In The Line Of Fire

NBC drama Shades of Blue gets off to a crackling start in Season 2. Can J. Lo and Co. handle the heat?

- Michael Logan

Oh, snap! Yep, that’s exactly what New York City cop Harlee Santos did to her baby daddy’s neck in last spring’s shocking season finale of Shades of Blue. He was a brute, an abuser, a total psycho—and he definitely had it coming. But no way can she ever confess to killing him. When the hit NBC thriller returns this week, only a few moments have passed since the slaying, but Harlee (played by superstar Jennifer Lopez) is already in survival mode. Where will she stash the corpse? How will she keep her daughter from finding out? Things will take an even darker turn when Harlee buries the body in the dead of night—but not before jumping down into the grave, straddling the cadaver and smashing out the teeth with a hammer and chisel to prevent identification. Clearly, Harlee has balls to spare. Lopez? Not so much.

“I felt sick when I first read that burial scene,” Lopez admits. “All I could think was, ‘I can’t do this! How can I possibly go there?’ But that’s the difference between Harlee and me. My life is crazy. Her life’s insane. And she will do what it takes to make it through another day.”

Viewers knew Harlee was a dirty cop from the first scene of the first episode, when rookie detective Michael Loman (Dayo Okeniyi) accidentally killed an unarmed perp during a drug raid and she taught him how to cover up the crime. Harlee is also not above planting evidence or pocketing payola. But here’s the dicey conceit of the series: She’s no villain. Harlee is actually a warm, caring woman who does all this to give her kid, Cristina (Sarah Jeffery), a better life. And she has the full backup of her even more crooked boss and mentor, Lt. Matt Wozniak (Ray Liotta), who loves Cristina as if she’s his own child.