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Good Cop/Bad Cop is a warm, worthy addition to the procedural renaissance

Leighton Meester shines as a small-town detective in The CW's comedic mystery series.

Good Cop/Bad Cop is a warm, worthy addition to the procedural renaissance
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The procedural is back. For a while, the form was eclipsed by prestige TV and streaming series’ “eight-hour movie” approach. But this television season has seen a robust return to the original titan with the success of shows like High Potential, Matlock, and The Pitt. It seems audiences craved those old familiar rhythms, well-worn beats, lived-in characters, and luxuriously lengthy episode orders. And those audiences will definitely appreciate Good Cop/Bad Cop.

The CW’s latest is a wonderfully warm, comfortingly familiar police procedural (despite being saddled with an unwieldy and somewhat inaccurate name, in itself something of a television tradition). Leighton Meester stars as Lou Hickman, a small-town detective who gets saddled with her estranged brother Henry (Luke Cook) as a partner at the behest of their father, chief of police Hank Hickman (Clancy Brown). Henry is the black sheep of the family, a Sherlock-esque savant who struggles to gel with others socially (read: neurodivergent coded). Lou, meanwhile, is just as good at the job—and a natural leader amongst her colleagues—and uses the folksy local-cop persona to her advantage.

Leighton Meester alone is enough reason to tune into the show. Her post-Gossip Girl years have been an ongoing search for a vehicle worthy of her considerable comedic talents (a moment of silence for the delightful Single Parents). Her high-wattage charm is not only Good Cop/Bad Cop‘s strongest asset but a key element of her character: People like Lou and want to open up to her. Luckily, Meester is not alone but flanked by great performances from Cook and Brown. The trio quickly settle into a believable dysfunctional family dynamic that is played mostly for laughs until it’s time to tug at the heartstrings. Hovering just on the outside is the chief’s girlfriend Nadia, who is saved from being a one-note Slavic stereotype with real emotional resonance thanks to both Blazey Best’s acting and some deft writing. 

But what makes the show stand out is a vivid sense of place, something that’s lacking elsewhere in the current broadcast landscape. There’s an anonymity to the big-city settings of other procedurals, whereas in just a few episodes Good Cop/Bad Cop establishes a character and community to Eden Vale that makes it all the more rewarding to revisit as the season progresses. The town is populated by quirky characters who gossip, flirt, and feud, not unlike the citizens of Parks And Recreation‘s Pawnee. It’s a cute, cozy Pacific Northwest locale that feels inviting if it wasn’t for the criminal element. (Many of the cases are comically oddball, but there’s plenty of murder and mayhem too.) An unintentionally timely reference to Twin Peaks later in the season illustrates exactly where the show is drawing inspiration from, at least in terms of its small-town world-building. 

Twin Peaks is just one of many references embedded in Good Cop/Bad Cop‘s DNA. The show is by no means reinventing the wheel. But understanding where it fits within the legacy of television’s detective procedurals is another positive attribute. Showrunner John Quaintance mentioned Moonlighting as one of his inspirations—and in-universe, Nadia’s obsession with cop shows (Law & Order, Brooklyn Nine-Nine) is an amusingly meta way to contextualize the show. What’s more, a running gag wherein Lou cribs ideas from podcasts to help solve their cases is a cheeky nod to our true-crime-obsessed culture. 

But despite a healthy reverence for the genre, Good Cop/Bad Cop isn’t blindly pro-police either. A fundamental conflict for the family (and, at times, the town at large) is that the chief is lightly corrupt, fudging crime statistics in order to launder the reputation of the department and Eden Vale. Lou and Henry have different approaches to handling their father’s faults, alternately trying to work with him and around him and attempting to do a good job in an environment that isn’t always conducive to it. This makes the lovable but flawed Chief Hickman a more complicated character and the family dynamic all the more fraught. It also creates obstacles for our protagonists that add a compelling layer to the typical case-of-the-week structure. 

Good Cop/Bad Cop unfurls these stories nicely over the course of the season, interweaving juicy romantic subplots with ongoing family drama. Digging deeper into the Hickmans’ history uncovers surprisingly rich emotional depths that allow everyone—and particularly Meester—to flex their range. And speaking of digging, a cold case involving resurfaced human remains serves as an intriguing backstory to the Eden Vale Police Department, provoking conflict with the chief and character growth for some of the rookies studying under Lou. 

At the end of the day, this is still a CW show—and though things have changed at the network, there remains a certain foundational campiness (at times bordering on corniness) in its programming. So Good Cop/Bad Cop (at least in the six episodes screened for critics) has no prestige shine nor dramatic grit. Instead, the series is light but sincere in its silliness, offering comfy doses of humor and heart as each mystery unfolds.    

Good Cop/Bad Cop premieres February 19 on The CW  

 
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