Humbby
The Netherlands
This review may contain spoilers
A prototype story meant to cause frustration through repetition before the final pay-off
Well, that was a rollercoaster ride!
Rookie Cops is a prime example of a show that has a structure that frustrates me throughout the entire story, and serves as a prototype for other shows that exhibit similar story telling.
Don’t get me wrong, the show was good, and I’ll talk about the good stuff in more detail later, but it was frustrating to watch nonetheless.
A story can be comprised of smaller stories, which serve as a purpose for character development or the incremental progress towards the main goal. This is exactly the route Rookie Cops decided to take. The students, still naïve, morally guided and always seeking justice, find themselves in various troubling situations, where not everything goes according to plan, if anything at all. During these various encounters with unlawful citizens they find out how awful some people can be and how difficult it can be to catch some of the criminals. Not only that, they also realise that their plans are full of gaps that can be exploited, and that good plans can also have negative consequences.
The extreme justice seeking behaviour, naivety, total disregard for possible dangers and the repetition of such behaviours is the way to get me frustrated. To be fair, I also am extremely concerned with justice, and I often disagree with how people are being punished or treated in relation to how the public perceives the perpetrator and their crimes. Justice, is not the rehabilitation of the criminal, justice has nothing to do with human rights, justice is when the people feel that the perpetrator in question is punished or treated in a way that is equally or more harsh than the crime they committed to the victim. Justice has nothing to do with preventing crime, it has to do with pleasing the population and gaining trust in the system, not with giving certain people second chances.
I find it important to make that clear, because it seems that people really do not understand why prisons exist or why people threw tomatoes at criminals, or paid to watch someone get decapitated in the past. There’s a reason why people lack faith in the judicial system, especially nowadays. While this show does not mention any of the punishments given to any of the criminals, the way they get captured is too light. Think about of Ottomans, who amputated hands from thieves in some severe cases. Compare this to today’s system, where any small injury of the criminal can cause an investigation or punishment to the cop, this is a bad system, and now wonder that so few people actually want to do such dangerous work while barely being able to defend themselves or carry out the work they have to do.
This is why I dislike justice seeking behaviour, because most of it, has nothing to do with justice, it’s punishing criminals, trying to cure them, while treating them with velvet hands. The naivety, disregard of danger and repetition of such behaviour should be clear enough of why it frustrates me.
Because of this, I cannot give the show a 10/10 even if the rest of it was perfect, which it wasn’t, but it was good.
I know that if there’s anything people dislike about the show, it’s the characters. I found the characters to be fine, the male lead is calm, somewhat difficult to read emotionally, but not boring. The female lead was amazing, she played her role really well in all situations. The side characters were interesting in their own way, but Ari and Woo Joo Young really lacked depth that Yoo Dae Il, Kim Tak or Ki Han Na had.
I don’t want to make this too long, so the final thing I want to say is that, the plot twist at the end of episode fifteen was glorious! They face on Jo Hansol when he saw they captured Go Eun Gang instead of their prostitute was so satisfying to watch! The soundtrack that played during that scene and during the credits was great too, written by the male lead of the show Kang Daniel. At that moment, Jo Hansol really didn’t know what to do anymore, he just didn’t have anywhere to go. Anything he’d do would just lead to his demise.
The final episode was somewhat disappointing, as I had hoped the capture of Jo Hansol had taken a different direction than it did, and not knowing what punishment he and the corrupt former officers faced after trial is wasted potential, as it’s a moment where you can really influence people’s feelings.
Rookie Cops is a prime example of a show that has a structure that frustrates me throughout the entire story, and serves as a prototype for other shows that exhibit similar story telling.
Don’t get me wrong, the show was good, and I’ll talk about the good stuff in more detail later, but it was frustrating to watch nonetheless.
A story can be comprised of smaller stories, which serve as a purpose for character development or the incremental progress towards the main goal. This is exactly the route Rookie Cops decided to take. The students, still naïve, morally guided and always seeking justice, find themselves in various troubling situations, where not everything goes according to plan, if anything at all. During these various encounters with unlawful citizens they find out how awful some people can be and how difficult it can be to catch some of the criminals. Not only that, they also realise that their plans are full of gaps that can be exploited, and that good plans can also have negative consequences.
The extreme justice seeking behaviour, naivety, total disregard for possible dangers and the repetition of such behaviours is the way to get me frustrated. To be fair, I also am extremely concerned with justice, and I often disagree with how people are being punished or treated in relation to how the public perceives the perpetrator and their crimes. Justice, is not the rehabilitation of the criminal, justice has nothing to do with human rights, justice is when the people feel that the perpetrator in question is punished or treated in a way that is equally or more harsh than the crime they committed to the victim. Justice has nothing to do with preventing crime, it has to do with pleasing the population and gaining trust in the system, not with giving certain people second chances.
I find it important to make that clear, because it seems that people really do not understand why prisons exist or why people threw tomatoes at criminals, or paid to watch someone get decapitated in the past. There’s a reason why people lack faith in the judicial system, especially nowadays. While this show does not mention any of the punishments given to any of the criminals, the way they get captured is too light. Think about of Ottomans, who amputated hands from thieves in some severe cases. Compare this to today’s system, where any small injury of the criminal can cause an investigation or punishment to the cop, this is a bad system, and now wonder that so few people actually want to do such dangerous work while barely being able to defend themselves or carry out the work they have to do.
This is why I dislike justice seeking behaviour, because most of it, has nothing to do with justice, it’s punishing criminals, trying to cure them, while treating them with velvet hands. The naivety, disregard of danger and repetition of such behaviour should be clear enough of why it frustrates me.
Because of this, I cannot give the show a 10/10 even if the rest of it was perfect, which it wasn’t, but it was good.
I know that if there’s anything people dislike about the show, it’s the characters. I found the characters to be fine, the male lead is calm, somewhat difficult to read emotionally, but not boring. The female lead was amazing, she played her role really well in all situations. The side characters were interesting in their own way, but Ari and Woo Joo Young really lacked depth that Yoo Dae Il, Kim Tak or Ki Han Na had.
I don’t want to make this too long, so the final thing I want to say is that, the plot twist at the end of episode fifteen was glorious! They face on Jo Hansol when he saw they captured Go Eun Gang instead of their prostitute was so satisfying to watch! The soundtrack that played during that scene and during the credits was great too, written by the male lead of the show Kang Daniel. At that moment, Jo Hansol really didn’t know what to do anymore, he just didn’t have anywhere to go. Anything he’d do would just lead to his demise.
The final episode was somewhat disappointing, as I had hoped the capture of Jo Hansol had taken a different direction than it did, and not knowing what punishment he and the corrupt former officers faced after trial is wasted potential, as it’s a moment where you can really influence people’s feelings.
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