REVIEW: Steven Seagal: Lawman Season 3 (2014)

Runtime: 168 Mins
Rating: TV-14
What To Expect: The much anticipated cock fighting raid from hell

If you’re not a devout student of Sensei Seagal, it’s never too late to start.  Seagal makes a living in the movies, but did y’know that for the past 20 years, he’s also been a cop?  Season one and two were fascinating, a glimpse into the very mindset of Mr. Seagal.  Was the man nurturing some sort of fantasy in patrolling the streets or actually making America a safer place?  Clearly the latter.  Seagal employs his acting skills one minute, to engage in ebonics to manipulate a suspect (that’s what he’s doing, right?) then the next minute instructs fellow officers on how to effectively strike someone in the balls.  Striking suspects in the balls is legal practice, right?

The third season was notoriously shitcanned after Chief Seagal ram-raided a man’s house with an armoured personnel carrier.  Seagal and his colleagues said that the man was hosting an illegal cock fighting farm.  As a result of the raid, one puppy and several scores of hens were massacred.  The owner of the property, called Jesus, turned out to be innocent and then took legal action against Master Seagal and the Sheriff’s department.

If only I was making this up.

As a result, the planned airing of season three was postponed indefinitely.  Actually the second season was also postponed due to another case where it was alleged that Mr. Seagal was involved in the illegal trafficking of 24-hour sex slaves.  But anyway, back to season three.  ABC, wanting nothing more to do with the property, sold all seasons including the third off.  Well, ‘Reelz’ won the rights to the series last year including the notorious third season.  The third season ups the ante from the first two.  Seagal left the Jefferson Parish Office to act as a support member to an Arizona based SWAT-style unit. These guys mean more business, carry bigger weapons and apprehend more dangerous suspects.

Season three sees Seagal ‘take on the Cartel’… on paper, you don’t actually see a single Cartel member, and also track down assorted trash such as rapists with warrants. It’s like Dog The Bounty Hunter, only with Seagal and real firearms.  The ‘main event’, so to speak, is the aforementioned cock fighting raid from hell.  Sadly, it’s kind of anti climatic.  The juicy bits have been cut out seemingly, probably for legal reasons.  But it’s not without its charm.  You can see the APC ramming its way through the man’s gate and to top it off Joe Arpaio shows up to offer a hilarious blunder.  Satisfied with how the raid went, but not yet knowing of the developing disaster, Arpaio misquotes Ghandi: “Ghandi said you can tell the morals of a country by how they treat their animals”.  Which is hilarious because Arpaio’s raid resulted in the deaths of scores of animals – and Ghandi referred to the penal conditions of a country being an indicator to how civilised it is, he never mentioned animals.

This shit is classic Seagal, and, to be honest, exhibits a slightly disturbing show of force in the name of going after pissants.  Better them than us!