Shots Fired Finale Review

The conclusion to the first and only season of this series comes this week, with the tenth episode.


S1E10 "Hour 10: Last Dance"

The episode picks up right after Breeland getting shot. A large number of officers go to the houses, where they use excessive force. Without Breeland, it will be harder for Preston to win his case. His argument to the jury is compelling, regardless, and it works, with it leading to Beck's arrest. However, in the other case he is unable to convince the jury.

Preston is told it's time to be done in this town, but he isn't ready to be done. He goes to Breeland's storage unit, where he finds a recording. The scene becomes intense when Sheriff Platt arrives, but Ashe saves things when she arrives with a search warrant. Everything doesn't end up all wrapped up perfectly, but the final moments show progress being made in many ways, which is a fitting way to end the episode.


This episode succeeded where most episodes of Shots Fired failed, moving the story along enough in the hour, and in an interesting way. However, it was not without its issues. It was unbalanced in regards to Preston and Ashe. He drove almost all of the action this week. Also, the scenes having to do with the relationship between the two of them felt odd and, like the relationship, unnecessary.

Score: 8.5/10

What did you think of "Hour 10: Last Dance"? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Shots Fired S1E9 Review

Preston and Ashe don't have much time left, in the penultimate episode of Shots Fired.


S1E9 "Hour Nine: Come to Jesus"

After the video footage of when Jesse was shot is released, Officer Beck tells Preston and Ashe something important: that the volunteers who went on the tours didn't have the proper training, and carried their own firearms.

Ashe ends up successfully getting Sheriff Platt to confess to killing Joey. He shifts the blame to Breeland, saying that his intimidation kept him silent thus far, and that he framed Janae. This leads to Preston and Ashe getting to stay on the case.

Two other big things happen this week. Ashe doesn't get custody of her daughter, and is only allowed supervised visits. And, at the end of the episode, Platt gets shot, which provides the perfect twist for next week's season finale.


This was an enjoyable episode. It wasn't as slow-paced as some of the other episodes, and it provided some great moments with the case.

Score: 7.5/10

What did you think of "Hour Nine: Come to Jesus"? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Shots Fired S1E8 Review

This episode takes place after last week's surprising arrest.


S1E8 "Hour 8: Rock Bottom"

Ashe continues to go through her personal issues. There is a really emotional scene where she leaves her daughter a message. Sanaa Lathan is great in this scene. Finally, these issues have a major impact on the investigation, as she ends up beating up one of the police officers.

However, the story takes a turn after this that I don't support: Preston and Ashe have sex. Not much else really happens in this episode, even if we do get some strong scenes, such as a great one with the bonding of the two mothers.


This was a really slow-moving episode. There were a few good scenes in it, but the story element was weak.

Score: 4/10

What did you think of "Hour 8: Rock Bottom"? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Shots Fired S1E7 Review

Preston and Ashe are attempting to find the truth before a new team of investigators arrive.


S1E7 "Hour 7: Content of Their Character"

The opening scene of the episode shows the governor pardoning someone being arrested for vandalizing. Something interesting here is that the spray painted message is directed at her. However, this week she also has to defend her control of the riots last week to her daughter, who disagrees with what she did. But, she is able to make her daughter understand.

In order to find out more about Joey's murder, Preston borrows a large amount of money from his brother, which he gives to a journalist to use to bribe a witness. However, the information isn't able to reach Preston, as she ends up in a collision. Preston and Ashe go to talk to the witness, and they discover that her house is bugged.

Preston is really being bold this week, and is determined to find the answers. He promises to a crowd that he will figure out who killed Joey. They find a video showing the events when Jesse was killed, which strongly indicates that Beck was in the wrong. The episode ends with Janae getting arrested for the murder of Joey.

The case is heating up this week more than it has in the past, and I really enjoyed that. Still, I would like more, but this was good.

Score: 7.5/10

What did you think of "Hour 7: Content of Their Character"? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Shots Fired S1E6 Review

They don't want to be another Ferguson, but this week it's looking like that may happen.


S1E6 "Hour 6: The Fire This Time"

Preston and Ashe want to investigate the connection between Jesse and Joey, but the police department shows them that the connection they found, the strain of weed, is just because of who sold it to them. Due to the riots, Preston and Ashe are given one more week to work on the case, when a new team will replace them. I like this time crunch being put on them, because the series has lacked in urgency so far. Also, Preston has an interesting conversation about Abraham Lincoln, giving us another perspective. I like that the show does that.

