Shots Fired - S1E8 - Hour Eight: Rock Bottom

Previously on Shots Fired, “Content of Their Character”

It’s What We Do

Everyone is trying to do their best for better or worse. Now that Pastor Janae has been arrested, Shameeka Campbell admits that she asked Pastor Janae and the Hands to rough Joey up to get him to stop selling drugs. Officer Beck and his wife are dealing with their marriage and how they’ve fallen apart under the scrutiny of this case. And Ashe and Preston are coming to the realization that they might not end up being the good guys.

Now that the riots are over, the police are getting back to over-policing and over-ticketing the community to make money for the city. Sheriff Platt is also confident that Ashe and Preston will be packing their bags soon, but Ashe is able to convince Javi to uncover the filed off serial numbers which show that the gun belongs to Arlen Cox. Of course Arlen already has an excuse for it so they’re no closer to getting to him but the pressure is on the chief and Officer Breeland. And going back to these corrupt policing practices is wearing on Beck’s former partner, Deputy Brooks.

Can’t Catch A Break

Gov. Eamons is still on the campaign trail and she has to do damage control since she backed Pastor Janae and escalated the riots with her response. She tries to honor two men who participated in the Civil Rights Movement but one of them dies on the stage during the ceremony. She’s just doomed.

Much of this episode was about these people realizing there’s no good way out of this conundrum. Officer Beck’s wife, Kerry, can’t ask him about what really happened during that fatal traffic stop because asking him is tantamount to accusing him. Deputy Brooks can’t go back to business as usual because not only does he know that the system is corrupt but now he knows that it’s designed to harass and kill people who look like his partner. And Ashe has painted herself into a corner. She threatened Javi and lost, and Officer Breeland has his doctored police report to further hurt her custody case because she won’t drop the investigation. Unsurprisingly, she and Preston end up in bed together to find comfort but he’s definitely not going to be just a bed buddy.

Like Preston, I don’t see any scenario where Beck doesn’t go down for this and if justice was really going to be served he should. The problem is that he’ll probably be the only one. Despite Officer Breeland’s misconduct and Cox’s actions, they have a whole department and a system built on racism backing them up while Beck is hung out to dry. It doesn’t make what he did any better but it will be a shame if he’s the only one to pay. And the likelihood of Ashe sharing custody with Javi decreases exponentially with each episode. A lot of this episode was about facing the bad things we do for good reasons. It tends to catch up to the people with a conscience which is probably another indication that Arlen Cox is going to come out of this feeling just fine.