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Buffy’s final year in high school ends with a bang (in more ways then one).  We get a new slayer, a new watcher, and a politician that’s even more evil than you would expect.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer – Season 3
Custom Rating

After a summer in Los Angeles, and a brief trip to a hell dimension, Buffy returns to Sunnydale to once again take up her destiny as “she who hangs out in cemeteries”, reconnects with her friends, and kick some serious ass.  There are a few stumbling blocks in the way.  The first is the arrival of a new Slayer who’s carefree attitude and enjoyment of the kill will cause problems.  The second is the unexplained and unexpected return of Angel, Buffy’s one true love who was last seen as Buffy plunged a sword deep into his chest sending him to hell in order to save the world.

 

I’m Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.  And you are?

After the fallout from Season Two, Buffy (Sarah Michelle Geller) is hiding in Los Angeles and waiting tables.  Finally she is forced to confront her destiny and return to Sunnydale and try and put her life back together. Just as she has reclaimed her life Faith (Eliza Dushku), the new Vampire Slayer, arrives and creates all kinds of new havoc for our heroine.  Faith is a wild card ; she relishes in the power, the chase, and the kill. Faith’s style clashes with Buffy’s need to analyze the situation. The friendship is further strained when it is discovered that Angel (David Boreanaz) is alive and Buffy has been hiding him.  Faith’s actions get more and more erratic to the point where she accidentally kills a human being. Unable to deal with the situation, Faith moves further down her dark path as she decides to throw her fate in with the Mayor ofSunnydale.  Richard Wilkins (Harry Groener) created the town over a hundred years ago as part of his plan to ascend and become a full demon.  Buffy and the Scooby gang must now try to stop the Mayor’s ascension, and Buffy must face Faith as well.

Ask most Buffy fans which is their favorite season and many will put this one high on the list. It is one of the tightest and best written seasons that explores the dynamic of Buffy and of Faith and what it means to be a Slayer. Thedichotomy is well played out and the pay off is huge as Slayer is pitted against Slayer. The writers are also clever in exploring the paternal relationship that forms between Faith and the Mayor. BothDuskhu and Groener are excellent in their roles and play off each other so well.

The Chosen Two

Relationships play a big factor in Season Three.  Romance for ill-matched Xander (Nicholas Brendon) and Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter), and the sweet coupling of Willow (Alyson Hannigan) and Oz (Seth Green).  Buffy’s relationship with her mother (Kristine Sutherland) is changed now that Joyce knows about Buffy’s late night activities. Buffy and Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) relationship will be strained after the events of Helpless where Giles betrays Buffy to follow the orders of the Watchers Council only to turn back at the last instant. Giles leaving the council provides some interesting reworking of the series formula and also brings us the wonderful character ofWesly Wyndam-Pryce (Alexis Denisof).  And finally Buffy and Angel are forced to confront some unpleasant truths about the nature of their relationship.

The entire Buffy / Faith arc is incredibly well played out and culminates on one hell of a huge fight sequence in Graduation Day Part 1. Aside from the main arc there are some terrific stand alone episodes aredefiantly worth checking out.

Lover’s Walk

Spike (James Marsters) returns in a drunken melancholy over his breakup with Drusilla (Juliet Landau). Spike actions throughout his one night stay lead to the breakup ofXander and Cordelia, forces Oz to reevaluate his feelings for Willow, and his comments to Buffy and Angel prophetically start the demise of their relationship as well.

The Zeppo

Technically I think that’s a sword

Some of my favorite episodes of the series are Xander episodes.  The entire episode is structured with the other Scoobies working on saving the world as Xander gets into his own trouble involving a classic automobile, the raising of an undead gang, some one-on-one with Faith, and a very explosive cake. The name of the episode comes from Cordelia’s line about howXander is the useless part of the group, the Jimmy Olsen or the Zeppo Marx.  What makes the episode work so well is Xander is actually given the opportunity to save the day in his own small way; even if no one else ever knows he is changed by the experience.

Amends

Angel is haunted by visions of his past deeds as Angelus, and his dreams spill into Buffy’s nightmares. It turns out Angel is being systematically driven insane by a force called only The First, an incorporeal evil that wants Angel to lose his soul in Buffy and become Angelus once again.  This is one of the best villains of the series, here used for only one episode and forgotten until…well we’ll get to that in Season Seven. It is also one of the few episodes of Buffy that shows Angel’s actions before he was cursed with a soul, something the spin-off would explore in more detail.

