'Pretty Hard Cases' Recap: Season 1 Episode 1

 

What comes to mind when one thinks 'Pretty Hard Cases', surely we must agree that there is no case harder than the battle fought between the police and the drug dealers. 

Female detectives Sam Wazowski{Meredith MacNeill} and Kelly Duff {Adrienne C. Moore} are taking the bad guys off the streets in a hilarious manner.

If you have fallen for that stereotype that being a crime drama, the series would have a serious atmosphere, get ready to be let down in the best way possible.

In the first scene of the series, detective Samantha Wazowski was seated in her little car going on nonstop about her life and how boring her life was.  Though we had to have doubts at first on how good a character she would turn out because nothing screams badass cop about an over 40-year-old single mother, whose life has fallen to a routine of daily boring activities. 

Worse so, she seems to be losing it seeing her rant to herself alone in the car. Detective Barry Hamm raised his head from the back seat and cried out for her to stop.  The poor guy could hardly take any more, hearing how boring her life was going, I mean how boring could it get talking about a person's boring life. 

Sam and Barry were stacking out a drug deal at the location. Rafi Bowen a drug dealer that has been on their raider for a while now. Nothing could go wrong because Rafi Bowen sits at the same spot as he did every day, it was an easy mission until a hobo showed up.

Just before the exchange between Rafi and the buyer could take place, Rafi had an encounter with s female hobo. A black homeless and dirty woman looking for some change to get a meal, with no idea that she was interrupting a drug deal. 

She kept on asking for money from Rafi, and even refused to leave when it is handed to her. Just as detective Sam suspected, the lady suddenly grabs Rafi's grocery bag and takes off! Rafi starts out chasing her but he's not nearly fast enough with his feet. 

Well, you don't necessarily have to be an athlete to deal drugs, but I say that was the worst chase ever, we can't even know if it was that the lady was light on her feet or Rafi was just a terrible athlete.

The homeless lady was getting away thanks to Rafi's weak feet. Detective Sam abandons all civility and starts out after the homeless lady, she's definitely a better runner than Rafi is, because she catches up to the lady before she jumped over a fence.

They began dragging and arguing over who should have the bag and who it belonged to when Rafi shows up (finally!) and threatens them, giving them both a sneak peek at the gun he had stashed at his hip, he tells them both to hand over the bag.

Sam pretends like she's giving him the bag but she suddenly draws her gun and points it at Rafi, she was a cop much to both Rafi's and the homeless lady's surprise. Rafi took the chance to escape when  Davis Dubman approached them with his own gun drawn out, leaving the drugs behind.

He demanded that the bag be given to him. This time it is the homeless lady that pulls out a gun of her own and states that she too is a cop and the buyer, Davis is under arrest. The look on both Davis's face and Sam's is Epic! I mean who would have thought a homeless woman was a cop?

Back at the station, Davis Dubman is being interrogated by both Sam and the homeless lady who turns out to be Detective Kelly Duff from the drugs department. 

The interrogation was nothing close to good cop bad cop style to get the truth rather a tussle of who's in charge and who should take the lead questioning. Davis refuses to answer any of their questions claiming he doesn't work for the bosses that they're both looking for. They're unable to get any reasonable information out of him.

Knowing Kelly was trying to take the case away from her, on the first chance she gets Sam goes to report to her boss, Edwina Shanks about Detective Kelly, trying to get her thrown out of the case.

Edwina wasn't the least interested in the complaint, Kelly is a good officer who had gone undercover for a few months and was back now. Since Sam couldn't get Kelly kicked off the case she asks to be partnered up with Kelly when they go to arrest Rafi, and that, Edwina agrees to.

When they show up at Rafi's house for the raid, they find a kid, Saul with a gun in his hand. He told them Rafi left him in charge of protecting the house and they need to leave.

The officers including Sam would rather point their guns at a kid and force him into dropping his gun but Kelly takes charge of the situation in order to save the boy's life.

She ordered them to all outside, the kid says they should leave then they would leave. While outside they keep telling her how this was a bad idea, but Kelly would hear none of it, she asked for a couple of minutes to talk to the boy, if it doesn't work then they could do what they have to.

Kelly talked to the kid in a manner that allowed the boy to gain her trust and handed her the weapon.  At this very moment, you literally have no choice but to fall in love with Kelly, she actually succeeded and saves the little kid's life. 

