Dick Wolf’s Prime Video procedural On Call condenses a classic format into an ideal streaming binge, delivering eight trim episodes of policework knitted together by an overarching storyline involving the murder of a patrol officer and the messy gang war that spirals out from it. I’ve recapped every episode here and broken down the ending of the series for good measure.
Episode 1, “Pilot”
On Call’s knuckle-whitening pilot episode opens with the murder of Officer Maria Delgado, which serves as the catalyzing dramatic incident for the series. This half-hour opener introduces all of the key elements effortlessly. Delgado’s shooting is sudden, violent, and oddly sad, as she expires alone on the street. Her shooters are identified as East Barrio clique-affiliated Eddie Watson, whose street name is literally “Maniac”, and Juan Cortez.
Delgado was one of Traci Harmon’s trainees, and Harmon’s taking her death hard enough that she’s using her training of Alex Diaz to conduct a low-key investigation into the shooting. The LBPD are out for revenge but have to play by the book; Harmon and Diaz stop for coffee in a known Barrio hang-out, and when they arrest a man for domestically abusing his mother, Harmon shows him a mugshot of Maniac and asks if he recognizes him (she also threatens him, which is caught on Diaz’s body cam. This will matter later.)
The pilot of On Call does a phenomenal job of getting us into the headspace of these characters and giving a sense of how chaotic an average evening can be. The episode ends with a high-speed chase, in vehicles and on foot, as Harmon and Diaz pursue a suspect affiliated with the East Barrio clique. Diaz tries to turn in his “get out of jail free” card that Harmon gave him earlier, but she tells him to hang onto it since he’ll likely need it later.
I think she might be right.
Episode 2, “Laws of the Universe”
“Laws of the Universe” has a very prominent theme of clashing methods and mentalities in the LBPD. It’s highlighted immediately when Harmon and Diaz respond to a street party with cars doing donuts and fireworks being shot all over the place. Their instructions are to simply sit back and observe rather than cause trouble.
An officer is assaulted nearby and the officers have to proceed on foot because of the crowd. Diaz detains the suspect but catches an elbow to the eye and the perp escapes. Officer Lasman encourages Diaz to give chase; Harmon stops him. These two embody the opposing viewpoints, which are causing conflict within the department. Lasman believes in an eye for an eye, and calls it the episode’s title, “Laws of the Universe” – order versus chaos; getting hit and hitting back.
A severed head and hand are found in a homeless camp which turn out to belong to Juan Cortez, one of the suspects in Delgado’s murder. The East Barrio clique seems to be executing their own, and Harmon’s assumption is that it’s in response to the unplanned killing of an officer. This is supported by the testimony of a drug runner picked up by Harmon’s old training officer, Koyama, who tells Diaz that the East Barrios seem to have disappeared like ghosts.
Diaz’s end-of-lesson test comes when he gets into a verbal altercation with a gang member that almost escalates, while Lasman and Harmon both watch on. He antagonizes the guy but ultimately shows restraint. At the end of the episode, we learn that Diaz’s brother is doing time for armed robbery. Lasman also asks him about the body cam footage of Harmon threatening that DV suspect. Diaz looks conflicted, as well he might.
Episode 3, “South of Heaven”
Harmon’s reputation precedes her in Episode 3 of On Call, leading to poor decision-making from Diaz. When the two of them respond to a robbery call-out after a suspect holds up a 7/11 with a hatchet, Diaz loses his gun in the ensuing chase and Holt, who recovers it, tells him to leave it out of his report. Apparently, Harmon can’t be trusted and got several cops fired for “doing their jobs”, including Lasman’s partner.
When Diaz brings this up in vague terms, she responds badly. But it sits with Diaz. During another call-out to the home of a white couple whose Latino home invader turns out to be a BDSM rent boy the husband hired, Diaz hesitates while pursuing the suspect, and Harmon notices. Koyama also calls with a job offer for her – he wants her on his drugs team instead of languishing in patrol. He also has it on good authority that Delgado’s shooter is in Mexico.
