“Wild Game” – aired on March 25, 2018
Written by: Carol Flint & Constance M. Burge
Directed by: Doug Aarniokoski
Grade: 4 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

Last Monday in my review of the “Pilot,” I noted that Instinct would have a problematic relationship with the ratings, one reason being the 37-minute-delay to the starting time of the episode due to the length of March Madness basketball games. The same issue resurfaced again last night, this time causing a 35-minute delay. I am curious if there are any records kept on this, but I would speculate that Instinct may be the only TV show to have suffered from having its first two episodes aired at later-than-advertised times, with only a few late notices by the network to inform its viewers. One piece of good news is that, despite this issue, the ratings appear to be fairly solid. The last half hour of 60 Minutes carrying over to Instinct‘s allocated time slot may (or not) have something to do with it. In any case, March Madness has reached its Final-Four stage, so next week’s episode will air on time.

The second piece of good news, a more important one for the survival of the show, is that “Wild Game” was, in several ways, a higher-quality episode than “Pilot.” A show that gradually improves over the course of the first few episodes will not only garner loyal viewers, but also gain their trust.

“Wild Game” managed to carry over the better parts of what we had seen in the first episode – another stellar dialogue between Alan Cumming’s Dylan the writer and Whoopi Goldberg’s Joan the editor, further development of the pleasant synergy between the two lead characters, and a fun classroom scene – and offered the viewers, at the same time, a more intelligently constructed case with a better-flowing narrative than the one in “Pilot.” Furthermore, Doug Aarniokoski’s experience came in handy as the director. He has helmed numerous episodes in other procedural shows like Criminal Minds and Bull.

For the second time in a row, we begin the episode with a murder scene followed by a classroom scene involving a student and Professor Reinhart. Next, we see Det. Lizzie Needham and her boss Lt. Jasmine Gooden (Sharon Leal) checking out the murder scene the next day. Then, we are treated to a conversation between Reinhart and his editor. If you need an example of the overall improvement I mentioned above, look no further than this four-scene sequence.

The murder is conveyed with a clear-cut vision and a back story, as opposed to the convoluted, obsessively blue-toned one in the first episode. The classroom scene provides us with more of the so-far entertaining dynamics of our professor’s relationship with the students. The post-murder-observation scene explains why Needham will need Reinhart’s help despite her police-partner problems. Finally, the writer-editor conversation features two five-star actors at work, again, engaged in a dialogue that deepens our knowledge of Reinhart’s inner conflict about going back to investigative work.

The sequence works in setting the stage and in compelling viewers to watch the upcoming developments, and it does so without even putting on display the strongest aspect of the show, which is the warm friendship – and the trust-building collaboration – budding between Reinhart and Needham.

A venture capitalist named Sebastien Trevor is killed while jogging and his body is displayed “rack-like” at the park. It’s a gruesome murder that involves some sort of ancient ritual according to Reinhart who is already busy profiling the killer with that high-IQ brain of his.

From that point forward, the investigation evolves with a couple of well-executed twists. There is a second murder that adds to the complexity of the investigation, forcing our heroes to modify their judgment on the killer’s possible motives. Of course, our protagonists end up solving the case. The value of a procedural show stems not from the denouement itself but rather from the creative narrative that guides the viewers along the way.

Carol Flint and Constance Burge – the episode’s writers – introduce us to several characters with ties to Trevor, each with an agenda of their own. The narrative is well-paced and succeeds in keeping us in the dark on the identity of the killer for the majority of the episode. And thankfully, we are riding along with Reinhart and Needham without being held by the hand, meaning being fed a neatly recited summary by the characters of what they are discovering every ten minutes (see my review of the pilot episode for reference). The guest stars perform well for the most part, notably Ashley Williams as Nora Cecchino, a friend of Trevor, and Afton Williamson as Haley, the short-fused chef of the restaurant owned by Nora and her husband.

The supporting regular cast, however, continues to be under-used. Daniel Ings as Reinhart’s husband Andy, Naveen Andrews as Julian, Dylan’s contact for hard-to-get information, and Sharon Leal as Lt. Gooden, Lizzie’s boss and friend, are billed in “starring” roles. Yet, they still have not benefited from any significant character development. So far, Gooden has only appeared in a couple of scenes, mainly as a head-nodder to what Lizzie and/or Dylan are saying. Julian is the most glaring example of a potentially fascinating character that is reduced to a plot device, only seen in a room filled with gadgets and computers while conveniently spitting out useful information to Reinhart.

