The Glades brings out an hostage situation to finish off its second season.
The Glades slings back and forth between “average” and “above average.” One episode can be clever, another can have such obvious product placement that it makes you want to chuck Reese’s’ Pieces at the screen so they can stop showing off candy, and so on. This last episode plays around with the “hostage story” found commonly on crime procedural shows. Thanks to this story structure, the episode really feels like it has reached a season finale-level climax. The amount of shameless product placement, however, dilutes the effectiveness.
The episode begins with a healthy reminder about Callie’s (Kiele Sanchez’s) conflict of irreconcilable goods. Does she leave and go work with another man at another hospital? Or does she stay with Longworth (Matt Passmore) and her son? By the end of the first act, the hospital is placed in jeopardy by two brothers wishing to escape incarceration.
The hostage situation serves two purposes. One, it allows the audience to experience a high-energy finale. Two, it also allows us to see the dramatized climax between Callie and Longworth’s relationship issues. The two start off distant in the beginning of the episode and through the events of the hostage situation, find closure in their relationship. Callie recognizes what she really wants after having a gun to her head. From that fact, it’s pretty obvious to see how this episode ends. Anyone savvy in TV romances knows that you don’t separate the main character and his romance interest permanently unless you want to kill a show prematurely. The Glades follows this rule to a “T” and that’s why we end happily on the couple entering Longworth’s house holding hands.
What’s not as blissful is the blatant marketing from products in this episode. When Longworth is moping over Callie’s potential departure from the glades, he checks his smart phone constantly. Then we see Callie check her smart phone constantly. Why don’t we add some tears here and call it a Hallmark commercial? And don’t get me started on Daniel (Jordan Wall) salivating over his boss’s car. Overall, it’s what you would expect from a crime procedural episode about a hostage situation. There is nothing too out there, and much of the creative twists in the episode feel too out of place to really add to the story. Overall, a perfectly serviceable episode.
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.