Harmon has a working relationship with an old-school, highly connected East Barrio gangster named Smokey, whose insistence on Harmon not going after Maniac, who is apparently the son of a big-time shot-caller, proves that he’s not in Mexico after all. The killing and dismembering of Cortez was a kind of peace offering, showing the gang wasn’t happy about Delgado’s murder.
The episode ends back at the homeless camp we’ve visited before (make note of the mention of “The Sheriff”.) Lasman tells Harmon that the department is being sued because officers pulled back from the street party based on Harmon’s framing of it, leading to the mob smashing up a local business. Holt also gets stabbed in the neck by a dirty syringe, which shakes Diaz up.
Episode 4, “Unsung”
Following on from the end of the previous episode, Holt doesn’t have HIV, which is a mercy, but his head is messed up. Harmon also reveals that she has a sister whose police career was derailed after a high-speed chase that went bad. She clearly hasn’t been okay since.
Harmon and Diaz respond to a domestic disturbance – a guy named Creeper is being violent to a sex worker named Liana. Creeper’s violating his parole and doesn’t want to go back to prison, so he tells Harmon about overhearing some East Barrios saying they were sitting on a big package. Liana also gets Harmon another lead – one of her friends had been partying with the East Barrios, and Maniac was there. They’re planning another party at the Oceanside motel.
Harmon goes off-books to confirm that Maniac is on-site before calling in backup, but eventually, the cavalry arrives. In the first large action set-piece of the series, the police storm the motel room and take shots from the adjacent one. For the first time, Harmon discharges her weapon, killing one of the suspects. She chases Maniac and gets jumped. Her body cam is dashed away in the scuffle, so when she manages to hold Maniac at gunpoint, she has the opportunity to kill him. However, she doesn’t.
After, Harmon is visibly shaken, but feels she did right by Delgado while maintaining her own principles.
Episode 5, “Not Your Savior”
The job is taking a toll in Episode 5 of On Call. Diaz’s girlfriend has left him due to the long hours. Since Harmon is divorced, I thought there might be a little romantic connection burgeoning here, but it isn’t returned to.
We get a more personal look at Diaz here when he responds to a call from his mother, who hates cops – and is deeply impolite to Harmon – because of what happened to Diaz’s brother, Gabriel. Gabriel now has a hit out on him because Diaz helped to take down Maniac.
This episode has the creepiest call-out by far – an attempted exorcism of a little girl by her own father. You know never know where these things are going to go, do you? We’re pulled away, though, when Harmon is informed – I think by her ex-husband? – that he has found her sister after seeing her name on a call. She’s a drug addict.
Diaz also gets a call from Gabriel, who tries to downplay his predicament. He wants to go back to Smokey for help protecting him, but Harmon thinks it would be a bad idea. Their argument about this is interrupted by a couple having a disagreement at a gas station. The man douses himself in petrol and threatens to set himself alight, and while Diaz seems to talk him down, he goes through with it anyway.
Since they’re getting closer, Harmon clears up the rumors about her. Lasman’s partner was too rough with a suspect, she pulled him off, and he shoved her. He was fired for it and Lasman was overlooked for promotion, but Harmon never even filed a complaint. But since Internal Affairs sealed the case, nobody knows that.
Episode 6, “L.A. Woman”
In a heartbreaking opening scene, a boy racer knocks down a dog. It’s badly hurt and animal control is backed up, so the kindest thing to do is euthanize the good boy. Harmon understandably can’t do it, so Lasman does instead.
Progressing the plot with Gabriel, Diaz learns he has been jumped, so Harmon takes him to see Smokey. It becomes clear that Smokey is going after Diaz to torment Harmon for taking down Maniac against his advice.