Careful what you wish for

The Wish

What if Buffy Summers had never come to Sunnydale? Cordelia is granted her wish and reality is changed as history is rewritten. The Master (Mark Metcalf) rises and takes over Sunnydale turning Xander and Willow two of his most deadly vampires. A great what if… episode that lets the actors each play the same characters but in quite different circumstances. The episode also introduces us to the character ofAnyanka (Emma Caulfield) a vengeance demon who grants Cordelia’s wish and then loses her powers as reality is put back to normal. Anya becomes quite a funny character as Xander’s girlfriend for years to come.

A nice collection of extras includes commentary on four episodes from writers and directors but no commentary from Joss Whedon in this collection.  We do get two short interviews with Whedon about four episodes including one on Bad Girls and Consequences.  We get a season overview which looks back over the season’s run.  One of the most interesting extras is a short feature on the language used on Buffy, where it comes from, and how popular it has become.  Also included are original scripts for four episodes, an art gallery collection of photos, and short featurettes on special effects, wardrobe, and weapons.

This is one of the best seasons of Buffy.  The main story arc of Faith and Buffy is one of the best crafted of the series, and the fight scenes between the two kick some serious ass.  We also get some wonderful stand alone episodes and are introduced to new characters who will continue to populate the Buffy / Angel universe until the end.  The set is a nice collection with commentary, a season overview, and some nice short interviews with Whedon.  A great bookend for the first three seasons that completes the high school years of the Scooby gang.

DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW HOW “THE SOPRANOS” ENDS!

It was the beginning of the year 2000 and I had just gotten my second DUI in five years. When I got the first DUI I thought, I just won’t drink and drive anymore. But after that second one I thought, Well, it isn’t the driving that’s the problem… So I quit. Cold turkey.
Since I knew I was going to be spending my nights at home and not at Harry’s in Westport or at Charlie Hooper’s in Brookside I called Time Warner Cable and told them to fix me up with the works, the whole shebang: HBO, Showtime, Cinemax… My cable bill was a hundred dollars a month but that was still cheaper than paying a lawyer to keep me out of a federal penitentiary for that third DUI.
I had read about the HBO shows in the newspapers and had heard about “The Sopranos” from friends. “Have you seen ‘The Sopranos’?” they’d ask. “No,” I’d reply. “YOU HAVEN’T SEEN ‘THE SOPRANOS’?!”
Hmmm… Now that you’ve asked me again- LOUDER, let me think… NO, I HAVEN’T SEEN “THE SOPRANOS”!
I always get that. Friends tell me that I HAVE to see this show or that movie. Plus, they know that I’ve had a thirty-three year love affair with “The Godfather”. So I started watching “The Sopranos” on Sunday nights. But it wasn’t because of the comparisons to “The Godfather”. I started watching because it was a TV series with no commercials and the characters cursed and got naked. Hey, if I’m going to PAY to watch TV, then I don’t want anything pimped to me and people better curse and get naked. And HBO knows that most of its viewers feel the same way I do. They’re not stupid.
I loved the show immediately. I had been living in the Midwest for seven years. It was nice to visit once a week with a bunch of greasy outlaws with style and balls. (Sorry, you Westport and Hyde Park hipsters. All the store bought tattoos and piercings don’t give you brass balls. You have to be BORN into the culture.) But the one thing that never sat well with me with the show was the Dr. Melfi angle. On a nit-picking level, no psychiatrist would’ve shown her legs off the way she did unless she WANTED to get laid. On a wider scope, she never would have continued trying to treat a patient who couldn’t talk openly about a major aspect of his life, namely his crimes.
But like the man said, If you want reality, go stand on a street corner.

