Scholars of broadcast television may detect in “Line of Fire,” which premieres Monday on NBC (and streams on Peacock beginning Tuesday), a certain similarity to CBS’ long-running “Blue Bloods,” but nothing could be further from the truth! The family in “Blue Bloods” are all involved in the New York City justice system; in “Line of Fire” they’re federal agents, operating in and around Washington, D.C. And where the Irish Catholic Reagans would never miss a family dinner, the WASP-ish Hollingsworths of “Line of Fire” rarely get together at all. (There is a dinner in the opening episode, for the benefit of someone outside the family, and it goes badly.) And no one in the latter series wears a mustache.
The Hollingsworths are helpfully introduced with superimposed titles. Mike Hollingsworth (Peter Krause) and son Micah (Tommy O’Brien), sometimes called Junior — he never says he hates it, but I bet he hates it, I would hate it — are both in the Secret Service. Younger son Russ (Taylor Bloom) is starting work in the Department of Justice. Daughter Clare (Kat Cunning) is FBI, mother Jane (Hope Davis) a U.S. marshal.
Mike is a week away from enforced retirement — it’s 57, I looked it up — and not ready to go. (There’s an old case involving an assassination attempt on the previous president that weighs on his mind, and he is hectoring Russ, the sweetest and most pliable of the Hollingsworths, to break protocol and fetch him some files.) Micah, who is more than ready for Mike to go, both to get him back as a father and to get him out of his hair, is assigned to protecting the current president’s daughter, Sydney (Savannah Lee Smith), code name Sparrow, with whom he is having a clandestine affair. (The series, originally called “Protection,” is loosely inspired by the White House experience of executive producer Jenna Bush Hager, daughter of former President George W.)
Hope Davis, center, in “Line of Fire.”
(Scott Gries/NBC)
Jane and Clare, the shoe leather mystery solvers and law enforcers, rocket between being competitive (“The marshals have got it from here.” “The FBI has got it from here, too”) and calling on one another for help. Their cases are confusing enough to stay interesting.
It’s a conspiracy thriller, wrapped inside an episodic procedural, stuffed into a dysfunctional family comedy, and it’s the combination of these elements that keeps the show buoyant — fleet, essentially light — notwithstanding the suspense and tension and shootings and stabbing. (This is based on the two episodes available for review.) I’m not sure creator Joshua Safran, whose previous credits include “Quantico” and “Gossip Girl,” would call it a comedy, but, seriously it is, replete with familiar generational issues and exasperations. A scene in which Clare’s boyfriend, Logan (Pico Alexander), meeting the Hollingsworths for the first time, is handed off one to the other as everyone answers their cellphones, is quite deliciously choreographed.
And here’s Russ telling Clare, who is having a crisis, about the bagels he’s bought.
Russ: I got all your favorites, sesame, onion, everything, plain.
Micah: Those are literally all of the bagels.
Mike: Just let her choose what she wants.
Clare: I don’t need a bagel sitter.
Anyway, it’s not not a comedy.
Tommy O’Brien, left, Kat Cunning and Taylor Bloom in “Line of Fire.”
(Scott Gries/NBC)
The kids will complain about their parents, and the parents will ride the kids, (“It’s a family business, Russ,” Jane tells her sensitive son, “and if you didn’t want to join it, you could have gone to art school” — maybe my favorite line ever in a cop show, and good advice besides.) But as in most all dysfunctional family comedies, they will also say kind things after the cruel ones. In their recalcitrant way, the balance tips more toward the sentimental than the cynical.
Of exactly what transpires in the opening episodes, I won’t say much, given the feints and spoilers, though these are likely to be revised more than once across a 10-episode season. Mike and Jane are separated, but maybe not that separated, despite the fact that she has a boyfriend — Campbell Scott, briefly glimpsed, as a senator — due to move in to the family house. Much of the drama revolves around a missing Hollingsworth, who some characters believe dead. (Your attention will be directed to silvery origami cranes, which may or may not be a nod to the origami unicorns in “Blade Runner,” and have something to do with the character played by Charlie Barnett.)
The title refers to the fact that unidentified parties have been “targeting high-ranking government agents” (says Homeland Security Det. Nia Wallace, played by Antoinette Crowe-Legacy), but smartly “Line of Fire” is not just about the long arc, or arcs; if the remaining eight episodes mimic the first two, each will also offer a case to be closed in an hour. Serials have their place, but there is nothing like a neat conclusion to repay your hour’s investment.
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