The big call-out of the episode is a triple overdose in a very swanky house, which hits close to home for Harmon because of her sister, Jen. In the aftermath, she returns to the homeless camp to look for her. Jen is the “Sheriff” who was mentioned the last time they were there. Harmon’s relationship with her sister is obviously very complicated; she wants her to come home but doesn’t want to admit it since she never apologized for pawning their mother’s wedding ring. The conversation devolves into an argument, but rather than Harmon arresting her, Diaz takes her to a safe house where he and his brother used to take their mother when her boyfriend was violent with her.
In exchange for this gesture, Harmon offers to get Gabriel transferred to a different facility.
Episode 7, “War Machine”
By the time we pick up in Episode 7 of On Call, Gabriel has already been transferred, but his new location is so secretive that Diaz can’t even tell his mother where he is. She’s frustrated, but she thanks Harmon and even shakes her hand, knowing she pulled the strings.
Smokey is – for some reason – allowed to operate a dispensary which is the site of a robbery. A little boy outside has caught a stray bullet, and the safe is missing. Moments later Diaz and Harmon are called to another robbery at a residential property, where masked men – presumably the same ones – have made off with a wall safe.
When they get there, the perpetrators are gone and an injured woman is crawling outside. This turns out to be Leona, Smokey’s daughter. Harmon theorizes that this is an insurrection, Smokey’s own gang turning on him for not protecting Maniac.
Smokey himself arrives shortly after, making it quite clear he intends to take matters into his own hands. Harmon finds herself disagreeing with Lasman again when he suggests shutting East Barrio down completely and rounding up anyone with gang affiliation on any charge the police can find. It’s a solution almost guaranteed to make the problem worse.
As tensions flare on the street, Harmon and Diaz head to an address that Leona gave up, but when they get there the occupants are already dead, presumably killed by Smokey. Harmon and Lasman clash badly over the approach, but Koyama arrives with a potential lifeline. Apparently, they have the opportunity to bury Smokey on a drug charge.
On Call Ending Explained – Episode 8, “How the West Was Won”
The finale opens with Koyama, Harmon, and Diaz raiding the home of the dock worker who’s about to become their new informant. He has been moving enough drugs recently to be looking at several concurrent life sentences unless he agrees to rat out Smokey.
The plan is to follow the CI, wait until the exchange happens, and then “drop the hammer”. Koyama is worried that Diaz is too emotionally connected to the whole thing, and he turns out to be right. When Leona is sent to collect the drop and a gunfight breaks out with other members of Smokey’s crew, the police are forced to intervene and Diaz bravely – but foolishly – chases Leona.
He’s led directly to Smokey, and after a brief exchange of gunfire, Diaz is blindsided and shot by Leona. Koyama shoots her dead before she can finish Diaz off, but he’s injured, with a bullet having nicked his upper chest and neck. It’s a nice callback to Delgado’s death, highlighting how there’s only ever a millimeter or two between a happy ending and a tragic one.
While Koyama tends to Diaz, Harmon goes after Smokey. She finds him sitting in a diner, badly wounded; Diaz got him after all. Smokey doesn’t want to go back to prison, but he doesn’t want to die either – and Harmon won’t let him.
Earlier in this episode we learned that Diaz’s review was coming up, and Koyama had requested that Harmon be transferred to his team. The rest of the finale deals with the aftermath of these two storylines. Harmon learns her transfer was denied by a superior, and immediately blames Lasman, but he reveals that he already protected her by burying the body cam footage of her threatening the suspect earlier in the season. Why would he have done that if he was trying to harm her career?
That only leaves Lieutenant Bishop, who confesses to denying the transfer after Harmon resets Diaz’s probation back to day one, citing his reckless decision-making as proof he’s not quite ready for duty. Bishop held Harmon back because of how she went rogue to bring in Maniac. She’s exhibiting the exact same behaviors that she just penalized Diaz for.
At the end of On Call Episode 8, Harmon requests Diaz remain her trainee, and while he doesn’t take his demotion well, he quickly realizes he’s proving Harmon’s point. He hands Harmon the “get out of jail free” card, and they both head back out on duty.