East New York Season 1 Episode 16 Review: Personal Shopper

Regina’s all about helping young girls make good decisions. That’s why she’s coaching the track team.

But on East New York Season 1 Episode 16, the people she works with kept making horrible choices.

Suarez’s naivety was astounding, and Killian’s decision to take $10,000 from a guy who is almost certainly a mob boss wasn’t much better. Get it together, guys!

Does Suarez have selective amnesia? This is the second time Allison-related press has screwed him over in as many weeks!

After Allison posted an out-of-context video of Suarez confronting allegedly lazy officers on a street corner, Suarez was furious. Yet he allowed her to do the same thing again by agreeing to sit for a press interview she had arranged.

While he was careful during the interview to give Regina credit for the foot patrol program, it never occurred to him that the media outlet could edit that part out.

Yenko: There are some people who would take credit for others’ work, but I’m surprised he [Suarez] is one of them.
Regina: Maybe it’s time we stopped being surprised.

Now it looks like he took credit for Regina’s work, which doesn’t sit well with either Regina or Yenko. Regina’s put up with a lot from Suarez, but this is probably the last straw for her.

Technically, this isn’t Suarez’s fault. But he ought to have foresight he didn’t have. And the reason is obvious: he was thinking with the wrong head.

What happened to the guy who told Allison on East New York Season 1 Episode 16 that it wasn’t a good idea for them to get involved? And even if he’d reversed that decision, why did he need to go to bed with her two minutes after deciding to date her?

He knows that Allison will do anything to get ahead. And now that interviewer made it appear Suarez will too.

Even before the interview incident, Suarez’s attitude was disturbing.

He wanted Regina to focus on stopping the robberies at the high-end stores because the smash-and-grabs spooked the rich people who shopped there. According to him, those people had influence over the cops.

If that’s true, it needs to change ASAP. The police should be there to keep local neighborhoods safe, not prioritize crime against wealthy (and often white) people as more important than that against poor people of color.

Why weren’t local police involved in this investigation? The crew operated out of East New York, but the crimes occurred in Manhattan. The precinct where they occurred should have taken the lead and asked Regina for help instead of dumping the case in her lap.

Since Regina had to devote resources to this, there were fewer cops available to deal with crime in the neighborhood the 7-4 is supposed to be responsible for. That kind of favoritism toward the wealthy contradicts everything Regina stands for!

I hope she lets Suarez have it about how he’s undermining her mission!

The case itself was interesting, mainly because it involved Georgia and Tonya.

Yenko: You are a material witness. That means we can detain you if we want.
Tonya: I don’t buy that when I hear it from Ice-T on Law & Order and I don’t buy it from you either.

The purpose of the track program was to keep at-risk girls out of trouble by giving them something productive to focus on instead. Unfortunately, Tonya fell in with the wrong crowd, so her athletic activities did nothing for her.

She did a good job of acting tough, but she was still a scared teenager underneath, hanging with Bianca because she was scared of standing up to her.

If this story cemented one thing, it was that Tonya and Georgia are fiercely loyal to one another. Georgia took it upon herself to act like a CI so Tonya couldn’t be forced into a dangerous mission, and Tonya gave up her resistance to helping the cops to keep Georgia safe.

Georgia did well on the CI mission. She stayed calm even when Bianca forced her to take off the jacket containing the bug.

In some ways, she did better than many adult CIs on other cop dramas. Could Georgia have a law enforcement career in her future?

Meanwhile, Killian also appeared to have left his brains at the office.

Bobby Azeroff gave off mob boss vibes from the first second we saw him. His insistence on Killian accompanying him to Dubai — and the large amount of cash he paid him — only convinces me I’m right.

Why doesn’t Killian pick up on it? Or is he so desperate to bail out Corinne and get her back in his good graces that he’s not paying attention to the super-sketchy vibes around his new boss’ behavior?

Corinne thought this was super sus, so what’s wrong with Killian?

And all that money doesn’t solve the problem of Killian having another job, either. This is NOT going to end well.

I don’t know what to make of Brandy’s mother. Does anyone else hope Ann-Marie stays in New Jersey for a while?

She and Brandy kept butting heads because Brandy couldn’t trust her to stay sober. Ann-Marie, for her part, was trying far too hard and crossed the line between helpful and controlling a LONG time ago.

Brandy didn’t like Ann-Marie’s impulsive behavior when it came to Duke. She had her reasons, but still.

The chances are that he’ll turn out to be a predator. The guy showed up out of nowhere, and Ann-Marie ran off with him, so would anyone be surprised if he has a serious dark side that Ann Marie knows nothing about?

That said, Brandy needs to let Ann-Marie make her own decisions. Running to New Jersey to help a guy she barely knows may be impulsive, but that’s Ann-Marie’s choice. And at least she’ll stop annoying Brandy about Brandy’s love life while she’s out of town!

Finally, what was up with that couple Sandeford and Bentley stopped from fighting with each other?

They passed Brandy by near the end of the hour, arm in arm. But will there be more to the story than that? These two are taking up too much airtime to have only a minor role to play.

I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them turns up dead soon and the other is accused of their murder.

What do you think, East New York fanatics? Will that strange couple be back? Was Brandy too hard on her mom? And who was stupider: Suarez or Killian?

Hit the big, blue SHOW COMMENTS button and let us know.

Don’t forget you can watch East New York online whenever you’d like.

East New York airs on CBS on Sundays at 9 PM EST / PST.

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Jack Ori is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. His debut young adult novel, Reinventing Hannah, is available on Amazon. Follow him on Twitter.

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