Training Day-Tehrangeles-Review:"The Book of Frank"

From the Book of DJ – Chapter 1 Verse 1 – never judge a book by its cover or a new TV show by its first episode.

Last week’s premiere of Training Day (Thurs. CBS 9/10pm CST/EST) got off to a shaky start, pulling out all of those stops to live up to the Oscar® winning movie they were named after but not quite making it.

This week that shaky foundation was shored up, thanks in large part to a smart, well-written script by series Executive Producer Barry Schindel and solid performances from series stars Bill Paxton (Frank Rourke) and Justin Cornwell (Kyle Craig).

With “Tehrangeles”, Training Day took its first steps forward to coming out from under the shadow of their namesake and finding their own promising identity.

The episode begins with a bold kidnapping of a young teen-age girl as she’s dropped off for class at an exclusive looking private school. Deputy Chief Lockhart (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) assigns Frank and his team to the case, much to the chagrin of Det. Valeria Chavez (Christina Vidal), telling them the kidnapping victim’s father is a friend of the mayor. And to Frank, the fact they’re called in on the case and their only responsibility is to bring the girl home, leads him to believe the “by any means necessary” is more or less unspoken permission for him to use his unorthodox methods.

A method that has him hang up on them after a ransom demand of $2,000,000, to the dismay of the girl’s shocked parents. Frank is sure they’ll call back. And they do. He even manages to negotiate the ransom down to $750,000. A ransom drop is set up for the isolated Sepulveda Dam.

While waiting for the kidnappers to arrive Kyle worries that Frank’s boldness in negotiating with them will get the girl killed. Frank tells him not to worry, they are going to do this “by the book”, as he reaches into the back of his sleek, new car (good move throwing out the standard transportation from the rogue cop guidebook), and selecting a large, shiny handgun from the myriad of weapons hidden under his back seat.

They’re going to do this by the Book of Frank, Chapter 1, page 1.

Frank slips the gun on top the tire in the wheel well of the car and they wait for the kidnappers to arrive. They discover the kidnappers are two nervous Iranians, and just as they are about to make the exchange, the money for the frightened girl, the first of several sharp twists of the scripts occurs. Someone shoots and kills both kidnappers. A white, Range Rover races up and out steps three exotic and intimidating looking women.

Kyle engages the dark-haired leader of the group (Tehmina Sunny), saying he recognized her accent from his time in the military in Afghanistan. The women grab the girl (poor girl has now been kidnapped twice in less than 24 hours), and the bag of money. You have to wonder if Tommy and Rebecca had been there as back-up would this have happened. In all likelihood, yes or else you’d have had a 30-minute show. I still think it’s bad procedure though to not have back-up, one of the few holes in the script.

The leader makes Frank and Kyle get down on their knees and tells Frank to tell the girl’s father to consider the first bag of money a down payment and then ups the new ransom to $5 million. She shoots out the tire of Frank’s car, causing his hidden gun to fall out. She picks it up, looks at it admiringly, and takes it too.

Back at the precinct, Chavez chastises Frank for losing the girl and the money saying if he doesn’t get the girl back he and Kyle will be busted down to patrol. Frank vows to get both back. As they leave Kyle wonders why the department would take Frank off his leash to find the girl only to come after him for it. Smart detective! Frank tells him because Lockhart is trying to get rid of him.

In a nicely acted, but I’m not sure needed, scene between Frank (Paxton) and Holly (Julie Benz)- Frank’s Hollywood Madame “friend”, Frank confesses his suspicion that the father knows exactly who has kidnapped his daughter and why. Holly tells him, in her profession the way to get someone to talk is to make him feel safe.

Meanwhile back at Frank’s team’s HQ, Rebecca tells them the original kidnappers have been identified as being Iranian but Kyle asserts that the women kidnappers weren’t. He recognized their leader’s accent as being Libyan from his encounter, during his tour of duty in Afghanistan, with a Libyan assassin. He had noticed that she had a military bearing and that she called her accomplices "sister".

Rebecca believes the women to be members of the Amazonian Guard, an all-female team of bodyguards for Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi. (NOTE: The Amazonia Guard did exist and some noted Gaddafi believed that an Arab gunman would have difficulty firing at women.)

