FOX’s ‘The Chicago Code’ an OK, if unlikely, cop drama

I’ll admit, I’d been nervous about the premiere of “The Chicago Code,” the new cop drama on FOX by “The Shield” creator Shawn Ryan.

It seemed a little too on-the-nose somehow -- charismatic black politician from Chicago, abusing his power and corrupt as the day is long. The only hope to bring him down and save the city? A spitfire new superintendent with moxie and gumption and a healthy contempt for the usual channels, teaming up with a maverick go-getter and together they’re going to clear out the dead wood and clean up this benighted town.

Huzzah.

First, my suspicion is that a person isn’t generally made superintendent because she’s the most reckless, free-wheeling, play-by-her-own-rules cop available. Jennifer Beals as Teresa Colvin ascended the ranks from beat cop by being tough and smart. She’s made chief of detectives and then when the old superintendent has a heart attack, she is promoted by Ronin Gibbons -- the super corrupt city alderman I mentioned earlier -- who is also in charge of the police department.

Colvin suggests he promoted her because he thought he could control her, but she won’t be controlled. She has a tin ear for politics, she does what she wants and doesn’t care what people think. She’s assigning 20-year veterans to broom closet duty downtown -- their union won’t let her fire them, you see and, well, there were complaints filed against them, almost a dozen, by the public even.

I don’t have a window on how that stacks up against other cops but I guess she’s doing what she feels she needs to. My assumption is these guys spent 20 years on the force figuring out which way is up, and you stick enough of them in a broom closet downtown they’re going to come up with something they can do about it.

Anyway, it’s nice to see a superintendent giving these cases the personal attention she feels they need. In her spare time she’s personally negotiating peace accords between rival gangs, meeting with gang bosses in prison, using her otherwise considerable personal charm so that she and the maverick can improve quality of life on the mean streets of Chicago.

Fighting corruption

The maverick -- that is, her former partner, Jarek Wysocki, played by Jason Clarke -- chews up partners and spits them out into the trash. He’s got a sharp mind and a good heart but a gruff attitude. He’s cheating on his fiancee with his ex-wife and he’s got no patience for brown-nosers. He appreciates talent, however, and when his latest partner, Matt Lauria as Caleb Evers, figures out on his own that one of their contacts is an undercover cop, he gains some respect for him.

The instinct is good -- the undercover cop is working to get the goods on Gibbons, who through his connections with various construction companies is orchestrating kickbacks for lowball contracts and all sorts of skeezy misuse of the public funds while having his assistant nibble his ear in his office while he enjoys a nice Scotch. I mean really, without actually sticking a leopard-print hat on him, how is this not a caricature from the worst excesses of 1970s blaxploitation?

That said, Shawn Ryan has created perfectly drawn corrupt politicians in his work on “The Shield,” and it’s possible Gibbons may gain some actual depth as the show goes on.

My initial irritation stems from the fact that if he were this evil, someone would have figured it out by now. I mean, the media in Chicago has actual resources at its disposal and has never shied away from a good slugfest with city hall, which is maybe why “The Chicago Code” feels a little too much like a morality play skewed to FOX television’s version of morality.

But fair’s fair -- after the CBS sitcom “Mike and Molly” the Chicago Police Department is due for some good writing. And while nothing in “The Chicago Code” sets it apart from the current crop of police procedurals, it hits the ground with a dark, gritty, hard-hitting dramatic narrative that could carry it past the simplistic good guys vs. bad guys paradigm that, in the past, Ryan has consistently set on its ear anyway.

“The Chicago Code” airs at 9/8c Mondays on FOX.