Ashe heads home to see her daughter, but she gets mad when she discovers that this is a supervised visit. She goes to court, where she argues that she can balance her work and being a mother. She gives an emotional argument as to why her daughter needs her, which is a compelling moment. This doesn't seem to help her case, much so she resorts to getting her ex to have sex with her, and then blackmails him. This was a good story, though it felt so disconnected from the main story of the series.

As the protesting increases, the governor is conflicted about what to do. The protesting turns to rioting, and the police try to contain it. The show does a great job of showing the intensity of these riots, and it gives us a really emotional moment when Joey's brother damages a police car, and then is taken by the police, as his mother cries out "no!" She ends up blaming Preston for this, because he gave them the delusion that they could get justice. That is an interesting perspective, and I'm glad the show gave us that.


This week's episode was stronger than the last few weeks. A lot more happened, especially as the episode went on, and Ashe's personal story wasn't just a repeat of what we already know, though it did feel disconnected from the rest.

Score: 7/10

What did you think of "Hour 6: The Fire This Time"? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Shots Fired S1E5 Review

This week, Preston and Ashe look deeper into the police department.


S1E5 "Hour 5: Before the Storm"

Preston starts receiving pressure from the governor to focus on the case that he was initially supposed to be working. Ashe looks into a certain police officer, who transferred shortly after the Joey Campbell murder. Preston and Ashe discover that the police department runs tours through the black neighborhood, which surprises Preston, but not Ashe.

Ashe gets pulled over, where she is forced onto the ground, and then threatened. This is one of the stronger scenes of the episode, as it is well-acted and really sets out to show something. Now with a larger suspect list, the witness to Joey's shooting is able to identify the killer. This is finally something significant that has been accomplished in the show, a rarity it seems.

The two mothers go onto a show, but don't like the questions that they are asked, because they want it to be about their sons. In an emotional scene, Jesse's mother considers killing herself, but ends up deciding not to. Also, the pastor and the governor disagree about how to accomplish things, and the scene where the two of them talk is moderately entertaining.


While not as much was accomplished as I would have liked, there was some significant progress in the investigation, and this episode had some strong scenes, such as the suicide attempt one, the discussion between the pastor and the governor, and when Ashe is pulled over.

Score: 5.5/10

What did you think of "Hour 5: Before the Storm"? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Shots Fired S1E4 Review

The case continues to slowly progress this week.


S1E4 "Hour Four: Truth"

The sheriff decides to show Preston how nervous policing people that don't like you is. Preston and Ashe re-enact the shooting, but I really don't see how this is necessary. Later, they do make some actual discoveries. They discover that the same person was the first to respond to both shootings, and they discover that both kids had the same strain of weed. This episode was actually somewhat decent in progress on the case, and I hope that this indicates the direction it is going. This week also had some sexual tension between Preston and Ashe, which is a development I do not like at all.

Officer Joshua Beck (the one that shot the kid) is awoken in the middle of the night by the security alarm in his house. He finds his son staring at the words "killer cop" painted on the side of his house. This just drives in the point about everyone being against him, and makes me realize how similar his situation is to the first season of Secrets & Lies, where everyone believed that Ryan Phillipe's character was a killer. Except, instead of interesting advancements each week like in Secrets & Lies, his story is pretty much the same each week so far.

The governor decides to give kids in the black neighborhood where the school is being shut down an option as to where to go to school. However, when she is asked some questions, she struggles, specifically when she is asked that, if she isn't concerned with safety, why she doesn't send her daughter to the other school. It seems that this show wants to talk about both the relationship between police and citizens and about race and class, but it feels like these two things that the show wants to talk about are quite disconnected, and this week really showed that.


The case made a decent amount of progress this week, though I would definitely like to see more progress per week. The governor's part of the episode was fairly enjoyable, while I disliked the Preston and Ashe sexual tension and the whole "killer cop" thing.

Score: 4.5/10

What did you think of "Hour Four: Truth"? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Shots Fired S1E3 Review

The investigation didn't make much progress in week two, but I hoped that week three could change that.


S1E3 "Hour Three: Somebody's Son"

In their investigation, Preston and Ashe look into the white kid's drinking, after they discover that he had alcohol in his system when he was shot, and he had once gone to rehab, though the mother denies that he had a problem. Preston goes to the fraternity that the kid was in, and discovers some racism that exists there

Ashe continued to struggle with her personal life, trying to schedule a call with her daughter. This was nothing very new, and the scene where she is called by her daughter and she gets mad at her ends up making me like Ashe less, which is really bad for a main character of the show. I want to like her, but this scene makes that difficult.

