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TV Media Weekly | May 17 - 23, 2014 is just the latest on a very long list. He's been appearing on- screen since the '80s, but is per- haps most recently recognizable for his portrayal of the stoic and enigmatic John Locke in ABC's Emmy-winning drama "Lost." As for the rest of the Task Force, Wu-Tang Clan's RZA ("Californication") continues his transition into acting as Cas- sius Green, who teams up with Ryan when the latter's best friend and partner is killed. In- bar Lavi ("Underemployed") and Sung Kang ("Fast Five," 2011) round out the cast as team members Veronica Dotsen and Tae Kim, respectively, and Shantel VanSanten ("One Tree Hill") plays Jessica, Sam's es- tranged daughter and the city's assistant district attorney. With old ties to his crime fam- ily and a growing connection to his Task Force family, Ryan's di- vided loyalties present the se- ries with an interesting angle. Check out the premiere of "Gang Related," airing Thurs- day, May 22, on Fox. good vs. bad dichotomy is pres- ent in other characters, too. "With Ryan, we have a chance to show the grey side to everything. Every hero has a dark side and every villain has a heroic side," writes Robyn Ross for "TV Guide." "Terry O'Quinn admitted that his character Sam, the task force's leader, is a terri- ble father, while Curtis said that Javier may have been a bad man, but an excellent dad and a great leader." Morgan expands on this in a promo for the series: "For all the terrible things [the gang mem- bers] do, there's also a very hu- man side to them. They have loves and brothers and family." On the flip side, we'll also see that corruptibility exists among the law enforcers. With Ryan's strong presence in both worlds, his is a unique and honest look into the two systems. Rodriguez, who plays Ryan, is making a name for himself in both television and film. The Puerto Rican actor gels well with action and thriller movies and has appeared in "The Tak- ing of Pelham 1 2 3," (2009), "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" (2009) and "Need for Speed" (2014). On the small screen, he's made appearances in "Rescue Me," "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" and HBO's critically acclaimed crime dra- ma, "The Wire." O'Quinn's role as Sam Chapel By Jacqueline Spendlove TV Media T elevision audiences can't seem to get enough of cops, killers, gangs and drug lords. What with your "CSIs," your "Sopranos" and more "Law & Orders" than you can shake a stick at, it's clear that, when observing it from the detached safety of the living room, people love check- ing out the seedy underbelly of the criminal world. You don't need to tell Fox that, though. With shows such as "Bones," "The Following" and the more lighthearted "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" on its roster, the network knows how to dish out a healthy dose of good guy vs. bad guy every week. This month it's adding "Gang Related" to that list to present both sides of the crimi- nal world. The action drama fol- lows Los Angeles' elite Gang Task Force and one of its mem- bers who, unbeknownst to his teammates, held a past life with one of the powerful gangs against whom his unit is taking aim. The series premieres Thurs- day, May 22, on Fox. "If you bring 'The Shield,' 'Mi- ami Vice' and a little bit of 'The Wire' together, that's the ambi- tion for this show," said director Allen Hughes of the new series, which comes from the "Fast and the Furious" franchise's Chris Morgan. Indeed, "Gang Related" takes the "hero" perspective of some series and the "villain but we like him anyway" perspective of others and uses them to strad- dle the world of law enforce- ment and the gang-related world; it doesn't present a fixed idea of what makes a person good or bad. This blurring of lines is chiefly employed in the character of Ryan Lopez (Ramon Rodriguez, "Battle Los Angeles," 2011). Ryan is an up-and-comer in the Gang Task Force, but what the rest of his team doesn't know is that he has ties to one of L.A.'s toughest gangs – Los Angelicos – that go back much farther than his time as a cop. He was sent to infiltrate the police force by Angelicos leader Javier Acos- ta (Cliff Curtis, "Live Free or Die Hard," 2007) himself. To compli- cate things further for Ryan, Javier is not just his boss, but a father figure as well, having tak- en him in when Ryan's own fa- ther died. But wait a minute – Ryan also has a father figure on the Task Force. See those lines blur? He's generally respected and well- treated by his team, who, like the gang, have become his sur- rogate family – particularly Sam Chapel (Terry O'Quinn, "Lost"), the Task Force captain who saw the potential in Ryan and took him under his wing. Never hav- ing had a father figure growing up, Ryan is torn between the two people who have filled that role: both strong men, both leaders, but on opposite sides of the law. While Ryan is the conflicted hero in this story, struggling with two opposing loyalties, the Terry O'Quinn and Ramon Rodriguez as seen in "Gang Related" Two sides of the same coin 'Gang Related' looks at the crime world from both sides of the law 2 | Cover story CHANNEL GUIDE Comcast Walton Cable- Vision Sammo ns of Indiana Tipton Cable TV Oak Hill Cable Swayzee AT&T U-Verse

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