The show that impressed me more than “The Sopranos” was “Sex and The City”. It was on just before “The Sopranos”. What “Sex…” lacked in swagger and violence it more than made up for in quick wit and style- and in half the time. Every thirty minutes was a jewel of insight into sex and relationships- from a woman’s perspective. (Let’s face it, guys, we look at women… but women observe us.) The problem I had with the series is how it ended. After five years of watching these women being independent and questioning traditional roles the writers seemed to wrap it up by saying, OK, you’ve all had your fun. Now put on your aprons and get into the kitchen. They all seemed to settle. Especially my hero, Miranda. Sure, I know that life is about settling. But did she have to settle for STEVE?!
Then a year later, in the summer of 2001, came “Six Feet Under”. It rolled into that Sunday night lineup elegantly, like a shiny, black Hearse at a funeral for an old dude who died of natural causes and left everyone in attendance a ton of money. The pilot episode was amazing, as close to perfection as any TV show or even a film is ever going to get: The patriarch of a family run funeral business is killed after being hit by a bus while driving the new Hearse. From that moment on, every character is introduced in context and without clumsy exposition- Ruth, the repressed, control freak mother; David, the button down consummate professional and reluctant heir of the family business; Claire, the wild child high school student and youngest sibling… and Nate, the center piece of the ensemble, the restless and free spirit who just flew in from Seattle to celebrate an always surreal holiday season in L.A. After the first few episodes, I realized that “Six Feet…” had more in common with “The Godfather” than “The Sopranos” did. Like Michael Corleone, Nate is drawn into a family business he has rejected after a tragedy involving his father, and the family business is something outside of the norm for the average person. For The Corleones it’s crime and murder. For The Fishers it’s death, “Natural or not”, to quote from “The Godfather Part II”.

As I write this I realize there are many fans of the show who don’t get HBO and haven’t even seen the fourth season let alone the last episode, so I won’t give anything away. I will commend the writers of the show for not resorting to an easy and obvious device like therapy for any of the characters, especially when those characters dealt with death on an almost daily basis. Also, I’ll say this about the character of Nate: In the first season he’s shown in a flashback as a boy, running out of the embalming room after his father tries to get him to touch the body he’s working on. At first I thought that Nate was afraid of death, which may explain why he left home at a young age. But the way I see it now, Nate was an eternal soul who was repulsed by the way our culture deals with a reality as profound and, ironically, as life affirming as death.
I think the appeal of the show is that most of us can identify with Nate’s conflict, at least on a sub-conscious level.
Oh, and about the acting: JEREMY SISTO SHOULD BE GIVEN AN EMMY EVERY YEAR FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE FOR HIS PORTRAYAL OF BILLY CHENOWITH! When he was dark and criminally disturbed, you could never believe he could be sane and balanced- and vice versa. No one ever played both sides of the spectrum as convincingly as he did.
Since I started watching the shows I tell anyone who will listen that twenty-five years from now, when critics are writing about The Second Golden Age of Television, they’ll mention “Sex and The City”, “Six Feet Under” and “The Sopranos” in the first paragraph.
Screw it. I probably won’t be alive in twenty-five years, so I’ll do it now.
During that first Golden Age of Television, Paddy Chayefsky made a name for himself by writing the classic live drama “Marty”. Twenty some odd years later he went on to write “Network”, the most scathing attack on television that ever was and ever will be. In one of the opening scenes, William Holden, in a drunken state, describes to Peter Finch just how low TV may sink if Finch’s character, Howard Beale, kills himself on the air during his last broadcast as the UBS anchorman. “I can see it now,” Holden’s character declares, “mad bombers… suicides… The Death Hour. Great Sunday night show for the whole family.”
Who knew that Paddy Chayefsky was prophesizing “Six Feet Under”.
DO NOT CONTINUE READING IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW HOW “THE SOPRANOS” ENDS!
I’ve considered Tony’s fate, and the witness protection program is the only logical choice for the writers. Think about it. He can’t die of a heart attack or be executed. That would be too obvious. He can’t go to prison. He’d OWN the joint. He’s killed too many people for the writers to let him get away with murder. Our American viewing morality won’t stand for it.
But just imagine… it’s the last ten or fifteen minutes of the last episode. There’s a few exterior shots of some shit-hole like Omaha or Cedar Rapids during a gray, bone-numbing winter. We’re shown the dealings of some low level Wiseguys and we start thinking, Who the fuck is this? Just like we did during those first few episodes of “Six Feet…”, whenever they showed the people who were going to die. One of the Wiseguys has to take his kick-up to his capo but he’s out of envelopes, so he goes to the local shit-hole office products store- and there’s Tony, behind the counter, living a real life nightmare, a fate worse than prison or even death. He’s flipped so he could protect Carmela and the kids, but there’s no more crew, no more good gravy, no Escalade or Esplanade… just a lifetime of 9 to 5’s and mowing the lawn.
During the transaction the Wiseguy shoots Tony a few knowing glances and then leaves the store.
You had a good run, T. That’s all you can ever hope for.

