The series about the LAPD is shot in New Orleans. (Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/USA Network)
If there’s one thing that cop shows have taught us, it’s that cops would sooner take a bullet than sit around exploring their feelings with each other.
Too bad for the men in blue in USA’s new series “Common Law.”
The series kicks off with hotshot LAPD robbery/homicide detectives Travis Marks (Michael Ealy, “Think Like a Man”) and Wes Mitchell (Warren Kole, “The Chicago Code”) being forced to attend couples therapy — as in, for married people — to work out their myriad issues, which happen to be both personal and with each other.
It’s the only way that the bickering detectives — who close cases like none of the others in their department can — are allowed to partner up again, after by-the-books Wes pulled his gun on free-spirit Travis during a case.
When not solving crimes, the guys buckle down and “pull back all those macho-cop man layers,” says series executive producer Dan Shotz. “[They] sit and squirm in therapy and say, ‘I care about you,’ and are forced to confront all that emotion and all those feelings that they’ve bottled up for so long.”
By the end of this season, you’ll definitely see progress in the relationship between the two cops, although their issues won’t be fully resolved — it’s not that easy.
“At a certain point in the show, the therapy becomes the Greek chorus,” Ealy notes. “As the episodes grow, so do the characters and their connection to therapy and the therapist.”
The therapy sessions also bring large chunks of levity to the proceedings, since those scenes “can get really awkward, which is great because it’s hilarious watching these guys get into that side of themselves and do it because they have to,” Kole says.
“We had trouble keeping straight faces and not just watching and being entertained while we went around bickering and working our stuff out.”
What prevents the series from becoming a funny version of “In Treatment,” is all the action.
When not actively engaging in traditional therapy tools like trust games, Wes and Travis run around Los Angeles — the series filmed in New Orleans as a stand-in for LA — catching bad guys in the usual buddy cop action-comedy way.
Think explosions, helicopter rides, foot chases, rooftop jumping — and a plethora of bullets flying everywhere.
The kind of buddy cop show that “Common Law” is going for is obvious the second you find out what Ealy’s approach to his character was.
“I can make this guy Axel McClane,” Ealy says, referencing a combination of his favorite movie cops, “Die Hard’s” John McClane (Bruce Willis) and “Beverly Hills Cop’s” Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy).
“Like ‘Die Hard’ and ‘Lethal Weapon,’ there comes a time when, all bulls–t aside, we’ve got to handle [a situation],” Ealy says. “And that’s usually when Wes and Travis are at their best — when the stakes are high and there’s no time to do anything but react.
“It’s when we’re sitting in our office and contemplating how the case is going or how life is going, that’s when we find all the room in the world to disagree.”
Despite all the button-pushing and mockery between them, you quickly see that Wes and Travis “only in-fight when it’s safe, when there’s no outside enemy,” Ealy points out, likening it to the way spouses may snipe at each other but present a united front to outsiders.
“I’ve got some friends that are like, ‘I can talk about my wife [like that], but you can’t. That’s my wife; show some respect.’ You’re like, ‘Whoa, OK,’ ” Ealy says, adding that that sums up the relationship between the two detectives.
In the end, “You root for them,” Shotz says. “The whole time, you want to see these guys together, you know that they make each other better cops better people and they need each other. They’re the best relationship they have.”
COMMON LAW
Friday, 10 p.m., USA