Even worse, Andy is supplied with inconsistent lines over the two episodes.  Wasn’t Dylan deeply concerned with Andy’s reaction if he were to begin investigating cases again? Did he not retire from the CIA so that he could lead a peaceful life with his husband? Is that not the concern he expressed to his editor in both episodes so far? In fact, he initially refused Lizzie’s offer to join him, precisely because of that reason.

So, when he decides to take on another case, you would expect to see some type of a consequential discussion between him and Andy, right? Wrong. Instead of seizing the opportunity to develop a meaningful side plot, the showrunners give us not only an unconcerned Andy, but a quasi-enthusiastic one who is busy rearranging the furniture in their home so that Dylan can work more comfortably on possible future cases! He says to Dylan with a smile: “Look at you! All fired up, excited to save the world. I love this part of you.”

On a side note, I applaud the showrunners for not presenting the gay couple as a main attraction to the narrative of the show. Interactions between Andy and Dylan are handled as-a-matter-of-factly and they appear to be a happy couple tackling their busy lives. They clearly enjoy each other’s company. Instinct cleverly avoids the tropes of gay couples often used by other shows to bait attention and puts the focus on its story-telling.  

The episode falls into a couple of clichés toward the end. As if it were a requirement for all procedural crime dramas – I am beginning to think that it may be –, we get a nicely detailed confession from the killer in the climactic scene about the “whys-and-whats” of the crimes committed. As he did in the first episode, Dylan dishes out just enough psychological jive to distract the murderer and intervenes in time to avoid disaster. Credit to Aarniokoski, on the other hand, for the well-executed camera work in switching back and forth between the heroics of Lizzie and Dylan in that scene. Then again, I could also live with a little less bang on the background music when things get intense.

I said earlier that I enjoyed the classroom scenes with Professor Reinhart and his students. The one at the end with Lizzie sitting as a student was also cute and fit the narrative, but I am not sure if I am up to seeing that particular dynamic on a regular basis. It may well turn out to be a non-issue.

It appears that we have a definitive answer to whether Dylan and Lizzie would become partners or not. It’s an emphatic “yes,” and frankly, nothing less would do. They enjoy picking each other’s brain and work wonderfully together, as investigators and as the leading duo of a crime show. If you want to see examples of their cheerful relationship, watch first the hamburger truck scene – yes, Dylan is officially a lovable snob! Then, see the ending dialogue. It will leave you with a smile and looking forward to next Sunday.

Until next week…

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“Pilot” – aired on March 18, 2018
Teleplay by: Michael Rauch
Directed by: Marc Webb
Grade: 3 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

Instinct is bound to have a complicated relationship with viewers and a problematic one with ratings. For starters, the network apparently considered it only worthy of launch during the March doldrums, a period to which the left-over shows – ones that did not premiere in the fall or in January – are usually relegated. Then, to make matters worse, it got off on the wrong foot on the one night that counts the most for a nascent show, albeit through no fault of its own. The pilot episode aired with a delay of 37 minutes due to March Madness games ending later than scheduled – as though they ever end on time.

Uncertainty creeping up on the advertised start time of a premiere during the last few hours leading up to it must have felt like a nightmare for Instinct‘s producers. It is one thing for a long-running show with an established fan base like 60 Minutes to survive a delayed start (it preceded Instinct last night). It is another matter for a nascent series to take that hit when it needs all the intangibles to work in its favor on the evening of its pilot. It needs to garner as many viewers as possible and earn a rating good enough to avoid the early death sentence, a not-so-unusual occurrence in the business.

While the episode had its fair share of clichéd sequences and failed to offer anything singularly different from any other crime show in the development of to its central story and pacing, there is some promising material here, notably the pleasant synergy between the two leading characters.

Dylan Reinhart (Alan Cumming), the gifted ex-CIA operative who is now a writer and a professor specializing in abnormal behavior at the University of Pennsylvania, forged a noticeable chemistry with NYPD Detective Lizzie Needham (Bojana Novakovic), who appears invincible to everyone around but carries some baggage on the inside. Series creator Michael Rauch wrote the teleplay for the episode and it shows. “Pilot” unloads as much background information about the characters as it can in a compressed, 43-minute-long episode.

