TV You Should Watch - Terriers
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Like people, most television shows need time to grow into themselves. Their first season is rocky and uneven, an accelerated adolescence that eventually blossoms into the thing it will be for years to come. Not so with FX’s Terriers. It comes out of the gate already formed, giving viewers a full dose of gumshoe melancholy in a single, solitary season. Yes, I’m recommending that you invest in something that you’ll love and quickly lose, because it’s great enough to be worth it.
Following unlicensed private investigators Hank Dolworth (Donal Logue) and Britt Pollack (Michael Raymond-James), Terriers is shaped by episode-long cases that serve as building grounds for the simmering season-long mystery. Both the short and the long cases are well-constructed, but they’re not the reason you’ll love Terriers. Like so many classic detective stories, the characters and the setting are the real stars, and the plot is simply there to give them something to do.
Set in the San Diego neighborhood Ocean Beach, the show’s digs is the love child of Veronica Mars’ sunny class struggles and Twin Peaks’ eccentric rabbit holes, giving its characters a playground they can only begin to explore. The depth with which everything is set up, from a quipy banker to the myriad of watering holes that the duo frequent, tricks you into thinking that the town scoots about its business whether you’re watching it or not. It’s an important illusion to set up if your characters are to uncover hidden conspiracies, and it’s just plain delightful when it translates into little scenes of banter with fresh characters every single episode. Those one-off cases never feel unimportant because they’re always unveiling a new side of this little neighborhood that you only want to know more about.
Hank and Britt tool around town in a beat-up pickup, and let’s be honest, it’s the tooling around that is the highlight of the show. These two guys genuinely like each other despite Hank being a ticking time bomb of bad decisions and Britt struggling with reformation. Their warts get on each other’s nerves, but they recognize an underlying decency in each other which manifests itself throughout the series. It’s a radiantly warm relationship, punctuated by funny banter and pointed jabs that will make you remember it as a much more comedic show than it actually is. It’s the lingering sentiment of having found friends, an effect that shows like Parks and Recreation and Castle have capitalized on so well, that makes Terriers such a worthwhile series.
The feeling extends far into the show’s cast, with Britt’s girlfriend Katie (Laura Allen), Hank’s ex-wife Gretchen (Kimberly Quinn), and Hank’s old police partner Mark (Rockmond Dunbar) engendering a great deal of love for the show. If you couldn’t tell, there’s a long history to these relationships that Terriers doesn’t shy away from dealing with that, and it’s that depth that gives the show its melancholy weight. In its lone season, Terriers takes you on a journey that winds through the ups and downs of these people and this town, and it’s one you’ll remember with the fondest of sentiments.
