Keen Eddie

This past year, Bravo has presented Keen Eddie, a quirky but well written detective show. The premise of the show is a New York Cop assigned to Scotland Yard after a failed international bust. Eddie Arlette is a normal New Yorker in a strange land, a Yankee in a modern day King Arthur’s court; only the rest of the round table consist of quirky, if not somewhat dysfunctional knights. His roommate is Fiona, the daughter of the landlord. Fiona torments Eddie but she can’t afford to cross any lines since her mother is under the impression that she is away at school. Eddie has to make one phone call and fix the vixen but he doesn’t. One suspects that her beauty aids in this regard and there are moments that one sees a little sexual tension between the two in between the insults thrown in both directions. While Fiona has a steady boyfriend and Eddie never shows any real outward interest, underneath the surface lays the real tension.

Eddie mates at the Scotland overturns the clichéd views of a snobbish England. It is Eddie, who is square when compared to his swinging partner. His partner, Monty Pippin (played by Julian Rhind-Tutt), pretends to be married so he and his partner can swap “spouses” temporarily at swingers clubs but at the work place he is forever submissive to his boss, Superintendent Johnson. Superintendent Johnson, (played by Colin Salmon), is ambitious boss who is looking to move up the ladder and find Arlette useful because of the American efficacy at solving crimes. Arlette quips in one episode to Johnson that one cannot solve crimes in time of promotions and Johnson often ignores the American brashness because of results.

Throughout the episode, we are treated to some idiosyncratic criminals and normality is not a feature of modern day London. The most hilarious episode is when a group of less than competent crooks try to steal the semen of a racehorse. Then there is the story of Larry the Incredible, a former child star whose career went bust when he could not remember a particular phrase and was outdone by a younger girl. He is now a delivery boy for an overnight service and manages to lose an important package- the design for an electronic lock for a jewelry store that was mailed into England by a group of vicious jewel thieves. Larry finds himself in the middle of the caper as he is being forced by the criminals to find the manual on one hand and forced to cooperate with Scotland Yard under Arlette on the other hand. Without giving away the ending, Larry tries to use the whole episode to further his own career while putting his life and Arlette’s career in jeopardy.

Article Author: Tom Donelson

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