Welcome to Law & Order: Casino Victims Unit, where Dennis Quaid is suitably squinty, frowny and be-cowboy-hatted as real-life former Vegas sheriff Ralph Lamb, a no-guff-takin' rancher who uses his fists to express his displeasure with Vegas's growth, and the effect it's having on his ranchin' and non-nonsense-talkin' business. His chief complaint right now is the ever-more-frequent planes landing right over his cattle trail, instead of coming in from the east as he was promised, and he brawls with some airport suits and winds up in the back of a police car, before being deputized by the law and order mayor Ted Bennett (the always reliably gruff Michael O'Neill) to find the murderer of the governor's daughter, what with the real sheriff being MIA.
Lamb's airport dustup is witnessed by one Vincent Savino, a Chicago mobster arriving to plant his own flag in town, and first order of business is find out why the newly opened Savoy is leaking money. There's a problem somewhere in the casino, and Savino's going to find it, with his eye for detail, like a dealer with a chip stashed under his watch and a vase of flowers that blocks the casino's security system. He also beats up a flunky who laid hands on a dealer without permission. The parallels being drawn of the two men being not-so-different -- they're going to clean up their respective worlds -- aren't exactly subtle.
The district attorney spits fire over the mayor's appointment of Lamb -- who enlists the aid of his brother Jack (Jason Mara, who might be relieved to not be running from dinosaurs in Terra Nova) and his son, who seems more capable of banging married women and getting shot at by angry husbands than police work. The ADA, and love interest, Katherine O'Connell (Carrie-Anne Moss), is less worried about it, mainly because she doesn't appear to be working for Savino and the mob like the DA is. The mayor's not just missing; he's hiding from the mob, which is under the impression that he's been spilling secrets to the Gaming Commission. The sheriff knows where the bodies are buried, and then he becomes one, after the DA sells him out, turning him over to Savino and his men, while hinting at a vision of a future Vegas with even more money lining criminal pockets.
Actually, scratch that -- The sheriff's not a buried body, because Savino and his guys just kill him and leave him in the desert. You'd think hiding the body and avoiding the attention a sheriff's murder would bring would be the smart thing to do, especially since Savino is so keen to protect his crooked interests, but we do need a dramatic way for Lamb to get promoted to Actual Sheriff instead of Deputy Who Just Signed Up To Get Air Traffic Routing Consideration.
So the long-term conflict is set up -- Lamb and Savino go chin-to-chin, scowl-wise, at the casino when Lamb tracks the murder to the head of the Savoy's credit department, where the victim worked. Savino doesn't want Lamb searching the place and accuses Lamb of trespassing in his "house," to which Lamb replies, "I am the law here, Mr. Savino, and I will decide who's breaking it."
The rest of the show is standard crime procedural, albeit one set in Vegas in 1960. The Lamb brothers ask a few key questions of a few key witnesses and listen to the words people don't say in the course of an investigation. The prime suspect at first is the victim's boyfriend, who was drunk and un-alibied and suspicious that his girlfriend was cheating on him. Lamb not only clears the guy -- the mayor has filled in Lamb's backstory as a Holmes-esque military policeman who impressed people with his solving of a series of murders in Naples, where he was stationed during the war -- but offers him a job on his ranch.
Also suspected: any of a bunch of Hell's Angels kicking up shit in Vegas, because a motorcycle tire track is found near the body. Lamb uses his Super Ranching Powers to organize a roundup, enlisting a bunch of good ol' boys in pickups, to herd the bikers up and throw 'em all in jail to stew. They are alibied because of a flower that grows a certain length of time after it rains (don't ask) but Lamb figures they saw something out there, and eventually the leader co-operates and is able to identify the murderer's car. Maybe the biker was impressed because Lamb, on a horse, ludicrously chased down the biker on his bike, zipping down the strip.
It seems that the credit manager at the Savoy was squeezing a bank worker to skim money from his employer to pay his gambling debts. The governor's daughter, who managed the high-roller accounts at the casino, found out about it, and the credit manager killed her. Lamb and his posse, manage to catch up with the guy just as he's about to fly out of Vegas for parts unknown. So the manager hops in his car and drives off. Lamb apparently tells his men, "Look, everyone but me is going to drive over here and cut him off on this lonely single-lane desert road, while I calmly walk down the road in the other direction. Then, when he turns around, you should all JUST STAY PARKED THERE, INSTEAD OF CHASING HIM, even when he turns around and starts driving back in the opposite direction straight at me. I will just calmly use my shotgun to shoot out his tires and obviously there's no chance that an out of control 1960s land yacht will hit me, so you can just hang back. It'll be more dramatic this way."
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Dramatic license aside, the show's not bad. It has promise. I'm generally in on shows with gangsters anyway, but Vegas fascinates me, and there's scads of potential in the time period too, with the city transitioning. The pilot drops hints of that potential -- at one point, Lamb, skulking around the back corridors of the Savoy, passes a bathroom with a "Whites Only" sign -- even if it serves up a fairly rote police procedural for the first episode. If, in a season or two, the show's still this formulaic (even accounting for the time and setting), that could be a problem.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. If nothing else, the show's setting will at least ensure there won't be any "Is this hotel pager friendly?" jokes. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel[at]gmail.com.
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