Since Gaddafi’s death the Guard had been working for hire. The question now was who had hired them in L.A. Frank believes the kidnapped girl’s father knows, but as Kyle points out he has been specifically told not to question the father. In just two episodes, we know Frank NEVER does what he is told.

Back at the Bel Air mansion of the kidnapped girl, it turns out Frank is right, as her father unsuccessfully tries, on his cell phone to call a phone belonging to our Amazonian Guard leader. Almost immediately on a call on the house phone, he’s told by an angry female voice that they have to meet. Somehow, he slips out to the family Rolls Royce only to be kidnapped.

Except, not by whom you’d expect.

It seems Frank and Holly have differing opinions of what is safe. And he has turned to another page in the Book of Frank. Frank’s definition of safe is to have Rebecca (Katrina Law), whose sniper and kidnapping skills and interest in bad-ass women among other things, is making the thus far underused character one of the most intriguing on the show, kidnap the father to force him to tell them who the women and he are working for.

The father cracks revealing that when the banks crashed and he was facing financial ruin, a friend told him about an Iranian investor. An investor who would save him financially only if he agreed to launder money for him. He’d been doing so until he’d been asked to do one last transaction, one involving $5 million.He’d refused and tried to get out, but the Iranian’s way of getting him to reconsider was to kidnap his daughter.

Frank decides the only way to get the girl back safely is to talk to the investor directly. To do that he needs the “friend” who turned her father onto the deal.

The “friend” it turns out is a Los Angeles City Councilman named Patterson (Christopher Cousins), whose district is comprised mostly of the area of the city known as Tehrangeles, which is home to one of the largest Iranian populations outside of Iran.The Councilman is more afraid of the Iranian investor than Frank until Frank tells him of the pictures and text messages in the possession of their mutual acquaintance, Holly the Madame. It seems the Book of Frank also has a chapter on blackmail.

Armed with the name of the Amazonian Guard, Lena and the Iranian businessman, Ari Javeed, Frank not only manages to rescue the girl but turn them against one another. Seems he has convinced Javeed that Lena plans on cutting him out of the ransom money and to turn him in to his enemies in Iran. The businessman doesn’t take kindly to betrayal and his men drag Lena away as she screams that she was set up.

As the family is being reunited at the police precinct, Javeed’s men march Lena to a freshly dug grave. With a sly grin, she slips a knife-like weapon from her clothing. They’re about to learn to never underestimate a woman.

The sub-plot running through this episode is the carry-over main theme of what happened to Kyle’s father. While searching for whatever fits the key he and Frank found, Kyle is shocked and disappointed to learn that his mother has known all along that his father wasn’t killed in a botched robbery. She went along with what the police said because she’d lost her husband and now doesn’t want to lose her son too. She warns him not to follow Frank down a rabbit hole.

Disillusioned, Kyle confides in his wife that he’s not sure who to trust, but knows he can’t find the truth without Frank. This is possibly what leads him to surprisingly lie to Lockhart and back Frank when she questions them about never seeing the kidnappers after they successfully rescue the girl.

The Book of Frank has one more page, Frank pays another visit to Councilman Patterson to tell him the Iranian never knew it was him who gave him up. Frank tells him he’s now a friend for life and that he can always call on him. And he hopes he can always call on the Councilman if he needs a favor, which he does. Frank wants the Councilman, who just happens to sit on the city council committee that oversees the police department to investigate Deputy Chief Lockhart. And if he doesn’t, Frank reminds the Councilman that he still has the photos and texts from Holly. And we add a chapter on extortion to the Book of Frank.

Later, while enjoying a drink, Frank is not surprised to get a call from Lena. He tells her that the ransom money would make a nice nest egg to find a new identity for herself. He advises he that if she doesn’t run he’ll just have to come find her. She suggests that wouldn’t be a smart thing to do, because she used Frank’s stolen gun to kill the thugs who had taken her away!

What do you think? Have we seen the last of Lena and/or Councilman Patterson? Is Kyle right, is Frank hanging on to being a cop because he doesn’t know to do anything else? Talk about it in the comments below.