Your summer watchlist: 15 shows you can watch to beat the heat
By Sundi Rose
10. Shades of Blue
The rundown: Jennifer Lopez (yup, Jenny from the block) plays street-smart New York City cop, Harley Santos, who is a little dirty, but doing it for the right reasons. Ray Liotta plays Harley’s seasoned and grizzled boss, Matt Wozniak.
Harley is part of a team of cops, led by Wozniak, that hustles criminals out of money, which they steal to pay for their own financial problems. Harley has to pay for her daughter’s fancy private school, so we kind of forgive her, but the whole crew gets in too deep, and Harley has to find a way out.
Why it’s summer fun: Cop shows are always an easy watch. There’s a perp, a crime, an investigation, and boom … your hour is over. It’s mindless and entertaining, and you don’t really have to work so hard at it. Shades of Blue is all this, plus it has J-Lo doing her very best Olivia Benson impression.
Aside from Lopez and Liotta, it also has Drea DeMateo and Anna Gunn, so it seems like it should have a little more teeth than it actually does. I’m not complaining at all, because this is exactly what makes it so fun. It takes itself pretty seriously, and that can be a bit of a bummer sometimes. Still, its story and characters are so over the top, you can’t help but get a kick out of it.
Where to watch it: It’s third and final season premieres this summer on NBC, but you can catch up on the network’s website or On Demand. Hulu also has seasons 1 and 2.