Opening Shot: \u201cFort Lauderdale.\u201d A man sits on the steps of a courthouse, looking at an Almond Joy.<\/p>\n
The Gist:\u00a0 A woman approaches the man, R.J. Decker (Scott Speedman) and asks him if he\u2019s going to eat the candy bar through the wrapper. This is when he goes into why he\u2019s there; he\u2019s on trial for assault; he\u2019s a photojournalist, and he hauled off and beat up a 20-year-old kid who was stealing his photo equipment from his car. But because the kid is a member of the influential Ochoa family, he knows he\u2019s going to prison, where Almond Joys won\u2019t be easy to get.<\/p>\n
The woman responds by going to his car where they have a quickie. Little does he know that her name is Emi Ochoa (Jaina Lee Ortiz) and she\u2019s about to testify against him.<\/p>\n
Two years later, Decker is out of prison and has started working as a private investigator, doing things like finding stolen dogs and using his camera to take pictures of cheating husbands. He lives in an RV that\u2019s teetering on the edge of a massive sinkhole in a strange trailer park. He often hangs out at the bar owned by his former cellmate, Aloysius \u201cWish\u201d Aiken (Kevin Rankin). He\u2019s still friends with his ex-wife Catherine Delacroix (Adelaide Clemens), who is now married to FLPD detective Mel Abreu (Bevin Bru), who is no fan of Deckler\u2019s.<\/p>\n
When a woman ends up being found strangled in the trunk of a stolen car, he\u2019s convinced it\u2019s the work of Clay Gregory (Hunter Burke), who was a person of interest in the death of his wife, a colleague of Decker\u2019s at the newspaper where he used to work, but was never convicted. However, he has a seemingly airtight alibi, and Decker isn\u2019t convinced he didn\u2019t have anything to do with it.<\/p>\n
Photo: John Merrick\/Disney<\/p>\n
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Created by Robert Doherty and based on the main character in Carl Hiassen\u2019s 1987 novel Double Whammy<\/a> (Hiassen is an EP), R.J. Decker is Bad Monkey<\/a> combined with Will Trent<\/a>.<\/p>\n Our Take: The first episode of R.J. Decker starts out bumpy, with a ton of exposition in the first scenes, and the whole idea that Emi Ochoa decides to have sex with Decker before testifying against him. But as we settle into Decker\u2019s post-prison life and his obsession with bringing Clay Gregory down, the show becomes a very watchable, character-driven detective series.<\/p>\n Yes, it leans on the \u201cFlorida is weird\u201d trope pretty hard. There\u2019s a scene, for instance, where Wish lets a big man drink for free because he proved he was the \u201cFlorida man\u201d in an article about a person who chewed through a pair of handcuffs. Then again, pretty much any show that\u2019s based on Hiassen\u2019s novels leans on that trope; what separates the better ones are if the characters are people we want to spend time with, and if the Weird Florida stuff doesn\u2019t dominate.<\/p>\n There definitely is a lot of plot manipulation going on in the first episode, like how Decker comes to live in Catherine and Mel\u2019s poolhouse, how Wish ended up owning a bar soon after being released from prison, and why Decker even went off on the kid stealing his equipment, landing him in prison to begin with. Somehow or another, Emi reenters his life, helping him with his case, and she\u2019ll likely stay around as an on-again\/off-again love interest. But even how that\u2019s explained felt awkward.<\/p>\n Performance Worth Watching: Scott Speedman embodies the charming mess that is R.J. Decker, and makes him very easy to root for. <\/p>\n Sex And Skin: Besides Emi and Decker steaming up the windows of Decker\u2019s vintage Jeep Wagoneer, there isn\u2019t any.<\/p>\n Parting Shot: As the Elvis Presley song \u201cFort Lauderdale Chamber Of Commerce\u201d plays, Emi throws Decker an Almond Joy bar, saying she owes him that from their first encounter.<\/p>\n Sleeper Star: Bevin Bru\u2019s Mel Abreu is going to be the cop that helps Decker out the most during his cases, and we wonder how many episodes it will take for her to stop rolling her eyes at the fact that he\u2019s an ex-con, still friends with Catherine, and uses some unorthodox investigative methods.<\/p>\n Most Pilot-y Line: \u201cTake it from someone who\u2019s actually been to prison; guys like who you\u2019re pretending to be don\u2019t do well,\u201d Decker says to a suspect who claims to be a serial killer. That line was unconvincing, given Decker\u2019s laid-back vibes. He certainly doesn\u2019t come off as a hardened ex-con.<\/p>\n Our Call: STREAM IT. Once the awkwardness of setting up R.J. Decker\u2018s puzzle pieces ends, we see the potential for it to be a fun, quirky case-of-the-week detective series that will concentrate on its characters\u2019 stories as much if not more than the weekly case.<\/p>\n Photo: Dana Hawley\/Disney<\/p>\n