First Impressions: The Bridge ‘Pilot’ – A Fat, Sleepy Pussy

I wouldn’t go so far as to call The Bridge a deeply ‘ambitious’ show: despite its unfamiliar (to American television) backdrop of the political mess known as the US/Mexico border, many of the show’s elements are recognizable. It’s a cop show, one with a dysfunctional female lead (something that’s grown more popular on cable networks in the last decade) that takes more than a few hints from The Americans, spicing it up with yet another serial killer story on television.

With all these elements trying to fit into the pilot, some might think it would be overstuffed: but clocking in at 63 minutes, I certainly felt like The Bridge would’ve benefited from being a bit shorter. As always, I enjoy when a show takes its time slowly laying out characters for us; something ‘Pilot’ definitely tried to do, although it often repeated the same character notes) without taking them a step farther – like not letting the ambulance through with a dying man in it, not being able to break the news of a woman’s death to her husband without faking empathy, and then relishing in an autopsy… that kind of thing. Sonya Cross is the most obvious case of this: a detective with Aspergers, she walks around with headphones in her ear at all times, is anti-social, emotionally detached, etc, etc. This isn’t to demean the syndrome or the importance of it to the character – but the show makes a point of pointing it out often to the audience, and the repetition of visuals like her darting eyes or the dangling iPhone speaker from her ear (thanks, Apple) wore as the episode pushed on.

By comparison, our introduction to Marco Ruiz – the Juarez investigator who pairs up with Sonya to solve a double homicide – handles things with much more variety and nuance. He’s a cop working in a supremely corrupt system, focused on his family (that he no longer wants growing, suffering from a vasectomy in the open) and weary of the world around him. He sees the evil, and concerns himself with keeping his head above water instead of opening his mouth and drowning his entire family tree. His scenes are the highlight of the pilot, the lightest of shadows hanging onto his stubble like the darkness of the world is perpetually underneath his nose, and he’s tired of smelling it.

The two meet after the show’s ominous, mystery-building opening sequence: after halves of two different bodies show up on both sides of the border, Marco and Sonya connect various threads until they’re looking at a serial killer who has murdered anywhere from two to infinity women in his rampage, seemingly focusing on the same girl at all times. Immediately, the show falls into the regular patterns of new partners who don’t like each other: we get trite little pieces where Sonya gets anxious over Marcos pacing, or other predictable moments where cultures and policing ideologies clash. But Marco is trying to protect his family (one of the girls found was killed six blocks from his own house, where his pot-smoking teenager, two other kids, and wife live) and Sonya is obsessed with her career, so they’ll put aside their differences to solve this one damn case together.

I’m being sarcastic: I mostly enjoyed the pilot, especially for characters like Kitty and Hank, who existed on the edges of the narrative, more comic relief and exposition-deliverers in the pilot than anything. The actual police work could use a little more style: Sonya’s robotic approach to investigating isn’t met with a lot of creative film making, and moments where she’s studying the contents of the judge’s car would really benefit from different camera angles, not one exploiting the tension over finding another female body laying in the backseat, her blood drained out onto the ground.

Of course, there’s murder in The Bridge – and although it’s the focus, it’s far and away the least interesting thing about the show. Watching Marco explain to his son why buying pot from his friend could lead to a life of crime is fascinating, as is watching everybody on both sides of the border try and sort out whose jurisdiction is whose, and what exactly that entitles them to in certain situations. These are far more interesting than the vague man we meet stealing girls and bringing them to a trailer, where someone else (presumably… he leaves the room, and then we see him there and she’s gone) is paying him to deliver women for delicious murder. Those scenes – often displayed without any kind of context or clear connection of why this is important beyond another set of female murderers on TV – are too vague to really be effective. Hopefully, this is just from pilot syndrome, trying to make something more intriguing and mysterious than it really needs to be.

My review makes The Bridge sound like it was a bad pilot: there’s vast potential in the show, and there’s enough interesting beats to hook me in for the full first season. It’s just a 50 minute pilot with a 63 minute running time, and finds itself recycling beats or relying on not-so-exciting mysteries to provide the faintest of outlines of where the show is headed. There are still pieces yet to be placed on the board (Charlotte the widow king among them), so we’ll see where The Bridge takes us over the next twelve weeks.

Grade: B-

Other thoughts/observations:

– Next week (and a few other weeks during the season), my review will publish at Sound on Sight as part of our revolving table of reviews for the show’s first season. As always, I’ll link to those reviews as soon as they publish.

– Texans struggling with technology is such a tired joke: in The Bridge, cell phone passwords and coffee machines are confounding contraptions.

– love how rich and obviously corrupt the police “captain” is, and how little Marco externalizes his anger about it. He certainly wants this case for a reason – me thinks all those dead bodies are weighing on his conscience. Their arrogance in telling him “it doesn’t matter” certainly seemed to quiver his mustache a bit.

– Kitty the secretary snags the bag of pastries Marco leaves when he walks away. A fantastic little joke buried in the background.

– Matthew Lillard shows up in a role to break typecasting (and revitalize a career a bit?) as a drunk, failed journalist who gets a eye-opening warning from the mafia in the episode’s harrowing climax. He’s got facial hair and burps a lot – I guess we’ll see where it goes.