An aging movie snob pulls rank on the DVD and multiplex generation.

Let’s get one thing straight- I’d rather not be writing movie reviews for a website. I’d rather be living off the royalties of my books and poetry and basking in the glow of a Pulitzer Prize. A couple of years ago The Kansas City Star ran a series of articles where their arts critics pontificated on why they love doing their jobs, and each one of them, especially the pop music critic, tried to make us believe that they had always wanted to be a critic. Bullshit. No one who’s ever strapped on a guitar as a teenager or caught the winning pass for their high school football team ever wanted to be in the crowd at a concert or on the sidelines. Like most people, they realized that life is not about getting exactly what you want. Life is about settling- and not being miserable.
So I’ll settle for writing for this electronic rag as long as they’ll let me. Why? Because I love movies. I grew up in Los Angeles, an industry town. I spent my childhood, adolescence and early 20’s leafing through page after page of full page movie ads in The Los Angeles Times. I saw “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Planet of The Apes” when they first came out- on the big screen. I saw “Blade Runner” when it premiered at The Mann’s Theatre in Westwood. I saw Mel Brooks scurry out of the theatre as I was waiting to see the ten o’clock showing of “The King Of Comedy”, his friend complaining that the movie “could’ve been funnier.” When I was sixteen, my brother-in-law, Phillip, was in the crowd at The Olympic Auditorium, part of a casting call for a new fight film. When he got home that night my sisters and I asked him if he’d seen any movie stars. He said the only one he recognized was the guy who played The Penguin in the ‘Batman’ TV series.
The actor was Burgess Meredith and the film was “Rocky”.
Most of the movies I saw affected me because I was young, the theatre was dark and the images were vivid and larger than life. Also, I was at “the show” and not at home, bored. Let’s face it, that’s why most people go to the movies. Movies, like television, are, in the words of Paddy Chayefsky in “Netowrk”, “boredom killers”. Since we humans don’t have to worry about food, clothing and shelter on a daily basis, then it’s all about killing the boredom. Also, movies give us a reason to sit close to someone else in the dark, and they give us a reason to talk to them later.
When I was a kid and a teenager I was serious about movies. And like a serious drinker, I did it alone. There were second run theatres in the towns I grew up in: Compton, South Gate and Huntington Park. The Arden Theatre in Compton had a ‘crying room’ at the back- a sound proof room where mothers could take their unruly children and still watch the movie through the glass and listen to the sound piped in through a speaker on the wall. On Pacific Boulevard in Huntington Park there were three theatres: The New Park, The California and The Warners. Like The Arden, they showed double bills for .50 to .75 cents and the ticket sellers were ok with kids like me watching rated ‘R’ movies. I ate a lot of Flicks and saw some great doubles at those theatres: “Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid” and “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie”, “Bullitt” and “Bonnie and Clyde”, “The Godfather” and “Skin Game”…
As a young man I frequented the grand palaces in Hollywood and Westwood. My favorite was The Cinerama Dome on Sunset Boulevard, especially when I could get the center balcony seat on the rail. There were also ‘revival’ theatres around town: The Beverly Cinema in The Fairfax district, The Nuart on Santa Monica Blvd., and The Four Star on Wilshire Boulevard, where you could see films like “The Wild Bunch” and “Sunset Boulevard” in all their larger than life glory. And unlike a multiplex, at these theatres when the movie was over you walked out to the lobby and into the street with the crowd, still carrying the mood of the film and a shared experience.
I took a screenwriting class in the early 80’s. The only thing I learned that was useful was how to copyright your work- cheap. (You just mail it to yourself in a manila envelope and if someone steals your idea, then you open it up in court and prove, with the postmark, that you’d had the idea earlier.) Of course, when one of the students asked the instructor about having an idea for a movie stolen, he replied, dryly, “You should be so lucky.”
I went through my ‘scholarly’ phase soon after that, the period when I was into the French ‘New Wave’ and the silents and American film noir. Most of it bored me. Now, when I watch a movie, I think, if one of my co-workers saw this, will they come up to me in the breakroom, wide-eyed and grinning, and ask, “Have you seen——–?” Or I think, if they showed this to the boys in the joint, will they sit through it, with their tattooed guns folded across their chests, and nod in approval when it’s over, or will they be tossing chairs at the guards and slicing throats before the second act? Will frat boys be quoting from it ten years from now?
Is it killing the boredom?
Then there are the films with a ‘payoff’- that moment at the end where character and plot come together in an immensely satisfying rush: Clint Eastwood standing at the saloon door and pointing that Scofield at Gene Hackman, with a whiskey fire burning in his eyes and a taste for revenge on his tongue; Max, barely standing and broken up, next to the wreckage of the overturned tanker, holding out his hand only to catch sand rushing out of the pipes and realizing that “the juice… the precious juice” had been in the school bus all along.
Moments like that can only be fully appreciated on the big screen with an audience.
Now we live in an age where the turnaround time for a movie going from the big screen to DVD is faster and tighter than an ice skater’s single axle. And I think it’s a shame. It’s a shame because movies have become as small as we are. Watching a film like “2001” or “Planet of The Apes” on a television- even a 42″ hi-def plasma screen- is like listening to a Beethoven symphony on AM radio.
Yes, I’m a snob.
The pioneers of organized religion- those old dudes in two story hats- had it right. They knew gods were meant to be worshipped in grand cathedrals. They knew they were putting on a show for the commoners, and they expected the faithful to make pilgrimages to “the show”.
The way I see it, movies, like gods, should be worshipped in grand palaces, not dispensed over the counter in plastic bags and taken home.

