Fox Series Shots Fired | Pilot | Season 1 | Series Premiere

In a North Carolina town a tow truck pulls up as a black cop shoots a white guy in what looks like a predominately black neighborhood. He calls for back-up and interestingly all white officers arrive. When they tell the crowd to back up all the bystanders put their arms up in air.

The scene goes to a baseball game and then to three men watching the game on a TV monitor. In the room is Juliann Carroll (Mike Pniewski), Preston Terry (Stephan James), and one other guy. They are federal prosecutors in the civil rights division, and Carroll is the head. The DOJ has called for a federal probe into the shooting and Preston, a fresh young lawyer, is being assigned the task of getting to the bottom of what happened.

Carroll pretty much tells Preston to go clear the cop, but he replies that he takes his oath seriously and states he will do the job with integrity because “My truth has no color.”

 Ashe Akino (Sanaa Latham) must be the angry black woman. She has a daughter by a Latino guy named Javier and she is on ten when his girlfriend yells at the kids. She confronts the woman and ends up throwing a vase at the poor woman. The father, Javier, pulls Ashe out of the house and tells her she needs to check her anger.

 Ashe meets Preston at the airport and he immediately lets her know he is her boss. Oh this is going to be good cop, bad cop. The governor’s aide comes in and introduces herself. She lets the duo know the governor would like to speak with them and then leads the way to a SUV where the governor is waiting.

Governor Patricia Eamons (Helen Hunt) wants them to wrap this thing up quick with a pretty black bow. As she is speaking it is apparent that she doesn’t have much use for Ashe and acts as if she isn’t in the vehicle too.

Preston and Ashe go to the police station and the camera pans around to a predominantly white force. Everyone is looking at them like what the hell are they doing there and not in handcuffs being interrogated. In an interview with Deputy Joshua Beck (Tristan Mack Wilds), Ashe shares her experience of her first shots fired. She is wrestling with a teen when her partner/trainer yells “gun.” She shoots the suspect, which turns out to be a 17 year-old black kid, and realizes that he only had a cell phone. She was cleared of all charges because she said she legitimately feared for her life.

Deputy Beck explains that it was a traffic stop and he asked the victim, Jesse Carr (Jacob Leinbach) to get out. When he was getting out the car Jesse reached for his gun and had his hand on it. Beck says he grabbed the gun and shot him four times. He also adds that Carr had marijuana in the vehicle but it was found afterwards. Don’t they always?

They were racially profiling him because he was white and in a black neighborhood which, according the deputy, means trouble. Beck shuts down and asks for the union rep when Preston questions the profiling.

Outside, Ashe tells Preston his interview style was a rookie move and going forward he should let her do the interviews. At the crime scene Preston and Ashe talk to witnesses and it is all fun and games with the citizens who can’t believe they are cops. One kid named Clay (Marqus Clae) tells them that no one has answers because they aren’t asking the right questions. Two cop cars pull up at the end of the street and the witnesses run off.

Ashe and Preston go to talk to the victim’s mom, Alicia Carr (Jill Hennessy) and she is reasonably angry. She says her son didn’t do drugs and would never pull a gun on anyone…he was a great kid. She is ironing a shirt she said he would never wear, but she had to go buy it because he only owned t-shirts. Preston express sympathy for her loss, but she says her son was not lost he was murdered.

The scene goes to the home of Deputy Beck and an activist, Pastor Jenae James (Aisha Hinds) is there speaking to him and his wife Kerry (Clare-Hope Ashitey) about attending a meeting at her church where he can give his side of the story.

The governor holds a press conference and she gives the typical statements as she introduces Preston. The reporters in return are asking the typical questions after a racially charged shooting. Pastor Jenae wants to know why they sent black prosecutors to investigate the shooting when black men are being killed by white cops and nothing is ever done.

Preston gives a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (esque) speech and admits that the cavalry has come in because it was a black cop killing a white guy but he is there for justice. He sees the race issue but he is there to seek the truth and ensure justice is served.

The governor’s aide comes over to let Preston know he just made her life hell with his speech.

Ashe and Preston are at the bar and she lets him know she was surprised by his speech. He tells her she doesn’t know him well enough to be surprised. She also tells him she thought he was gay too. Preston says Michelle Obama is his type after Ashe says she is every man’s type. They agree to get along and began to talk about her shooting story.

