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Originally premiering on the BBC in 2023, season 1 of Black Ops arrives on Hulu as a second season is in production. Created by Gbemisola Ikumelo (A League of the Their Own) and Akemnji Ndifornyen (The Queen’s Gambit), and written by Ikumelo and Ndifornyen with Joe Tucker and Lloyd Woolf, Black Ops takes the overused phrase of its title and twists: while Dom (Ikumelo) and Kay (Hammed Animashaun) are not highly-trained assault team operatives, they are two Black members of London’s Metropolitan Police – or, Black cops – whose newest assignment is both Dom and Kay’s biggest professional opportunity and potentially part of a larger, more mysterious conspiracy. Black Ops also co-stars Ndifornyen alongside Ariyon Bakare, Felicity Montagu, Emma Sidi, and Zoë Wanamaker.
BLACK OPS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: “Stay street smart” – Dom (Ikumelo) and Kay (Animashaun) are less than enthusiastic about handing out promotional frisbees and balloons as part of their positions with the Met as Police Community Service Officers. But these PCSOs are even less interested in actual police work. “It’s kicking off,” Dom says when they spot a fleeing robber. “Pretend we can’t see.”
The Gist: The low stakes of PCSO work suits Dom and Kay just fine – with no powers of arrest, they’re more like brand ambassadors for the Met than anything serious. It’s just a stable job with a few minor perks. That is until the duo hits the radar of Detective Inspector Clinton Blair (Bakare), who’s recruiting undercover officers for a new operation. The ones Met leadership initially provides are white, while the drug-selling gang he’s investigating are Black. “How difficult can it be to find two young Black officers who are up to the task?”
Just because Dom and Kay are Black doesn’t mean they’d automatically be able to assimilate themselves into a dangerous criminal environment, one which happens to include Black people. DI Clinton acknowledges this, even as he admits his undercover operation depends on the same negative stereotypes. But for Dom and Kay, that they were tapped to participate at all stinks of their tokenism at the Met, and how they experience so much ingrained casual racism at work that it must be in the police department’s rule book. When one Met lieutenant sputters “I don’t see color,” no one on the force – Black or white – believes him.
Making a go of the undercover with Clinton keeping watch, Dom and Kay post up on a corner in a council estate and do their (sort of) best to (sort of) sell drugs, which is where they’re noticed by the Brightmarsh gang and its leaders, Tevin (Ndifornyen) and Breeze (Jaz Hutchins). Will these guys buy the cover story that Dom and Kay are disgruntled ex-Met officers looking to spite their former employer? And even if Tevin and Breeze and their gang do accept Dom and Kay, can a woman who swears she’s indifferent to police work and her partner, a kindhearted churchgoer who wishes drug buyers to have a nice day, manage to make any arrests? And for that matter, why does Clinton keep stressing how their new gig is not only undercover, but hush-hush and off-the-books?
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? It remains annoying that South Side was canceled after three seasons, but you can still catch all three seasons of Bashir Salahuddin and Diallo Riddle’s hilarious cops-and-citizens neighborhood comedy on Max. And in the charming British series The Outlaws, community service workers – plus Baby Reindeer’s Jessica Gunning as bumbling, overbearing PCSO Diane Pemberley – get in over their heads with crimes and conspiracies.
Our Take: When Dom walks into the police station in street clothes, only to promptly be stopped by a uniformed Metropolitan cop – “This is a restricted area” – she levels a stare of incredulity at the white woman, who hems and haws as if she didn’t just stereotype a Black woman who is also her professional counterpart. “I’ve worked here for four years!” Dom says. “I’m on the poster!” It’s a funny scene in Black Ops, in part because everything Gbemisola Ikumelo says and does in this series is funny. But the scene also illustrates how Ops eagerly punctures issues of white privilege and institutional racism even if, on its surface and of course for more laughs, it tacitly supports the same racial stereotypes. “Shit shit shit, this is it,” Dom tells Kay when Tevin and Breeze of the Brightmarsh gang approach. “Smile! No no, frown. Look ‘gangster’.”
Still developing in Black Ops is just what led DI Clinton Blair to fire up this investigation in the first place, and why he or the top brass at the Met would be willing to risk its success against the antics of Dom and Kay. And while they would not claim to be heroes, we do think the force’s newest undercover officers will find a bit of investigative gumption within themselves, inspired by the power of their partnership. It could be the two former PCSOs nobody expects who save the day, while they also highlight racist attitudes within the cop shop. But even if they don’t solve anything, it’s already funny watching how Dom and Kay get up to it.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: Dom and Kay were sort of winging it as undercover officers, with a promise of backup if things ever went south. But what if their backup suddenly needs backup?
Sleeper Star: As Dom, Gbemisola Ikumelo does not waste a word, look, or movement in Black Ops – it’s all in service of the joke – and Ikumelo’s interplay with Hammed Animashaun as Kay deserves specific Sleeper Star honors. Somehow their constant arguing makes this duo immediately endearing.
Most Pilot-y Line: Dom has a funny feeling about her and Kay’s sudden promotion to undercover field work. “This seems like a lot of trouble to go to for a few drug arrests on an estate.”
Our Call: Stream It! Black Ops drops jokes at every turn as it skewers its targets: television police procedurals, the attitudes of a pliant British public, and the stench of institutional racism within London’s Metropolitan Police Department.
BLURB
Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.
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