"The Red Line": Gay, Black, Muslim, Asian, Non-Binary, Boring

During a hard night of saving lives in the ER, young, attractive doctor Harrison Brennan (Corey Reynolds) chats with his husband and daughter back home.  Later he stops into a convenience store for a gallon of milk.  A robber bursts in, assaults the clerk, takes money, and leaves.  Harrison rushes to perform first aid.  Then Officer Paul Evans (Noel Fischer) bursts in and shoots him in the back.

Did I forget to mention that Harrison is a young black man wearing a hoodie?

The police are 30 times more likely to kill an unarmed black man than an unarmed white man.  Stereotypes associating "black" with "danger" and "threat" make them likely to shoot in situations that would seem perfectly innocent if the person was white.

The Red Line (2019), on CBS and Vudu, explores the impact of the shooting on "three families".  Actually four interconnected groups.

Harrison's family and friends:
1. Husband Daniel (Noah Wyle, left), a high school history teacher, who is still hearing "How are you holding up?" six months later.  When Paul is exonerated for the shooting, he files a civil suit.

2. Jira (Aliyah Royale), their daughter, who has to hear "I understand what you're going through" from well-meaning white people.   Suddenly saddled with just one father, and a white guy at that, she starts searching for her birth mother.















3. Liam (Vinny Chhibber), their friend and Jira's teacher.  Who, by the way, is the first South Asian, Muslim, gay character on network tv.  .












Jira has two friends of her own:

1.Riley, who is non-binary (played by non-binary trans-masculine actor JJ Hawkins, left).  There are so few non-binary characters on tv that you'd think they would get some showcasing, but they don't do much besides say "I'm here for you."

2. Matthew (Rammel Chan), who doesn't do much.  But the actor is very interesting, a science fiction writer and improv artist.  I'm following him on twitter.

Jira's birth mother:
1. Tia, who s running for alderman (city council) on a "stop shooting black people" platform.  Her campaign gets complicated once word gets out that her biological daughter is associated with the "shooting while giving first aid" case.
2. husband Ethan (Howard Charles).

Remember Officer Paul?
He's affected by the shooting, too.  He has to wear a disguise due to protests, and he had to move, but he's exonerated by his superiors, and his coworkers praise him: "You did your duty!"  He is never actually shown feeling guilty over the shooting, or even regretting it; he believes that he acted appropriately under the circumstances.  His unconscious racism is never addressed, at least in the two episodes I watched.

His famly and friends include:
1. Work partner Vic (Elizabeth Laidlaw).

2. New partner Diego (Sebastian Sozzi, left), who tries to tone down his "all black people are violent" hand-on-gun-during-traffic-stops aggressiveness.

3. Brother Jim (Michael Patrick Thornton), a former cop who is in a wheelchair, and has "got your back."  The actor is paralyzed, but uses a walker.

Other than the aggressive diversity of the cast, there's not much to see here. People making pronouncements and feeling things, talking points writ large.

Manking the victim a saint was stacking the deck a bit.  All black lives matter, not just the ones made palatable to white folk.