Southland's Shawn Hatosy

2/01/2011

Where is my mind?  I swear I already wrote something about this and posted it last week.  Well, since the new episode is tonight I might as well get this up.  Anyway...spoilers follow...

This guy should have an Emmy already for Southland's episode from last season, What Makes Sammy Run, where the boy his character was trying to save killed another kid.  Hatosy gave another stunning performance at the end of last week's episode, Code 4, where Sam is frantically trying to save his partner, Nate, from a gang, one of whom took a cowardly shot from behind with a baseball bat (or pipe) to the back of Nate's head.  The acting in the final scene, from both Hatosy and Yara Martinez, was superb, delivering the raw, unrestrained emotion that follows a sudden and senseless death.

I usually try to steer clear of finding out who's not coming back next season in my favorite shows because I'm sick of storylines being spoiled for me.  But then the inevitable tell-all commercial is shown that urges you to watch because they're killing off a major character, which ruins all that hard work I do of hiding from that kind of bullshit in print.  Amazingly, Southland spoiled nothing.  I knew something was wrong since Sam looked traumatized, but I thought it would be a stranger that he couldn't save, who was killed in front of him, or maybe even someone from Nate's family.  Well, I got the "killed in front of him part" right.  It was shocking in its quickness, and I hate to lose Kevin Alejandro, but it was so well done that I'm not fuming about it, and I was able to witness a beautifully shot scene of devastation that is true to life.