Review: Republic of Doyle, Ep.2

So let's be candid. I got a phenomenal amount of traffic coming through the blog last week looking for reviews or information about The Republic of Doyle. And while I don't think I'm going to see that level of traffic every time an episode airs, I'd be a bit silly to see if I can't bag some extra traffic reviewing each of the episodes as they come out.

I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do it every week. For example, I think I might be busy next Wednesday, but I'm going to try and we'll see what happens from there. Oh, also and apology. I didn't jot down some of the character's names, it's not on The Republic of Doyle website and my brain is a sieve for these kinds of things. So sorry in advance.

So what did we have on The Republic of Doyle this week? A decent enough open establishing a bit more about Jake and Malachy. That being Jake is the hothead who tends to rushing into things, shag things up, but whose heart is in the right place. Malachy is one who tends to roll his eyes a lot at what his son is up to and uses his brains to end up in the right place at the right time. Oh, it's a decent enough little scrap, but it does help to do a bit of character development. As I said last week, one of the show's weaknesses is getting me to believe the father/son dynamic. It still feels a touch forced, (although Malachy driving Jake nuts by saying "panties" was funny) but I wasn't expecting miracles in one week. We already have one this episode, let's not push it for two.

So this week's main story is a young woman showing up at the detective agency looking to find her missing father. She just has a photo, a nickname and a few other details. However, thanks to some technical wizardry from Malachy's better half, they quickly manage to track down the guy she's looking for...a man who made all of his money building strip malls in Mount Pearl. God help us all. I thing right there that's a nod to people from St. John's that you know this is a man "up to no good."

Except, of course, there's more to the case than meets the eye. The man denies having a daughter. Then the girl goes missing after being given the information about her father. And who is Bill, who shows up looking for the girl afterwords, leading to a marvelously silly foot chase across some fishing vessels?

Meanwhile, we have a couple of subplots going on. Rose s still trying to bond with Tinny, Tinny is flirting with Des, who decided to tag Doyle's car with graffiti, which means he's not exactly in Doyle's good books. Doyle is still trying to charm the good Cst. Bennett while dealing with his increasing erratic wife, Nikki.

So let's just say there's a lot of shit going down in this episode. But hey, it mostly worked. The story this week was much better. A lot more twists and turns to make it harder to figure out who the bad guys(s) were, and that had me guessing. If they can keep at this level and higher with the A level stories around the crime of the week to be solved, then that's good. Last week's mystery, come on, if bells weren't going off when you found out one of the characters was three months pregnant, you just aren't trying. So this is an improvement.

I like Rose as the technical wizard. One gets the feeling that Malachy and Jake are clever, but not exactly geniuses. So I like Rose being the clever one who digs up all the stuff they need online. Yes, it's skimmed over tech wizardry, but these type of shows are guilty of that all the time. Computers and the internet are the magic you need to get the information to keep the plot moving.

I'm not sure I'm going to like Tinny and Des, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of a doubt. And Tinny has a fine line to walk between being justifiably a bit annoying and just plain annoying. She's managing so far, but there have been a few wobbles on that tightrope.

As for this week's miracle, step forward Krystin Pellerin. I compared her to a zombie last week and yes, relatively speaking, she had nowhere to go but up. However, she was much better this week. The stunned eye glaze was nowhere to be found, but the smart cop who knows what Jake is, wants to avoid it, but is still kind of intrigued made an appearance. Thank god, because really, if her character continued to be a dud, the show was going to have a really problem. So yes, much better. More of this, please. I'm willing to believe what someone said last week, it might have just been bad writing and/or direction. There's considerable more spark in her performance this week.

The big worry this week Rachel Wilson's Nikki. It's not the acting, not like it was last week with Pellerin. It is, I think, the writing. Nikki is all over the place in this episode. Sexy one minute, crazy the next, rational for brief flashes. However, when you have all that happening in a 15 second span it just looks like the writers have no idea how to write crazy.

Look, there are some genuinely crazy women in Newfoundland. I know a few of them. It shouldn't be that hard to write a Catholic woman messed up by her failing marriage. In fact, the only reason I believe I know that is because I read the character bio on the Doyle web page. Might have been nice to have mentioned some of that a bit sooner on the show to explain some of this. And even so, it's still not a convincing crazy. It's an all over the place crazy. It needs to get more focused.

So yes, this is a step in the right direction for the show. They need to figure out Nikki, Jake and Malachy have to keep working on that father/son thing. Oh, and they need to figure out how to get more Walter (Sean Panting) in the show, because his scenes with Jake are always fun. The two of them have some of the best chemistry on the show so far.

Now let's see what they can do next week.

Last Five
1. Walnut tree - Keane
2. American Routlette - Robbie Robertson*
3. Emma J - Brandon Benson
4. What am I to you? - Norah Jones
5. The end - Ryan Adams and the Cardinals