In other stories this week, the cop and his wife struggled with the negative attention on them, and the pastor gets the governor to visit the mother of the black kid who was shot. The former story is the definition of nothing new, as we already know all about this, and the latter was hardly any of the episode.


The slowness of the investigation really got to me this week, because not only was it slower than last week, but little else was accomplished outside of the investigation, and little of it was interesting.

Score: 3.5/10

What did you think of "Hour Three: Somebody's Son"? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Shots Fired S1E2 Review

Last week's pilot introduced us to the case that will be dealt with and thoroughly introduced us to the main characters of Preston Terry and Ashe Akino.


S1E2 "Hour Two: Betrayal of Trust"

At the start of the episode, the police officer who shot the kid is approached by the kid's father, who has a gun. But, he talks him down by telling him that if he shoots him he will never know the truth. That seemed pretty unrealistic to me. If he is at the point that he is willing to kill this officer, would he seriously listen to that reasoning?

The governor talks to Preston, and she is starting to look shady when she is wondering why the officer hasn't been arrested yet, and is impatient regarding the investigation. Preston and Ashe try to figure out who leaked the video of the officer's racist remarks to figure out who wants him to look guilty.

Preston goes to an event that the governor invites him to, and his father is supposed to join him, but doesn't when he decides he needs to help out his brother after a bad game. Meanwhile, the pastor that we were introduced to last week is met by another pastor she knew before, who was not very supportive of her, It is a great moment when she steals the attention by leading a powerful prayer.

Preston meets his father, who is disappointed in his life choices, because he supposedly had the potential to go to the World Series. I am very glad that we are getting some complications in Preston's life this week, as we got a lot of that with Ashe last week. And, luckily, their issues are very different from each other.

Ashe tells Preston that they have to trust each other, and that they need to investigate the cases of both kids that were shot. They do some investigating, which they haven't done much of earlier in the episode. They don't  end up finding out much.


Very little happened in the case this week, which makes it seem like the show doesn't know how to extend that story over the course of ten episodes. However, the scenes relating to Preston's life and the scenes with the pastor were great.

Score: 7.5/10

What did you think of "Hour Two: Betrayal of Trust"? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Shots Fired Series Premiere Review

FOX's latest new drama deals with the topic of police shootings, and I have been excited to watch it since the trailer was released because the show seemed to have a real intensity to it. Now, months later, it's time for me to see if the show can live up to my expectations for it.


S1E1 "Hour One: Pilot"

The show wastes no time in giving us its premise: a black cop shoots a white kid. As one would expect, the cop is very nervous after shooting the kid. Then, we are introduced to the people on this case, who are quite different. One, Preston Terry, is very calm, while the other, Ashe Akino, has a messy personal life. The team talks to the officer to hear his story, and Akino gets him to open up, but as soon as Terry accuses him of profiling, he shuts down. The tension between these two escalates quickly, but this tension is fairly typical.

The team visits the neighborhood where the shooting happened, but get nowhere with their questions. A press conference is held, and the speech that Terry gives captivates everyone watching, a bit too much so, to the point where it seems somewhat ridiculous. Terry and Akino talk, and in this scene it seemed their tension from earlier has magically vanished. Terry attempts to find out what the "right questions" to ask are, and the responses he gets from the person he asks seem unnecessarily vague, just for suspense. However, he never gets to find out anything, because he gets beaten up.

The next day, the team discovers what they were supposed to find out, that there was a shooting of a black kid that was never investigated. Akino thinks that this is important, but Terry wants to focus on their case. Akino's story is followed next, which I am glad about because I think she is more interesting than Terry. She discovers that her daughter may be getting taken away from her.

The show chooses not to be light on backstory, which is a decision I like, as we, and Akino, get to see Terry interact with his brother. However, a decision I do not like is having Akino get involved with Terry's brother, because this makes us wait even longer for anything more regarding the case. In the morning, we finally get a development, as a video is released of the officer making racist comments.

Terry and Akino visit a church service, where the mothers of both kids that were shot by police officers are brought to the front and given love. The end of the episode sends the show's tone of fear from people that are chasing you, as a kid runs from people in a car. This ending clearly sends the tone that the show want to communicate, but it hasn't done much of it this week, except in the scene where Terry and Akino first visited the neighborhood where the shooting occurred.


This pilot did some things very well, such as really introducing us to the two characters of Preston Terry and Ashe Akino. They definitely are characters that I want to spend the next nine weeks with, which is good. Not quite as much happened with the case as I would have wanted, but it wasn't too bad in that regard.

Score: 8.5/10

What did you think of "Hour One: Pilot"? Leave your thoughts in the comments!