Common Sense Media Review
By Marty Brown
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Violence, swearing, ethnic stereotypes in border cop drama.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 17+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Watch
Videos and Photos
Coyote
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's the Story?
COYOTE tells the story of Ben Clemens (Michael Chiklis), a newly retired Border Patrol agent who was devoted to his job and mostly estranged from his family as a result. Clemens travels back and forth across the border to fix up his deceased partner's house in Mexico in order to sell it. While in Mexico, Clemens becomes unwittingly involved in a conflict with a violent local gang, which forces him to make difficult choices between his devotion to the law and his love for his family.
Is It Any Good?
Michael Chiklis is best known for The Shield, a show about a profoundly corrupt police unit in which Chiklis plays the leader and worst offender. The Shield's portrayal of cops as bad guys was revelatory at the time of its release in 2002, especially in the wake of the LAPD's Rampart scandal, which implicated the police in murders, bank robberies, and drug trafficking, among other offenses. Anyone expecting a similarly subversive story from Coyote, which is being billed as Chiklis' return to crime drama, will be deeply disappointed.
Coyote puts Chiklis' Border Patrol agent, Ben Clemens, squarely in the hero role while portraying nearly every Latinx character as a violent criminal or victim, while also depicting Latin American countries like Mexico and El Salvador as overrun with gang violence. At a time when misconduct by U.S. Border Patrol officers is frequently in the news and Latinx people are consistently slandered and stereotyped as criminals, Coyote mostly feels like blatant copaganda.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about Ben Clemens and the Border Patrol. What do we know about Clemens' job? What kind of tasks does he perform every day? How does he go about doing his job? How does his work impact the other areas of his life?
How do you think the show wants us to feel about Clemens? Is he a likeable character? Why or why not?
Does Clemens change over the course of the show? If so, how? What causes him to change?
TV Details
- Premiere date : January 6, 2021
- Cast : Michael Chiklis
- Network : Paramount+
- Genre : Drama
- TV rating :
- Last updated : March 16, 2021
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