On Call – Season 1 Episode 2 Recap & Review

Episode 2

Episode 2 of On Call begins with Harmon and Diaz being informed about a disturbance. They arrive at the scene where a large unruly crowd is bursting firecrackers and blocking an intersection. They are told not to do anything but soon receive news of an assault nearby. Harmon and Diaz rush to help and find Sergeant Lasman and his colleague dealing with an assaulter.

The colleague is badly injured and the assaulter hits Diaz and runs away. Lasman orders Diaz to go after him but Harmon orders Diaz to stay, it’s too dangerous with the crowd around them. She and Lasman clearly have different ways of going about things.

The next morning, Lasman invites Diaz to join their softball team for the inter-division police games. He then advises Lasman to hit when he gets hit, despite what Harmon says. Order versus chaos, he says. When Diaz starts the day with Harmon, he reiterates that he wanted to get the man who assaulted them. Harmon takes him to the place where Delgado passed away and cautions him not to play the hero just for his pride.

The officers are then called away. They head to a park where a decapitated head, wrapped up in tape, has been found. Homeless, drug addicts fill the whole park and a woman named Mary comes up to Harmon and tells her that “the Sheriff” was here a few days ago. When Diaz asks who that is, Harmon pretends not to know.

Diaz breaks up a scuffle between two homeless people fighting over a bag. The man holds on to it and gets aggressive with Diaz but Harmon comes over. She realises how drug-addled he is and trades a fake deputy badge sticker for the bag instead. Inside is a cut-off hand with tattoos that look similar to those worn by the East Barrio, the gang Eddie Watson belonged to.  

Lieutenant Bush comes on the scene. Harmon gives her the details and then asks about the Delgado investigation. There are no new updates. She wants to be put on the task force doing the investigation but Bush refuses. Harmon and Diaz then head off to another incident with a suspicious vehicle. They arrive to find other units already there, with an officer who was Harmon’s old trainer.

They’ve caught a bunch of kids from the L.B. Flores gang in possession of drugs. Harmon tries asking them for information on Delgado’s murder but gets no response. Diaz then speaks to them in Spanish. The girl tells Diaz that no one from the East Barrio has been seen in a while, as if a ghost took them all away. Diaz and Harmon then talk about how East Barrio and L.B. Flores used to be one group before they split up.

The officers then get called to an incident where an argument led to a young man shooting another. The mother of the dead boy accuses another man from L.B. Flores of turning the kids against one another. While trying to get the man to back off, Diaz nearly gets into a fight with him, encouraged by a nod from Sergeant Lasman. But he steps back.

Later, Harmon tells Diaz he did the right thing. She reveals that she knows about his brother who is in prison for robbery and tells him that he’s not the same. She says she’s never even fired her weapon in 12 years and that when Diaz puts the uniform on he has a responsibility. Diaz agrees.

Harmon leaves and meets Bush, who tells her that the hand was identified as Juan Cortez. After Harmon leaves, Lasman tells Diaz that he’s found the footage of her threatening the man who assaulted his mother. He asks Diaz if Harmon made a threat and Diaz reluctantly nods at the end of On Call Episode 2.

The Episode Review

Episode 2 continues the high-energy atmosphere of On Call. The structure of the episodes — featuring several incidents all linked together by the gang war in the area and Delgado’s murder — is an effective one.

The fast pace and the short runtime make the episodes an easy watch. It keeps the momentum going, making for a more engaging watch while also diving deeper into the issue of drugs and gangs. Delgado’s murder is more than just a jumping-off point and the gang war clearly has a lot more to it as well.

Another interesting element is the clash of ideals between Harmon and Lasman, particularly the discussions of old-fashioned policing and woke culture. The show is lightly tapping into the nuance of being in the police force in the current political scenario and if it continues to do so, this could make the show a lot more intriguing.