Consequences of the Trauma Revealed

Critic’s Rating: 3.75 / 5.0

3.75

While the Sheriff Country midseason premiere ended with some high notes, we knew it was just going to be the calm before the storm.

The new episode quickly brought us the consequences, and everyone is feeling them — some people just more than others.

Can relationships work when so many people feel differently in the aftermath? It doesn’t seem like it.

Everyone Heals Differently When It Comes to Trauma

Everyone at the sheriff’s office is feeling the aftermath of the siege, and they’re all dealing with it in different ways.

One of the good things about Sheriff Country Season 1 Episode 11 is that it shows us how everyone is handling it.

Mickey and Boone are just trying to focus on the next case. While it was a scary nightmare, they made it out alive, and they have the training and experience to move forward.

They’re not forgetting about anything, but they are focused on healing. That’s the way they’ve handled other situations.

Meanwhile, Cassidy is struggling with the decision she made.

Sure, the shot was a good one — and she killed a man to save a life — but she still took a life.

That, mixed with everything else that she had to do just to survive and help others survive that night, is building up.

She can’t talk about it because she knows that she’ll get benched, but the truth is, she needs to be benched.

As she eventually admits, she can’t sleep. Her decision is playing on her mind. Taking a life is infiltrating her dreams.

It’s such a human and understandable reaction, and it makes her a relatable character in this aftermath.

Police are trained to use their weapons, but the majority of them — especially the good ones — won’t actually end up taking a life.

Sheriff County needs to continue with this story, as it’s not something Cassidy will just get over.

However, there will be more bad than good, as she is likely to rebel against Mickey’s decision, and I feel like that was hinted at as she shared a little more of her sister’s backstory.

On top of that, others around them are handling the aftermath. Travis is trying to heal the way he thinks he needs to.

He decides to defend Enoch Barlow, which Mickey vehemently opposes, leading to an ultimatum.

I’m glad Travis didn’t choose Mickey over what he needs to do to heal.

He feels in debt to Enoch, and he’s going to repay that debt. That being said, he won’t put the blame on the sheriff’s office. It wasn’t their fault.

When I spoke with Christopher Gorham about the aftermath, there was a lot of focus on how Travis feels he’s in debt to Cassidy, but we didn’t even touch on Enoch.

I don’t think I considered that this would become a sticking point for Travis and Mickey, or that Enoch would be the end of their reunion before it even got started.

Breakups All Around

It’s not just Travis and Mickey who break up during Sheriff Country Season 1 Episode 11.

There’s a lot going on for various characters, and one of those is Skye.

While there’s a bit of an “ooo, gross” moment when she sees her parents kissing, that’s not the reason she isn’t excited about them getting back together.

The Enoch situation is playing on her mind, and she’s also feeling smothered by her parents.

As she told her aunt, she lives with her mom, and she works for her dad. She just can’t get away from them, and she needs to be able to spread her wings.

It’s time for the fledgling to leave the nest, and while working for her aunt still makes her a nepo baby and keeps her locked in with the family, it will still be good for her.

Skye has the opportunity to see more legal cases, and she’ll deal with trickier situations. 

I’m just glad to see that Skye is doing something with her life, and we haven’t focused too much on the “I don’t know what to do” after her murder trial.

I had said that she found her calling, and while it’s not exactly clear what she is doing right now, being a legal assistant and working toward being a paralegal or something similar seems perfect for her.

However, it is another breakup, in a way. Skye has had to leave her dad’s workplace, and in a way, that is another breakup that has come in the aftermath of the attack.

Finally, we get Boone and Nora, and I’ve got to be honest that I expected this one from the end of Sheriff Country Season 1 Episode 10.

Nora has already lost a husband in the line of duty, and it is something that terrifies her.

It’s not like she’s been silent about that, so as soon as Boone was injured and caught in the middle of the firefight, I just knew that this was going to be the end of him and Nora.

However, it doesn’t happen right away, and that’s because she buries her head in the sand.

She doesn’t want to know what happened that night, and she doesn’t want to hear the news. 

On the one hand, it makes sense, so she can pretend it was just a difficult night rather than a life-or-death situation.

It did mean that everything she heard Mickey say about Boone’s actions that night came as a shock to her. She needed some warning that she would hear the nightmare they all went through.

Now my question is whether this opens the door for Mickey and Boone getting together?

I will say that I don’t want it to happen. 

I do believe that they need to remain friends, and I don’t want to see the bog-standard sheriff and the deputy hooking up, bringing questions of favoritism and special treatment.

Mickey already has that when it comes to Cassidy, so she doesn’t need it with Boone as well. Let’s keep them platonic, because that’s how they work so well.

I’ve Seen This Case Before

The weakness of the episode — and it’s been a weakness of numerous TV shows this week — was the case of the week.

Opening it with the professional hackers getting caught certainly added humor to the episode, and it was the kind of humor we needed as we dealt with the aftermath of the siege.

However, that’s where it took a turn, and I know I’ve seen the story before.

I’m sure it was on Law & Order: SVU where a female judge was accused of sending children to a particular detention center to get kickbacks. There was also something to do with harsher-than-necessary sentences mixed in.

Whichever show it was, I know I’ve seen it before, and it was a bit of a letdown that it ended up working out so similarly.

However, having a lighter case, given the rest of the episode’s storyline, was a relief.

I don’t think we need more shootouts or fears of our main characters dying again anytime soon. I don’t think Wes Fox will be able to deal with his daughter’s life being on the line again!

What this storyline showed was just how important ethical hackers are and how judges need to be held accountable for their decisions.

Nobody is above the law, but judges can get away with so much. They had one shot, and they couldn’t miss.

There was just too much of the story that I could already predict, and not in a good way. If a storyline is going to be mimicked, it needs to be done in a new and creative way.

Sheriff Country hasn’t necessarily put much focus on the cases of the week, though.

They’ve been there to show us how Mickey knows the town and how the department works together.

This show has been focused on personal relationships from the beginning, and Sheriff Country Season 1 Episode 11 continues that in style, so I can let it off for the weakish case of the week.

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