It may only have one season, but CBS’s drama Wisdom of the Crowd has made every effort to put itself in the running as the top leftist agenda show on TV. The show seems to have a particular bent for feminist lectures, which is interesting considering it was canceled over sexual assault allegations against star Jeremy Piven. Sunday’s episode, “Alpha Test” was no exception.
Piven plays Silicon Valley tech Jeffrey Tanner who's created a crowd-sourced crime-fighting platform called “Sophe” in an attempt to find out who murdered his daughter. In the process, he ends up helping to solve other crimes with the public’s help, via their input on Sophe.
On Sunday’s episode, the story centered around a feminist blogger, Lizzie, who becomes the target of a violent, misogynistic stalker who’s threatened at least “20 women and counting.” Lizzie is the current love interest of Sophe employee Tariq (Jake Matthews), and as the two arrive at Lizzie’s home after a night out, they discover her home has been vandalized.
Pictures of Lizzie are hung all over her walls along with spray-painted messages such as “#DieSlut.” When Tariq brings Lizzie to Sophe headquarters to try to figure out who the culprit is, she explains she has many enemies because of her work as a feminist blogger.
Sara: So, you can't think of who might have done this?
Lizzie: Actually, there could be a lot of people. Take a look at these messages.
Sara: "Your feminazi agenda must be stopped.” “You better pray I don't find you.” “You're too ugly to rape.” “Getting rid of you would be doing the world a favor." Oh, my God. Why would anyone send these to you?
Lizzie: I have a blog. May I? It's about dating in the digital age. I post the worst messages that men send on dating apps. It's called "Bro Means No."
Cavanaugh: What kind of messages?
Lizzie: Oh, requests for naked selfies, guys sending us photos of their junk. Cursing us out because we won't go on dates with them. Stuff like that.
Tariq: I've seen some of it. It's... Really disturbing.
Sara: And you think these death threats are because of your blog?
Lizzie: Oh, no, I'm sure of it. I always got disturbing comments, but then "a few" turned into "hundreds." And then I started getting e-mails and texts, too.
Tariq: Why didn't you tell me any of this?
Lizzie: I don't know. I mean, why would I? Getting threats on a feminist blog is not new or shocking.
Tariq: But texts and e-mails are.
Lizzie: It was all online, so it didn't feel real. But this is.
Lizzie later explains to the team that she doesn’t know any of the men whose messages she posts on her blog by name because all submissions are sent to her anonymously. “The blog isn't about shaming individual men,” Lizzie explains. “It's about showing how depressingly common misogyny is.”
For added measure, the show’s writers decided to have the misogynistic stalker “SWAT” Tariq’s house while Lizzie was staying with him for her safety, leading him and his family to first believe they were being targeted because they’re Muslim. What’s a good leftist agenda show without some “Islamophobia” thrown in, right?
A Sophe user ends up calling in a useful tip to the team, explaining that she came across a job opportunity online from “Chaos756” that would have required her to leave “awful, threatening comments” on a blog. As it turns out, that blog was Lizzie’s.
After some digging, Tariq discovers more about the person behind the username. “Whoever this guy is, he's a real gem,” Tariq says. “Lot of sexist hot takes on movies, a couple of obnoxious restaurant reviews, and he mostly seems to hang out at basketball and MMA forums.” Oh, no, not basketball and MMA!
Lizzie ends up recognizing one of the restaurant reviews that reads, "Yet another San Fran establishment ruining a burger with nasty organic ketchup and a sprouted wheat roll. If I wanted to eat healthy, I wouldn't be ordering a burger. Just give me Heinz and a white bun. Is that so hard?" She announces that it’s her ex-boyfriend Corey, “word for word.”
Seriously with this? It’s almost like watching a comedy, not a drama.
As it turns out, even though Corey was behind the online job posting and hateful messages to Lizzie, the real stalker used the name “drchad89,” and had responded to one of Corey’s job postings. He then took the job from online into the real world. Corey ended up threatening to turn him in to the police, which led him to murder Corey for being a "traitor."
Sophe employee Josh (Blake Lee) calls the team over to share more about "drchad89.”
Josh: Hey, guys? I think you're gonna want to see this.
Sara: What is it?
Josh: The crowd's already submitting anything they can find on drchad's online presence. He spends most of his time on men's rights forums.
Tariq: The old he-man Woman Hater's Club. "Only cucks let feminazis dictate to them. Real men are the victims of feminist culture. Just look at suicide rates and homelessness rates. It's time to take our power back."
Sara: So, he's some kind of misogynist zealot.
Tariq: And thanks to Corey, all this rage is being pointed at you.
It’s like a Scooby Doo mystery where the mask is removed to reveal the real bad guy, only with people like Ashley Judd and Hillary Clinton as the writers who put their man-bashing, feminist agenda into the mix.
In the end, Lizzie helps the police to lure out the stalker by going back to her home alone late at night, but the police aren’t far away. As she opens her door, she’s grabbed from behind as the stalker shouts, “Welcome home, you little whore. You think men are so pitiful? Let's see what you think when I give you what you deserve.” The police then arrive on the scene and arrest the bad man who hates women just in time.
Next week, we get to see the show take on extremist, unhinged women who hate men and how dangerous some of them can be! Just kidding. This is Hollywood after all, not the real world.
Isn’t it ironic, though, that a show with a star who is accused of sexual misconduct would have the nerve to air an episode about dangerous men who hate women?