When distroying a Porshe is not enough

Underclassman
2 Stars

When Bob and Harvey Weinstein and their Miramax Films joined The Disney Studio family, there were gasps all around from independent film fans. Now that the companies have parted ways, with Disney owning the Miramax catalog (some 500 or more films) and the Weinstein brothers walking away with 100 million dollars (40 million less than ex-Mouse, ex-uber agent, Michael Ovitz ). With about 60 or so Miramax films in the can or in post-production, Disney has begun to dump this sometimes, un-Miramax-like product on to the screens and possibly an unsuspecting public, at a furious pace. This helps explain why the action/ comedy -light Underclassman is hitting your neighborhood Cineplex in September, instead of the height of the Summer action season.

Baby-faced (and Wayan brother look-a-like/ sound-a-like/mug-a-like), bike cop Tracy “Tre” Stokes (Nick Cannon, Drumline, Shall We Dance) can not and will not follow any of the LAPD’s rules of procedure in order to catch a criminal. His busts will no doubt wreck havoc on the force, the civil rights of the accused and innocent bystanders caught up in the chaos of this overzealous rookie.

Threats and admonishments from his father-figure, Captain Victor Delgado (Cheech Marin) goes on deaf ears. You see, Capt. Delgado worked with Tre’s deceased father, a great LAPD detective and promised to look after his boy.

Out to prove he can be an even better cop than his father, Tre accepts an undercover assignment at Westbury High, an exclusive, O.C. type of institution, to help bust up a car-theft ring and just maybe clear up a Westbury teen’s accidental death that may have been murder.

Through sheer force of will and his great athletic gifts, Tre is able to be cautiously accepted by the top tier of the school’s elite crowd, headed by cute Rob (Shawn Ashmore, X-Men 2), by helping the rich white boys win a round of the big basketball game against their arch rivals.

Tre is above his head in all his assigned classes, but, luckily, his honors Spanish teacher, Karen Lopez ( a very wooden, but gorgeous Roselyn Sanchez) is willing to spend extra time tutoring him.

Meanwhile, during each O.C., I mean Westbury High party, a bad ass ride is stolen. It takes Tre two parties to figure out who the crooks are, but, he just can’t follow procedure and blows the car-theft bust and is booted off the force by the Captain.

Not being an official member of the force does not stop Tre. With some sloppy detecting and too obvious clues, Tre solves a murder, breaks up the theft ring, busts some big bad drug dealers, helps his new friends in need and finds himself in a budding romance. Only after all of this good detecting and the breaking of many traffic and gun (and logic) laws, while technically a civilian, is Tre finally on the path of being as good of a cop as his father and making Capt. Delgado proud.

