Adam 12: Season 1, Episode 2
Directed by: Phil Rawlins
Starring: Martin Milner | Kent McCord
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE rookie cops
“Looks like they’re going to be okay…”
The way Malloy and Reed look at each other gets me every time. It’s not lust. Not exactly. More like recognition. Two men orbiting the same silence, but on different paths.
It’s only their second outing on television. Fresh uniforms. New call signs. Reed asks, “How were your days off?” Malloy doesn’t miss a beat. “Except for one hour, fantastic.”
“What was wrong with that one hour?”
“The subject of marriage came up.”
That’s the whole show, really. Reed’s the rookie. He’s young, domestic, handsome. It’s the American Dream in a crisp blue shirt. There’s a wife at home. Baby on the way. He’s already painting the nursery, already certain it’ll be a boy. Malloy’s older. A bachelor. Wiser, maybe. Or just more seasoned.
“You know, you oughta get married,” Reed says.
Malloy is quick to fire back, “I know what I’d be missing… my freedom.”
It’s not romantic on paper, but in motion, on that grainy screen, it feels like something else. There’s something unspoken between the spaces of dialogue. In those moments before they hit the streets, chasing a bandit that’s stealing colored TVs.
I watch them and imagine a different version of the show. One where they keep driving. Forget about the criminals. Keep talking. Grow old together under the Los Angeles sun. It’s love, but a different kind of love.
Malloy and Reed never touch, but they don’t have to. Their glances, their rhythm, their quiet domesticity behind the badge. It’s the kind of intimacy that slips past the censors. Adam-12 plays it straight, but the subtext is always there, whether they are in the patrol car or interrogating a young Cloris Leachman.
