While the folks over at CNN, MSNBC and their friends in Hollywood would have audiences believe that there is nothing too concerning or crisis-like happening at the southern border, at least the producers over at Paramount Network find there to be enough drama down there to warrant a crime thriller. Emmy-winner Michael Chiklis is set to star in a new show about the perils of being a border guard facing retirement while dealing with human trafficking and “drugs pouring in” from Mexico.
Deadline reported that Chiklis, who starred in FX’s crime drama The Shield, will executive produce and star in Paramount Network’s Coyote. Helming the show along with him will be Breaking Bad alumna, Emmy-winning director and executive producer Michelle Maclaren.
Deadline’s brief synopsis claims that the show “follows Agent Ben Clemens (Chiklis) who, on the day of his mandatory retirement from the United States Border Patrol, discovers an illicit tunnel used to mainline black market goods into the United States from Mexico.”
Apparently the agent’s discovery will lead him down into an underground world of crime, involving “drug cartels,” “human trafficking,” and personally dealing with “a criminal mastermind he’s spent his entire career trying to destroy.”
Paramount president Keith Alterman praised Chiklis for taking on the role, claiming it’s “tailor-made for him; it’s a really complex character.” He went on to describe the show and the character’s premise, detailing that “He’s a border patrol agent, and he is forced into retirement, and then he gets sucked into all sides of that world, the drug cartels in Mexico, the human trafficking and the authorities on the U.S. side.” Fingers crossed that U.S. “authorities” won’t be portrayed as some evil henchmen of a tyrannical right-wing regime.
Still the show’s premise seems moderately promising in a media landscape that evermore refuses to recognize the world of criminality going on down there. Alterman claimed, “It just feels like a very relatable, timely world to explore.”
He also described it in Breaking Bad terms, but with a reverse twist. “It’s almost like a Breaking Good in a way, because the more he gets sucked into those worlds, the more he gets in touch with his own humanity and keeps evolving as a better person.”
Well, again, hopefully that doesn’t involve Chiklis defecting from U.S. interests in favor of poor criminal illegals, or some equally anti-American trope Hollywood loves these days. It could be good, or it could be bad. We’ll have to wait and see.
