Before I started watching the second season I stumbled across an article on Clayne Crawford being fired. I read about all of the tension on set, the arguments and Clayne’s behaviour. Much was made of Damon’s demands, but you’d imagine those have been the same since day one. Aggressive behaviour? Not so much.
I was confused because why would anyone jeopardise their career like that? After some consideration, I realised that Crawford was pretty good at playing unstable!Riggs. Maybe it’s method acting shit that boiled over into real life.
I have no idea what happened between season one and two (well, they overhauled the writing staff), but season two of this show was just DEPRESSING. It’s easy to see why you might have tension when one character has to deal with an abusive father/childhood, meanwhile, the other is playing happy families with his wife and three kids.
Did we not spend an entire season with Riggs trying to avenge his dead wife? Did we really need this abusive background storyline? Did it really contribute anything to the show? Not really. It was just grim. We’d go from comedy to watching flashbacks of Riggs get the shit beaten out of him.
It was disappointing. It’s also kind of obvious that Damon and Clayne had issues with each other. Something just wasn’t clicking…
The good points were the B cast – Scorcese, Bailey and Bowman. Captain Avery is always a nice little snarky addition. Somehow, the bromance between Murtaugh and Riggs snuck through every now and then.
Bad points? Storylines. Riggs was getting over his childhood and moving on from his dead wife. Murtaugh’s was… his midlife crisis. It works in the movies because they’re two hours long. Dragging out those stories for twenty two episodes? Nope.
Oh and by the time we reach the series finale, we hit trope bingo – a sibling that nobody knew about (despite being cops? If your dad’s name is Nathan Riggs and his son’s name is Garrett Riggs – SURELY there would be some record?) and a false pregnancy alarm.
After the heartfelt shit that comes with the season finale, the writers were like, boom. Cliffhanger. I feel like they were being petty and sending a message to CC before his eventual firing. The last two episodes were noticeable because Damon and CC have reduced screen time together. They float the idea that Riggs and Murtaugh are splitting up – Murtaugh to become Captain and Riggs to live with his replacement wife and child in Texas.
While Murtaugh’s clearly going to keep on being a cop, Riggs starts planning to move to Texas. They manage to team up and kill Riggs evil father once and for all after he kidnaps Murtaugh’s wife.
… but that pesky little sibling of Riggs turns up at his dead wife’s grave and shoots him because he killed their father (a day after said father stabbed him. Poor Riggs)
It was a bit much for me.
Too much angst. Not enough laughs.
Oh and CC is hella rude. I’d never heard of him before this show, but he’s truly feeling himself… his online legion of fans are nuts as well. A few weeks ago they jumped in on an innocent tweet posted by a different cast member and started attacking her for not defending him. She said that she respected everyone and had love for him.
Clayne jumped in and asked her why she didn’t defend him. He did that in public via Twitter. If I didn’t already believe he got his own damn self fired, that settled it. I hope she cussed him out via text. Him and his fans need to calm down.
Anyway, he’s been replaced by Seann William Scott who I’ve seen in… something I’m sure. It’ll be interesting to see how it goes.
Verdict: 5/10. Dark storylines. Stupid plots. However, it’s still easy viewing (excluding the graphic violence).
supernatural snark 
Haven’t seen the show, but this does sound like some “jump the shark” territory. Though, I guess the abusive childhood storyline thing always just makes me roll my eyes – not because it’s overplayed per se – but because it’s so common I keep waiting for the rest of us who experienced it to get our Mary Sue super powers and/or crowning moments of awesome :-p TV shows can you some unrealistic expectations of what kind of “closure” you can expect with abusers….
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Yeah, I tend to find that unless abusive childhood stories are written well, they’re often not very watchable. The ongoing Lethal Weapon arc was just depressing and out of place on a comedy show. They also used it as a way to justify the characters reckless and dangerous behaviour. There was no accountability, just ‘he went through some things so why wouldn’t he drunk drive! Oh, that’s Riggs being Riggs!’. Twas a bit much, lol.
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