A grief-stricken father, a talent show, and it was all directed by a series star? It was a good night.
In the S.W.A.T. Season 5 Episode 15, 20-Squad tries to track down a father who targeted a hospital after his son died from kidney disease. At the same time, the S.W.A.T. Academy recruits get ready for the annual talent show as Deacon and Annie have a rift in their relationship and Hondo worries about Raymont Harris.
It was all directed by series star Lina Esco, her first for the series. And it was a great balance of intense scenes, heartwarming moments, and a couple of lighthearted scenes.
Let’s start with the lighter moments before we get into what the whole episode was really about. In a sneak peek released earlier for the episode, we got a tease of an upcoming talent show for the S.W.A..T Academy and even found out that Chris did a frisbee routine with Champ while Luca did some sweet air guitar.
I don’t know about you, but I would have loved to see Rocker’s rendition of My Heart Will Go On.
Besides the fact, we got a really sweet moment with Luca and Academy recruit, Officer Cabrera. Luca caught up with her in the kitchen at H.Q. and tried to find out what her talent would be. That was when she admitted that she wasn’t going to be taking part in it because she had stage fright and wasn’t ready for something like that.
We have seen how Luca can be with kids, and with him being in Germany, he has had a great deal of training other potential officers. That came in great handy for Officer Cabrera.
There are gonna be moments in your S.W.A.T. career that feel terrifying, but you got to learn to push through that fear to get that job done and trust that your teammates will have your back as you do it. That’s really what this talent show is about.
Luca
While a talent show may be silly and unrelated to being a S.W.A.T. officer, Luca makes a great point that it’s all about overcoming your fears and for your peers and fellow officers to be there for you and vice versa.
We haven’t really gotten Luca that much in the last season or so with him hurting his hip and then being in Germany. So with the S.W.A.T. Academy and seeing more of that, as well as him and Nora Fowler, it’s like a breath of fresh air.
Luca is definitely one of my favorite characters, and it’s been nice to see him more than a few episodes every so often and get more big storylines with him.
Meanwhile, Hondo is worried about Raymont Harris, yet another kid he feels the need to save. Raymont seems to be doing well since he has a new business that delivers healthy foods across Los Angeles.
However, Hondo has a working theory about the investor, Saint, who may or may not be part of a bigger play that involves stash houses.
Hondo tries everything in his power to get Raymont to trust him about Saint that he will find another investor. That is the one thing I love about Hondo.
He is always trying to do right by someone else and take care of people he knows can be saved. Whenever he has a hunch about something, he is almost always right.
This thing with Raymont reminds me of how he was and is with Darryl. He didn’t have the best life with the best dad, but Hondo knows his father, who was incarcerated, and he takes him under his wing.
At first, it was tough, but the two soon formed a bond, and Hondo adopted him. It shows how far Hondo will go for a kid and what he will do to make sure that they don’t hang out with the wrong people.
Hondo brings up the situation with Saint to Commander Hicks, but he doesn’t really listen since there isn’t too much information out just yet.
He doesn’t want Hondo to deal with it by himself and not to worry about it. But we all know that Hondo won’t really let it.
Good guys don’t always get the “W” in the end.
Hicks
And then there’s Deacon. He has been working the Ortiz case for the last few episodes, though Annie may be a little more obsessed about it than he is, and that isn’t a good thing.
Deacon got a call at work that Lila was never picked up from school. At home, Annie finally arrived and apologized profusely because she was too caught up in digging around in Ortiz’s case.
The two get into a big fight over how obsessed Annie has been and how Deacon had to leave work to pick up Lila in the middle of a case.
Honestly, I don’t blame Annie for wanting something to do. She used to go to law school, and when the Ortiz case came up, she thought she’d take a look at it, but she became completely invested in it.
It’s not her fault for not always wanting to be a stay-at-home mom. Maybe she’s finally found her calling.
Could this be the start of her going back to law school?
You know, I keep things running pretty smoothly around here. And when things get crazy for you at work, I sit there and I pivot to support you the best way that I can. I really wish you would do the same.
Annie
Luckily, it wasn’t all bad blood between the Kays. Deacon cut from the talent show early just to be at home with Annie and even apologized, with Annie feeling sorry that she took her frustration out on him.
I hope this means that they will start working the case together because I have needed more of them in my life and the Ortiz case is a definite mystery.
As for the actual case that 20-Squad was working on, it involved a father targeting the people responsible for his son’s death who had a rare kidney disease that was deemed too severe for a transplant. Long story short, some black market buy turned out to be a ploy to traffick and harvest organs for a profit.
The case hit close to Street, who became close to a chaplain who was shot. He met him while he was laid up from his surgery, which led him to open up to Chris about Chaplain Adams.
I am just as much of a Stris shipper as anyone who watches this series, and it’s about time that we get even more of them. It seems like we are gradually building up to them finally being a couple, but with them on the same squad, it’s tough.
With Street starting to open up more and Chris being there for him, it’s a start. Plus, it’s a pretty sweet moment between the two of them, and we can never have enough of that.
Street: We got kind of close after my liver surgery.
Chris: I didn’t think you were religious.
Street: When I was laid up, that man spent hours by my bedside. I think he knew I was feeling lonely and scared. We’d just talk about all kinds of things – family, baseball, best dive bars. For a priest, he’d kind of been around the block, you know?
Chris: Religious or not, I think right now you gotta believe Chaplain Adams will pull through.
Street: Have a little faith? You sound like him right now.
Chris: I’ll take that as a compliment.
We shouldn’t forget that series star Lina Esco directed this episode. It’s always nice when an actor takes an interest in directing and even more impressive when they are in the episode they are directing just as much as if they weren’t.
While this isn’t the first time Esco has directed something, this is her first episode of the C.B.S. procedural, and it turned out to be one of my favorites. There was such a nice balance between the action, emotions, comedy, and more.
We also dove deeper into a few characters in the midst of a big case, which is rare.
What did you think of the episode directed by one of S.W.A.T.’s own?
Drop your comments below, and don’t forget to watch S.W.A.T. online anytime via T.V. Fanatic!
Megan Behnke is a staff writer for TV Fanatic, who you can follow on Twitter.