I imagine most people watching Michael Chiklis on TV think of his show, The Shield. For me, it is a bit softer with The Commish or The Fantastic Four. Maybe a bit of Gotham. I like him, but I prefer the lovable side, not the hard cynical side. Usually.

Here he plays a newly-retired border patrol guy who is asked by his old partner’s wife to go down to Mexico, look at a cabin he was building, and finish it up to sell it off so that the bank doesn’t foreclose on their house. It’s a crapfest of a situation, but he wants to help. He feels obligated to help. Most of his life has been spent seeing everything as black or white, or perhaps brown or white, illegal or legal. Now he’s in Mexico seeing the locals, meeting a few, getting involved in their lives, and he’s not so sure the lines are so straight.

I know very little about the long-term direction of the show. With a title like Coyote, maybe he’s going to turn into a smuggler trying to help those in rough spots get away from the bad guys. In EP1, he’s doing exactly that, even though he tries really hard at first to stay out of it.

I’m not going to rate the rest of the cast, as it’s impossible to tell from the opener who will be sticking around. Chicklis is excellent, of course, and the initial scenes are compelling. Enough for me to stick around. I know it gets darker, there are cartels involved, but for now, I’m happy just to see Chicklis. I’ll predict renewal based on him alone.