The first scene gives us a glimpse of the killer in action at a nightclub, where he lures a young man named Dino Moretti into the bathroom with the promise of a drug he calls “pulp.” It’s probably the worst scene of the episode. The club and the bathroom were overloaded with a pronounced blue glow that dominated the TV screen and overwhelmed any dialogue in the scene. That intentional use of distorted color was clearly meant to create an unspoken and powerfully visual storytelling vehicle, ostensibly to lend a specific mood or tension to the scene. All that can be said is that it failed to convey that effect – it was one big distraction for the eye, diverting attention from spoken words.

Furthermore, the dialogue plays out poorly, with the only relevant information being the visual clue of the playing card – a jack of diamonds – left at the scene by the killer. He first shows some needles to Dino who confidently says, “I don’t do needles,” obviously forgetting (!!) that he just walked into a bathroom at a blue nightclub with a sketchy guy who offers drugs. Then, he does needles twenty seconds later, naturally, while the killer claims to be “Michael Caine” in Dressed to Kill and talks about the Bible in an exaggerated deep tone with the camera focused on his mouth, his face blurred out. Never mind that the killer sounds nothing like the insecure and confused character that he turns out to be in the climax scene at the end.

An accomplished director like Marc Webb could not have done better with this first scene. Luckily, it’s at the very beginning and immediately followed by the best eight-minute stretch of the episode.

Dr. Reinhart, in his classroom, teaches “Abnormal Behavior Analysis” to his students. To complement his class lecture, he dares a “scared-looking” student named Edward to “punch him in the stomach.” Of course, the sequence leads to a psychology lesson that gradually dawns on the students, ending with the professor actually punching the student. We find out later that Edward was in cahoots with Reinhart and that the punch did not connect, but the other students do not know this. 

Allow me to digress here for a paragraph. I am currently teaching at a university, in Pennsylvania in fact, and I can tell you with 100-percent certainty that if I punched a student, or in this case, if my students believed that I punched a student, I would be in trouble, period. Deep trouble! Chances are I would not survive the verdict of the administrators even if I could prove that it was indeed a pre-arranged mock-scene with one of my students. I envy Reinhart and the University of Pennsylvania’s tolerance policies! Digression over, back to the episode.

Alan Cumming is in his fine form in this eight-minute stretch. The classroom scene, followed by the one showing his first conversation with Needham – who came on campus to ask his assistance in finding the killer – and the next one in which he discusses the publishing of his next book with his editor, played by Whoopi Goldberg, showcase Cumming’s talents as an actor. We learn a lot about Reinhart during this stretch. He is clever, observant, and witty. His nickname is “Professor Psychopath.” His wardrobe is impeccable. The quirky professor also rides a motorcycle while dressed impeccably.

Goldberg appears in this single scene. I hope dearly, for Instinct’s sake, that her guest-star occurrences will be frequent. The scene depicts two natural actors engaged in a free-flowing conversation – it works wonderfully well. The dialogue is well-written and informative with regard to Reinhart’s funk as a writer. He retired from the CIA and turned to academia because, you see, he made a promise to his husband Andy (Daniel Ings) that he would quit being the “man of action” and leave his CIA career behind. If you did not know anything about the show, now you know what the central focus of every article on Instinct has been. Reinhart is the first leading gay character in a crime show.

The scene begins with Goldberg’s character, the editor (whose name is not provided in this episode), telling Reinhart that he looks “fat,” reminding him of it repeatedly throughout the conversation, and adding that his new book is “flat.” She also gives him some valuable advice which plays into his character development. She wants Dylan to find his “mojo back” and implies that one way to do that would be to get back into what he did before he published his bestseller, entitled “Freaks.” She adds that she needs the “Dangerous Dylan” back, the “sexy Dylan.” The scene lasts one minute and 45 seconds. It’s meaningful and the two actors’ deliveries are hilarious.

The editor apparently convinced Dr. Reinhart because, after having turned down Det. Needham’s initial request for help with the case of Dino’s murder, he surprises her while she is talking to the victim’s father as part of her investigation. After the meeting, it was time for the viewers to learn a bit about Lizzie. She is “bossy” Reinhart notes, and Lizzie admits that she “has a bad history with partners.” More meaningful background tidbits are revealed on Lizzie as the episode moves along. The two throw verbal jabs at each other and we notice the beginnings of a good chemistry between Dylan and Lizzie. That chemistry and the promise it carries for future episodes is the strongest trait of “Pilot.”

