King & Maxwell - Pilot

Based on the series of novels by David Baldacci, TNT's latest procedural drama stars Jon Tenney and Rebecca Romijn as a pair of former Secret Service agents turned bickering Washington D.C. private detectives. After a ridiculous bit of nonsense involving the pair chasing a blackmailer dressed as a beaver through the city, the "Pilot" episode begins with the murder of an old friend of King's (Tenney) who was working as the attorney for alleged serial killer Edgar Roy (Ryan Hurst) at the time of his death.

Needing answers about the murder of his friend, and neding insight to the unexplained heightened interest of FBI Agent Frank Rigsby (Michael O'Keefe), leads King and Maxwell to talk with the victim's longtime secretary (Maria Ricossa) and new assistant (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), get stonewalled by the uncooperative client and his sister (Elizabeth Marvel) who is sure her brother is innocent, get shot at by persons unknown, an uncover a mysterious cipher scrawled on the murder victim's wall.


Further digging into the case connects the Assistant Director of Homeland Security (Nancy Palk), a tight-lipped defense contractor (Brad Borbridge), a top secret government project, and a multi-billion dollar defense contract all to the case. With the help of the escaped, and obviously framed, killer the pair of detectives solve the case and catch the lawyer's killer and clear his name.

The plot of the "Pilot" is way too convoluted with ridiculously high stakes (the Assistant Director of Homeland Security? really?) which I'm hoping gets toned down over the next few episodes. Although I like both Tenney and Romijn, the show spends too much time trying to make their characters appear cool and too little on actually developing them. Rigsby's one-note disapproving character doesn't add much to the proceedings and if the character is going to stick around I'm hoping the show tries to make him more than just an impediment to their work. I never expect too much from Pilot episodes, and there's enough here for me to give the show one or two more episodes to find itself but not enough to stick around for a full season if the show's writing doesn't improve and its stars don't find a way to make their roles feel like actual characters rather than stiff mouthpieces for the episode's dialogue.