hardly humorless performance provides reason to hope that this credibility gap gets bridged."
• It's a liberal pipe dream that one woman would be able to fix a broken male-dominated institution like the LAPD, and Tommy indulges in the fantasy
• Edie Falco didn't do any special preparation to play Los Angeles' police chief: "I've decided that honesty is the best policy, so I didn't prepare anything. I kind of did. I learned my lines and then I said them."
• Falco was glad Tommy filmed in New York City, despite its Los Angeles setting: “They have a couple of palm trees,” Falco said of portraying Los Angeles in New York. “Carry ’em around in the truck and stick ’em in front of the bodega, stick ’em in front of the person’s house. Seriously, by the end of the season, they were looking a little sad.”
• Falco says her only problem was with Tommy's wardrobe: "The cop uniform is just horrific," she says. "The gun belt is heavy. When she has to do official things she has to wear the cop uniform and it’s fitted and plastic and it’s hot. And then when she’s not in the uniform she’s in a suit but it’s fitted."