Summary
Sheriff Country has a solid premise in “Death & Taxes”, but its character drama is becoming a little inconsistent and confusing.
I do love a subplot that feels very specific, and Sheriff Country has had its share of those already. But it has a really good one in Episode 8, appropriately titled “Death & Taxes”, which really enjoyably leans into the show’s very specific vibe and sense of place. But it’s better in theory than it is in execution, which is oddly timed, since it feels very much on-brand just as its CBS stablemate Boston Blue seems to finally be developing in a new direction.
We’re dealing with legal weed growers again, of course. This is pretty standard since it’s a helpful way to keep Wes tethered to the plot, and it’s the main thing that gives Edgewater a claim to fame. At this point, it can feel a little repetitive – does anybody live in this town who doesn’t grow weed? – but I still really like the core idea, which runs thusly.
Taxes are due! And paying taxes in the weed industry turns out to be a fairly complicated and dangerous affair. The legality of the operation makes the growers obligated to pay taxes just like any other businesspeople, but given the nature of the industry, no banks are willing to front any lines of credit. What this amounts to is that all weed growers have to pay their taxes in full and in cash, which means travelling across very long distances with hundreds of thousands of dollars in their vehicles.
This means that legal grower families have to arm up to protect themselves from highway robbers, or hire from a cottage industry of personal protection “professionals”. A tax-paying family being ambushed by a gang of armed robbers gives us our premise for this episode, an event that just so happens to go down mere feet away from a picnicking Boone and Nora. We’ll discuss this relationship more in a bit, since it’s on the rocks, but in the meantime, there’s a mystery to solve – who was responsible for the robbery?
“Death & Taxes” delivers a twist or two in the case that helps to keep it engaging (the real culprit is the sweet babysitter), but it’s mostly interesting in terms of the attendant character-driven subplots that spring up around it. It loops into a subplot with Cassidy, who is accused by a new deputy, Hank, of receiving special treatment from Mickey, which she quite clearly does. This makes Cassidy feel uneasy about being given credit for Hank’s theory, and when she mentions it to Mickey, who is reminded by Boone that she does treat Cassidy differently, she tries to radically overcompensate to pretend that she doesn’t. It’s a mess, but the kind of small-town sheriff’s office mess that this show is quite good at.
Oh, there’s also a Fire Country cameo in Sheriff’s Country Episode 8. Diane Farr turns up as Mickey’s sister Sharon, mostly to remind her that she’s single. This is a little weird since the previous episode implied a lingering connection between Mickey and Travis, but that’s totally avoided here in favour of… setting up a potential romance between Mickey and Boone, I think? There’s a bit of flirtation from a young deputy that causes Mickey to say outright that she wouldn’t cause an HR issue by dating in the workplace, which obviously we’re supposed to interpret in precisely the opposite way.
Maybe I’m off base here, since I assumed incorrectly that Travis and Cassidy breaking up was freeing him up for a second go with Mickey, but now it feels like Boone and Nora being on the rocks – despite them having crossed a romantic line in just the previous episode – and Mickey talking about dating colleagues is setting up the obvious fling between them. Ordinarily, this kind of ambiguity would be a good thing, but it seems more a consequence of inconsistent writing than anything else, sadly.
Wes gets involved in the weed grower case, obviously, and there’s even a bit of a cliffhanger that implies quite strongly that we’re going to be returning to the angle of him struggling to adapt to normal city life with his family instead of siding with the marginalised rural community that he used to be a figurehead in. And again, this would probably work better if his subplot in the previous episode wasn’t explicitly about him choosing his family over his former lifestyle. Sheriff Country can’t seem to make up its mind in several key areas, and it’s making otherwise decent episodes like this feel a bit confusing. Hopefully, it figures things out soon.