I feared going into the show that the female Det. Needham would be portrayed as a supporting character to the male Dr. Reinhart, the so-called real star of the show. Not that I ever believed that anyone associated with the show would state this explicitly, but I worried that it would nevertheless be clear to the viewers. Call me paranoid, but we have constantly seen this pattern in shows that feature male and female leads (read my preview from last week for more on this). At first glance, Cumming has the higher profile as an actor and Reinhart appears to have more depth to his character than Needham does.

Yet, if I were to judge solely based on this episode, I would happily admit that I turned out to be wrong. There was no obvious discrepancy in the character developments of Needham and Reinhart, nor the amount of facetime they got throughout the episode. Of course, we are only at the beginning of Instinct and several more episodes need to air before one can pass a sound judgment on how equally the two characters are treated by the writing room. The jury is still out on that, but “Pilot” passed the initial test with flying colors. Well, almost.  

Bojana Novakovic deserves praise for portraying Needham as a bad-ass cop with a seemingly rich personality. There were, however, a couple of mediocre lines given to her character.  I mean, do we really need Needham to give a detailed bio of Reinhart to the audience as she is talking to Reinhart? She even begins the 12-second-long bio-unloading with “So, Dr. Dylan Reinhart, Penn undergrad, Ph.D. in Psychology….” Can’t this all be revealed in small doses instead of a speech resembling the poorly written mini-biography in the brochure given to attendees when they come to watch a motivational speaker?

The same thing applies to the scene in which the second victim’s dead body is discovered. During the examination of the scene, Reinhart forms some brilliant connection between the card found on the scene and the victim’s past just by observing the surroundings. It is not hard to understand how he reaches his conclusion. Right as we begin to appreciate Reinhart’s intelligence, there comes Lizzie, feeding to the audience a concise explanation of Dylan’s discovery. It’s a tired method, a cliché of the highest degree and one that appears to cater to the lowest common denominator. It also worries me that Needham may be used as a plot device to hold the scatter-brain part of the audience by the hand so that it doesn’t get lost.

Speaking of characters as plot devices, Naveen Andrews appears as Julian Cousins, Dylan’s all-purpose informant pal. He can get access to information that one may not be able to obtain through official channels. I can accept that, unless it becomes the full scope of the character on which Andrews’ acting potential gets wasted. Cousins needs to represent more than a convenient path to quick information so that the audience can spend more time watching action-oriented scenes.

Both the plot and the chemistry between Reinhart and Needham advance at warp-speed for the next thirty minutes. The murders multiply at an alarming pace. Needham and Reinhart discover a lot about each other. Along the way, we get introduced to Lieutenant Jasmine Gooden (Sharon Leal) from the NYPD, Mayor Myers (Sarita Choudhury).

Unfortunately, the plot reveals are not as captivating as the actors’ performances. It’s all déjà-vu and there is a good chance that you will correctly guess the identity of the murderer minutes before it is revealed. Furthermore, you get the ordinary climactic scene in which one of the heros miraculously delivers a soothing speech to an unnerved murderer who confesses the “hows-and-whats” of his crimes while he has a gun pointed to at someone. Reinhart, the hero in our scene, says enough to make the killer hesitate and saves the day. In addition, the other hero gets injured while trying to save the intended target of the murderer. Yes, we get the message. We must have no doubts in our minds that our two protagonists are truly heroic when it counts.

Speaking of miraculous, there is a scene in which Lizzie and Dylan are walking through the hallway of a hotel and the murderer is looking down at them with a gun pointed. He has a clear shot at both of them. As he is about to shoot, Lizzie magically turns her head 100 degrees to the right – and upward – for no apparent reason. She notices him just in the nick of time and saves Dylan by pushing him to the side as the murderer fires his weapon. Maybe she has supernatural abilities that will be revealed later in the season. During a couple of these types of action scenes, the score seems to bang in your living room, so check your volume.

It’s actually impressive that the synergy between Reinhart and Needham survives all these mundane scenes – the info-feeding to the audience, the magical moments, even the jokes cracked around a dead a body at another murder scene. The credit should go to Cumming and Novakovic. They are the strength of the show. Hopefully, they will have more to work with in the upcoming episodes

I, for one, will gladly tune in to watch next week’s episode… but not with complete trust that this show will reward my Instinct.

Until next week…

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