Whilst there’s certainly nothing wrong with the prestige approach to television and treating an entire season as an extended film, essentially, Good Cop/Bad Cop is a welcome example of the type of throwback, one-hour sittings of pure entertainment, riding off the benefits of a snappy ensemble, familiar rhythms and lived-in characters.
Set for release locally on Stan. and on The CW in the United States, Good Cop/Bad Cop – which comes courtesy of John Quaintance, who cut his teeth on the Friends spin-off Joey, before finding his feet more considerably on the revamped Will & Grace – has a quirky sense of humour that brings to mind Schitt’s Creek and Northern Exposure, playing like part workplace comedy and part dysfunctional couple-led mystery.
The “couple” at the core happens to be a sibling duo, the largely estranged Lou Hickman (Leighton Meester) and her straight-laced brother, Henry (Luke Cook, an absolute standout), who over the course of the show’s episodic nature swap mentalities pertaining to its title. Lou is one of the lead detectives of her small town, Eden Vale, and, at the behest of her chief-of-police father (Clancy Brown), she’s thrust to solve the show’s weekly cases with Henry, a neurodivergent coded savant type who’s equally as disappointed in having to share detective status with his far more personable sister.
As it enjoys referencing such classic crime films as Point Break and Heat across earlier episodes, and citing Twin Peaks and Moonlighting as two of its heaviest influences, Good Cop/Bad Cop, as much as it never breaks the formula, manages to form its own personality in spite of such outside sway. And even with its Australian setting (filming wise, at least, with this yet another production citing Queensland as its studio ground) and familiar guest spots (Boy Swallows Universe breakout Felix Cameron, soap staples Lincoln Lewis and Debra Lawrence, and the likes of Nathan Phillips and Talk To Me‘s Chris Alosio are just some of the names on the guest roster), the show feels positively international, thanks to, above all, its distinct humour.
Whilst it does have a murder-of-the-week temperament, there’s still an overall arc to Good Cop/Bad Cop‘s structure, something that keeps it both easily digestible in bites and savoury as a meal of bigger portions. It isn’t pretending to be anything other than sincerely soft material, but Meester and Cook never play it anything other than genuine, and it’s their commitment that continually elevates the show above the standard formation it adheres to. It balances its own Hickman family drama with some sweet romantic subplots, but, overall, it keeps entertainment value as its core value, with the back-and-forth bickering between the sweet, high-wattage of Meester and the proper, socially awkward charm of Cook the show’s most valuable asset.
THREE AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Good Cop/Bad Cop is available to stream on Stan. in Australia from February 20th, 2025. It will be available in the United States on The CW from February 19th, 2025.