Along with the kids were 3 kilos of drugs and two weapons Sam found in the garage, her instincts were right, Rafi was no ordinary player unlike Kelly's assertion of Rafi. Sam got what she wants, the case is no back to guns and gangs, her own department, and Kelly left gracefully.

Back at the station,  Sam questioned Saul's parents, Rick Gray is his stepfather and Tiggy Sullivan is his mother. Rick Gray claims he does not know Rafi but Tggy does, he is Saul's Sister, Jackie's boyfriend, and the kid was supposed to be with her. 

On seeing Jackie's photograph, Sam confirms that Jackie was at the scene earlier, she had asked her what was going on but drove off immediately. Tiggy claims she had no idea where she was right now.

Sam's life might be as frustrating as she kept ranting about at the beginning of the show, she got home to a house party her 17years old son, Elliot was having. Sam allows her son so much freedom because he did not inform her he was having friends over nor did he bother to clean up before he left for his dad's house.

She has been texting this guy she met online for over a week now and he wants to take things to the next level, come to her house with a lot of eggplants indicating his intentions. When Sam sensed the guy might just be a pervert after all she immediately ended it, good thing she gave him the wrong address to her house.

Later that night, Kelly went over to Sam's house to tell her that to get Rafi they needed to get Jackie and she knew just how to get Jackie. It's the first time the ladies met and Kelly just headed straight for the refrigerator to get a beer for both of them.

Their conversation about Sam's need to follow rules and not the gray area helped improved their teamwork. Sam liked what she did with Saul today. Just because you have a badge doesn't mean you must be 'law and order', Kelly isn't, she is 'serve and protect'.

Just like Kelly said, Jackie didn't disappoint, she showed at the storage unit to pick up Rafi's stash. Sam and Kelly walk in on Jackie putting cocaine into her backpack and arrested her. 

This time, their interrogation was in synergy, good cop, bad cop till they got Jackie to cooperate with them to catch Rafi or go to jail for being in possession of the drugs. Jackie agreed, she texted Rafi to come get the drugs from her at a parking lot.

Sam would always put her son, Elliot first even though she isn't as firm as she ought to be with him. She immediately made a U-turn from heading to the parking lot after getting a call from Elliot that he was jumped at school.

He got jumped because a kid paid him 300 dollars for a pair of sneakers he never got, now the kid wants his money and the sneakers and Elliot has to be on suspension. An action that Sam still doesn't punish him for rather she tried to beg the principal to wave the suspension.

Kelly pointed out her by-standards, she is not willing to bend the rules until her son is involved. Sam had to reconsider begging for the suspension, it still stands. Even those that follow all the rules in the book also bend it from time to time.

Rafi showed up in a car right on time to meet Jackie.  She already had a wire on with the detectives laying in wait for them. Jackie got mad at him for leaving her little brother in the house with a gun. 

Rafi isn't bothered about that, he was a little younger than Saul when he held a gun. He got what he wanted so their relationship is over, he doesn't need her anymore now he got his stash. 

Angry that he dumped her like that, she followed him to the car, all she just wants is a thank you but got another surprise waiting for her. She sees Rick Gray, her stepfather in the driver's seat. She's surprised, she had no idea that Rick was even involved in all of this, and uh oh, she just implicated him. 

Rick gets out of the car and tells her that he's the boss always has been the boss, Rafi, and his brothers work for him, unknown to him that Jackie is wearing a wire. Jackie panics and tries to get away but too late the cops come busting in and arrest everybody. 

What a happy day it was for the detectives, they came to get Rafi, but they got his boss too, at this point we have to agree that Kelly and Sam kind of make a great team.

They took Jackie home where her angry mom Tiggy Sullivan sends her straight to her room. Kelly took a cue from that to tell Sam to be more firm when telling her son what to do.

Sam and Kelly question Tiggy whether she knew that Rick was a drug dealer, she denies having any knowledge of it, claiming that she always knew he had secrets she just never thought that they were this bad. 

When they left, the real Tiggy comes out, she scolded Jackie for getting Rick arrested, apparently, she was and is fully aware of the drug business and is even a part of it, this is what has been helping her business. They need to replace Rick, to keep the money flowing in.

Kelly met up with Jeff her partner who's been suspended and investigated for excessive and unnecessary use of force for Tacos and beer while Sam had Taco Wednesday with Elliot in a very quiet manner.