Ashes then asked him if he believed half of what he said in his speech and he said “half” as he left the table.

Preston goes back to the neighborhood to look for Clay. Clay tells him to go look for a camera in front of some lady’s house and says the house number is 308. He then leads Preston to the house and rides off on his bike. When Preston gets out of the car he is jumped by two guys.

The following day when Ashe learns Preston went looking for Clay she is pissed off and tells him to stop doing her job. She decides to go back to the house and talk to the woman who lives there.

Her name is Shameeka Campbell (DeWanda Wise). She lets them in when they say they are with the DOJ. Shameeka is enamored with Preston but when Ashe goes full throttle she shuts down. Ashe changes her tone and asks about her son. It turns out her son was killed and nothing was ever done. However, the police came in threatening her with charges after they allegedly found marijuana in his room. They also told her if she doesn’t be careful they will have her kids taken from her. People in the neighborhood told her the police were involved with her son’s death.

Preston and Ashe are now at odds about what they should do with the information. Ashe shows up at the police department later that evening and asks some of the officers where is choir practice. They end up at a bar having drinks. It’s all laughs until she starts asking questions. They turn the tables and ask her about her officer involved shooting and how is it she killed an unarmed teen and still has a job. Ashe asks about the neighborhood where the shooting took place. Suddenly a process server walks up and serves her with custody papers.

In her car Ashe is pleading with Javier not to seek sole custody, saying her daughter is the only thing in her life that makes sense, but he says he has to do what he thinks is best for their daughter.

Preston and Ashe meet with Preston’s brother Maceo (Shamier Anderson) who is a professional baseball player, and he wants to get some get back for Preston getting jumped. He and Ashe flirt a few minutes and then Preston and the brother go at each other about who is really fighting for the cause of black folks. He tells his brother making tweets to his one million followers on social media isn’t quite social consciousness. Preston decides to leave but Ashe says she’s staying to eat her $50 steak.

Preston shows up at the hotel room of the governor’s aide with a bottle of wine. She has buyer’s remorse afterwards when a video of Deputy Beck surfaces where he makes inflammatory comments about becoming a cop to shoot white people.

Ashe is flirting with the brother and he tells her if he smashes it he won’t respect her in the morning. She says she isn’t looking for respect, to which he replies that he thinks he is catching feelings for her. Ashe tells him he is acting like a bitch, something you probably don’t want to say to man, especially a black one. Maceo then feels the need to prove his manhood and they get busy in the back of his limo.

Deputy Beck’s superior, Sheriff Platt (Will Patton), shows up at his house to discuss the video. He wants to keep him on administrative duty until after the DOJ leaves. He tells him he is a distraction and under no circumstance is he to talk to the media, and do not talk with the investigators alone. He wants Beck to follow department protocol for these type of events.

At the hotel Ashe runs into Preston leaving the aides room and they discuss the case briefly. She asks if she can ask a legal question since he’s a lawyer. The question is regarding custody and he tells her that the father would need to prove the mother was unfit or a danger to the child. Before heading to his room Preston tells her that last night didn’t mean anything for him (referring to Maceo), and she replies that it didn’t mean anything to her either. Shaking my damn head.

It’s the day of the rally at Pastor Jenae’s church. She calls up Shameeka Campbell and then Alicia Carr and tries to unite the community to demand justice for both of their sons, regardless of race. The mothers embrace and the audience begins to applaud.

Ashe gets a call and it is from Carroll letting them know he got a call from the governor.

The show ends with Preston in a batting cage, Ashe in her room pinning pictures to a wall, Deputy Beck looking at the obituary for Joey Campbell (Kelvin Harrison Jr.); and Clay being chased by several cars while on his bicycle. He jumps off the bicycle and starts running on foot, the guys get out of the cars and chase him, but he crawls under a house and the show ends. It is worth mentioning that these look to be the same guys who jumped Preston earlier in the show.

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Love & Blessings,

Tracy

Tracy L. Darity is the author of three novels, He Loves Me He Loves Me Not!, Love...Like Snow in Florida on a Hot Summer Day, and The Red Bear Society. Available in print and e-book. To learn more, visit www.TracyLDarity.com or Amazon.com