- After an undercover FBI agent's body is dumped on the side of the road, all eyes turn toward Dean Bendis, an undercover LAPD officer currently embedded with the gang believed to be responsible for the FBI agent's murder. Dean's boss, Carter Shaw, is determined to bring the gang leader down while also ensuring that Dean has not turned and switched loyalties. Carter sends in Ty Curtis, who must leave his life as a newlywed to return to the seedy underbelly of the criminal world and get Dean out. Meanwhile, Carter recruits and trains the latest member of his team, Jaimie Allen, a patrol cop who has successfully fabricated her entire past.—TNT Publicity
- "Dark Blue" - "Pilot" - July 15, 2009
This new undercover cop drama from producer Jerry Bruckheimer is indeed dark and, thanks to some special filter they use for certain shots, blue.
We open on a man being interrogated and tortured- his feet in water while he is shocked - by a group of bad guys. When he becomes comatose without giving anything up, the leader, a man we will come to know as crime kingpin Franzine, tells his lackeys to dump the body.
Later we meet a grizzled and weary yet attractive cop named Lt. Carter Shaw. He's been called to the hospital where the victim was taken. Turns out he was an FBI agent and the feds want to show Carter video footage of the body dump to see if he recognizes the bad guys. He very tellingly starts when one young face is clearly shown but claims he doesn't know all the bad guys in L.A.
Turns out that he knew that one though. It's a young undercover protege of his named Dean. He briefly talks with his angry boss about it and then goes to his warehouse/lofty headquarters to confirm with his undercover crew excecutive assistant who mans the obligatory maps and computer screens. She says none of the GPS tracking devices they put on Dean is live.
Carter then pays a visit to another one of his crew, a good looking black man named Ty who thought he would be enjoying a day off writing thank you notes with his equally attractive wife. Carter instead wants him to go back undercover and find out what's happening with Dean and Franzine's crew. Ty protests that he's supposed to be off having just come out from a heavy deep cover and that if he goes back out with the same credentials there could be trouble. Carter doesn't give him a choice and points out that Dean dumped a Fed. Ty thinks that Dean may have a death wish or even worse have flipped for a payday. In any case Ty is going after him. He says he'll need a partner and Carter promises he'll get him one. Ty's wife is not pleased pointing out that he comes home all nutty and damaged.
Meanwhile the FBI got a hit on Dean's face and get his cover rap sheet. One of the feds used to work in the undercover unit and think's Dean's file is too neat and clean and that maybe he's a cop. They also can't find any paperwork on Carter's recent responsibilities to the LAPD and think there's something fishy going on there.
To find a partner for Ty, Dean recruits Jamie Allen, a beat cop who's been trying for a promotion and who happens to have a sealed record that involves murder judging by the photos he throws at her as they meet in a diner. He points out that it takes a great liar, not to mention chutzpah, to have that kind of background, change your identity and become a cop. She's sullen and unapologetic. Jamie is just what he needs.
Ty goes back to some old haunts to find out what Franzine is up to and stir's up a hornet's nest of suspicion. He also runs into an old cover flame who is hurt and angry that he disappeared after claiming he loved her. He claims that he was laying low in Miami after a recent job and is almost broke now and really needs in on something. One of his old contacts tells him to lay off Franzine and see another dude instead.
That dude, a bad bald mother who runs illegal fights, says he'll give Ty a chance. Ty asks him about Franzine, again stirring up suspsicion. Later, in the dude's car when he questions if Ty is a cop, Ty is about to go nutty when a real cop shows up to check up on them. The dude tells Ty to be cool. Instead Ty shoots the cop. The dude freaks, Ty pulls the gun on the dude and says he will shoot him and put the gun in his hand and make it look like a traffic stop gone wrong if the dude doesn't give up what he knows about what Franzine is up to. All he knows is that the Franzine crew is working out of a house in East L.A. Ty lets the guy go, Carter pops up over the fence, and the cop sits up, it was Jamie in a bulletproof vest.
Ty goes to spy on the house where the Franzine crew is and send Dean a signal that they need to talk. He overhears a shooting in the house- Franzine killed a member of his crew that disobeyed the cell phone rules. When Dean comes out to the balcony, Ty flashes him. Later Ty and Carter chew over the fact that Dean let a man get shot. Ty points out that Dean may have crossed the line.
The feds follow Carter. Carter picks up their tail and pops into their car telling them to leave him alone. They offer condolences on his wife and ask about the guy on the video saying they know Carter knows. Carter reiterates his plea to be left alone and skedaddles.
Carter and Ty follow the Franzine crew to a taco stand and watch as Dean drives into a car wash. They jump in with him for their very fast confab about the injured FBI guy. Dean protests he couldn't have stopped he shooting, he knows what he's doing, that the GPS devices are dangerous, and he won't blow his cover. He says he has to finish it and that they won't have to wait too long. The guys hop out just in the nick of time before the Franzine crew sees them.
It turns out that Franzine isn't after money this time exactly. Even though he's been tracking a guy named Volk going to a bank where he checks out a safety deposit box. What he really wants is Volk, who double-crossed the man paying Franzine and is keeping evidence against him in the bank.
Jamie and Ty nab the bank manager coming out of a strip club with some women who are not his wife. They get him to set them up at the bank as "employees" on the day of the kidnapping.
Franzine and the crew enter, blow up the safety deposit box and grab Volk. On the way out with Volk, Dean gives Jamie a significant look. As they take off with Volk, the Feds hear about the bank emergency and speed to the scene. Everyone shoots at the departing Franzine crew. Carter blows up at the Feds realizing that they knew Franzine wanted Volk and it was a bigger issue than their injured man. Later, Jamie tells Ty and Carter about the look from Dean, as if he made her and was trying to tell her something. Just then one of the GPS tracking devices they gave him that had been previously silent goes live.
Dean had turned it on inside the getaway car when the crew slowly realized they weren't stealing money but a man. (Even though they were getting five million dollars to kill the man). They take Volk to a warehouse but before they can off him Carter, Jamie, and Ty bust in. Dean runs Volk to safety and tells him to stay put. There's a bloody shootout as more police arrive. Franzine closes in on Volk but Dean stops him, saying he's a cop. Franzine tries to buy him off but Dean isn't having it and shoots him.
Dean explains to Ty, Carter, and Jamie that he dumped the body in an alley in which he knew the cops would find it and he had a plan all along. Carter isn't totally convinced but is relieved.
Later we see Ty regretfully check in on that old flame from a distance as he puts his ring back on sitting in his car; Jamie is delivered a file in the diner: it's her old sealed records and Carter's way of saying she's on the crew and the slate is clean; Dean goes home, opens up a secret compartment in his floor and tosses a wad of cash into a lockbox filled with other wads of cash and a gun; Carter sits on his couch and wistfully watches a video of himself and his late wife frolicking on a lawn.
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What is the broadcast (satellite or terrestrial TV) release date of Pilot (2009) in Australia?
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