Nick Cannon is a very likeable comedian and the Disney/Miramax folks must have felt that they have the next Will Smith and had enough confidence in him and Underclassman to make him the executive producer. The natural charisma and charm of say, a young Eddie Murphy, is probably what is missing in his potential comedic superstar future. Cannon’s Tre can throw out amusing one-liners, but, so far he has demonstrated abilities that will take him as far as any Wayan brother or Chris Tucker. With more Cannon films slated for release in the next 18 months, maybe his game will show superstar improvement.

Director Marcos Siega’s television ( Veronica Mars ) and music video (Blink 182, 311) background shows. Any modern action film, by the nature of the genre, must have an exciting chase or two, be it car, plane, train or foot. Siega chose to film his climatic car chase, at night, balancing the speed and agility of a Porsche against the size of 18-wheelers and L.A. freeway traffic. Using the cover of darkness to hide flaws, we really never get to see the chase, only a series of quick-cuts, sparks and close calls. The sense of fear and danger is lost in the murk. You can’t expect Siega to re-create Popeye Doyle’s (The French Connection) or Frank Bullitt’s (Bullitt) classic car chases, but at least, let us see the chase and feel a sense of excitement and danger.

Johnny K. Lewis’s portrayal of Alexander, as the stale, stereotypical goofy white boy, wanna be, gets old fast. Rap, Hip-Hop and it’s attitude, vernacular and verbiage has now touched every spectrum of the young adult experience. It is hard to believe any male teen, no matter what the socio-economic scale, doesn’t know his Hip-Hop-speak, if he is going to use it. The delivery of such speak may be goofy and embarrassing, but that teen would at least know the meaning of the culture’s words.

With a few script changes, Underclassman could have been shown as any UPN or WB movie of the week or better yet, clean up the talk and light violence and Miramax could have given us the next generation of The After School Special.

A likeable Nick Cannon executive produces himself through a Summer blah-buster.

When Bob and Harvey Weinstein and their Miramax Films joined The Disney Studio family, there were gasps all around from independent film fans. Now that the companies have parted ways, with Disney owning the Miramax catalog (some 500 or more films) and the Weinstein brothers walking away with 100 million dollars (40 million less than ex-Mouse, ex-uber agent, Michael Ovitz ). With about 60 or so Miramax films in the can or in post-production, Disney has begun to dump this sometimes, un-Miramax-like product on to the screens and possibly an unsuspecting public, at a furious pace. This helps explain why the action/ comedy -light Underclassman is hitting your neighborhood Cineplex in September, instead of the height of the Summer action season.
Baby-faced (and Wayan brother look-a-like/ sound-a-like/mug-a-like), bike cop Tracy “Tre” Stokes (Nick Cannon, Drumline, Shall We Dance) can not and will not follow any of the LAPD’s rules of procedure in order to catch a criminal. His busts will no doubt wreck havoc on the force, the civil rights of the accused and innocent bystanders caught up in the chaos of this overzealous rookie.
Threats and admonishments from his father-figure, Captain Victor Delgado (Cheech Marin) goes on deaf ears. You see, Capt. Delgado worked with Tre’s deceased father, a great LAPD detective and promised to look after his boy.
Out to prove he can be an even better cop than his father, Tre accepts an undercover assignment at Westbury High, an exclusive, O.C. type of institution, to help bust up a car-theft ring and just maybe clear up a Westbury teen’s accidental death that may have been murder.
Through sheer force of will and his great athletic gifts, Tre is able to be cautiously accepted by the top tier of the school’s elite crowd, headed by cute Rob (Shawn Ashmore, X-Men 2), by helping the rich white boys win a round of the big basketball game against their arch rivals.
Tre is above his head in all his assigned classes, but, luckily, his honors Spanish teacher, Karen Lopez ( a very wooden, but gorgeous Roselyn Sanchez) is willing to spend extra time tutoring him.
Meanwhile, during each O.C., I mean Westbury High party, a bad ass ride is stolen. It takes Tre two parties to figure out who the crooks are, but, he just can’t follow procedure and blows the car-theft bust and is booted off the force by the Captain.
Not being an official member of the force does not stop Tre. With some sloppy detecting and too obvious clues, Tre solves a murder, breaks up the theft ring, busts some big bad drug dealers, helps his new friends in need and finds himself in a budding romance. Only after all of this good detecting and the breaking of many traffic and gun (and logic) laws, while technically a civilian, is Tre finally on the path of being as good of a cop as his father and making Capt. Delgado proud.

…

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