The Cleaner: Here Comes The Boom
By fred | August 20, 2008
(S01E05) Alright, so yes last week I basically said I was thinking of dropping this show and not watching it anymore, but we’re only at episode 5 and it’s not like there’s so much on TV right now it’s hard to watch it all, so I kinda tune in this week, again. I have to say that, as I started watching, I was asking myself why I was watching this show again, I really wasn’t sure I wanted to go through with it.
But I was sitting there and decided to at least see how it would go, and had it been as boring and uninteresting as last week’s episode was, I would have quit halfway through (if not sooner). But here’s the thing: this episode was actually quite better than previous ones. Sure, it’s still about drugs, of course, and there are still things I do wish we wouldn’t have to go through (Banks’ personal problems, read mostly how his teenage son in behaving), but it was better than (I) expected !
Nice surprise that this episode turned out to be, because as I said if you are able to forget about the whole thing involving Banks’ family, which as far as I’m concerned I really don’t care about, I couldn’t care less to see him getting mad and yelling at home after he’s got a tough day at work, that’s boring stuff everybody knows about, because I couldn’t stand the way his kid was acting — I mean sure, he knew his dad as a drug addict, arrested by the police and behind bars, he knew hit when he hit rock bottom, he probably got lots of anger and even hate towards his father, I bet.
And there’s no question that Banks isn’t the best of dads, and that he’s got a serious problem when it comes to committing to his family, as he always puts his work first; But seeing him struggle with the week’s case and trying to save a family for which he felt responsible, while his son is acting like the really annoying teenage kid he is, wasn’t the best.
But if you forget about all that, it was a pretty good episode. Banks was really worrying about the well being of a family this week, just not his own. Back for his first case, he made a mistake by calling the cops trying to help a women, and as a “side effect” her husband got arrested for possession and sent to jail. He did help her, but the kid got to see her mom hit bottom and his father go to jail, and when his mother passed away, he didn’t had no family anymore so become a foster kid. Not the best life so far…
But he’s a good kid, he stayed away from troubles and drugs himself, and while deeply hurt and affected by all he’s got to witness over the years, he’s still walking straight and trying to make things good. So when his father was finally out of jail, he saw an opportunity to have a piece of his family, a real family, back together. But things aren’t so easy, and of course the guy was soon back to smoking meths.
What I found particularly interesting in this case was that it wasn’t the usual case of having to locate or “kidnap” someone, there was a little more than that, and because of Banks’ guilt over his past actions he didn’t want to involve the cops this time, he only wanted to help people and ensuring he wouldn’t send the guy back to jail. It was a nice change of things, and also pretty good was that for the first time one of his crew got to be in danger, and eventually couldn’t avoid falling back.
And while they’re always in the back, over time we got use to them and it’s always more affective to see someone we’ve come to know fall back into drugs, especially the way it was done, than caring for some new guy we’ve never seen before and how he’s already deep into drugs and messing up his life. I also liked how, for the first time ever, Banks didn’t just drop the client to a rehab clinic or anything, but had to deal with him on his own. Seems that for the first time he’ll stick around, be involve and actually help the guy getting clean, instead of just delivering to others we would have to do the work.
That said, I couldn’t believe than Banks actually considered using again. After his son “disappeared”, we saw him contemplating the idea of getting high again, in his own home, and that was the most silliest thing ever I felt. It’s not like Arnie who was pretty much forced to smoke and really didn’t want to and refuse to do so until he had a gun to his head, and there’s just no way Banks would have truly, seriously, considered going back. Not after what he just saw, not after loosing some close friends not so long ago, not right here with his wife and kid in the next room, no way.
I felt that way completely out of character, and I was also shocked that he was fine when his daughter tells him “I know where he is, but I can’t tell” ! Seriously, he’s worried, his wife, Ben’s mother, is worrying sick about her kid, the police is involved, and he’s fine with that ? Really??
Anyways. Now I’ll be honest, I’m not saying I’m a fan of the show nor that I’ll tune back in next week, but at least this episode was a good one, one of the best I’d even say, so if I have to leave the show it might as well be on a high note, and that was it.
Posted in Reviews
Shows: The Cleaner
