‘Gang Related’ puts new spin on family ties that bind

By Jacqueline Cutler © Zap2it

Ryan Lopez is torn between two worlds and can easily get killed in either.

Lopez (Ramon Rodriguez, “The Wire,”) the main character in Fox’s “Gang Related,” premiering Thursday, May 22, is a tough cop who was reared by a gang leader.

The relentlessly action-packed drama is set in Los Angeles, and the pilot opens on July 4, 1998. A brave kid fights a much older gangbanger. The kid is determined to hold onto his watch because his late father gave it to him. He is so brave that the gangbanger’s father notices and takes him in.

That kid is Ryan Lopez, and the man who takes him in is Javier Acosta (Cliff Curtis), boss of the city’s most dangerous gang, Los Angelicos. Javier needs Ryan to infiltrate the police department to protect his illegal interests.

Ryan grows into a great cop and lives in both worlds, which leaves him at home in both, but at rest in neither.

“He wants to do the right thing,” Rodriguez says. “He has good morals. He is in such a difficult position.”

And every day he struggles with this. Complicating his life is that the gangbanger who initially beat him for the watch is Javier’s son, Carlos (Reynaldo Gallegos, “Sons of Anarchy”). Carlos, a stone thug, is jealous of Ryan and always wants to make trouble for him.

Much as Ryan appreciates the family that gave him a home, he is very much a cop, and he considers the elite Gang Task Force another family. His captain, Sam Chapel (Terry O’Quinn, “Lost”), is also paternal toward Ryan. He’s great at being a cop yet knows all of the secrets of the criminals.

“He was orphaned at 10,” Rodriguez says of Ryan. “One of the most important things is to give him purpose. Javier treats him like a son. From 10 to 18, he was in Javier’s house.”

Ryan is a witness to the senseless bloodshed in Javier’s wake.

“It’s the struggle,” Rodriguez says. “This show lives in the gray area a lot. Life is always in the gray area. He joined the LAPD with a strict mission. He can’t help but get attached.”

In the pilot, Lopez’s partner is gunned down, and Carlos is the shooter. The GTF jumps into action, and Lopez winds up working with Detective Cassius Green (RZA).

Both actors hung out with cops for research.

“One of my best friends I grew up with has been on the NYPD for 17 years,” RZA says. “He’s one of Brooklyn’s finest. I went on to become a rapper. He went on to become a cop. He came to my house in California, and I picked his brain. There are a lot of things that actors do that cops are very against.”

On-set consultants ensure that the actors move as police would, and there is a lot of movement in this. Car chases, crashes and gunplay make up chunks of the first few episodes, which makes sense considering that creator Chris Morgan is a producer of “Fast & Furious 6,” and executive producers include Scott Rosenbaum (“The Shield”) and Brian Grazer (“24”).

“Cas has on dog tags for his brother,” RZA says. And toying with bracelets on his wrist, he adds, “These are my own prayer beads. In some episodes, I had the prop department bring prayer beads for Cassius. Cassius makes a little prayer because you never know what is going to happen. It is life or death. The only thing the cop may know is you think about gangsters who all have AK-47s.

“The mindset is it is me and my team against them,” RZA continues. “I would rather my team goes home to their family than the criminal goes home to theirs.”

Of course for Lopez, both are his families. Javier understands and loves Lopez, but his thug of a son, Carlos, is still his son. When Carlos winds up in the ER after a gunfight with a rival gang, only Ryan is uniquely equipped to help stop further bloodshed.

The characters feel very real, especially Carlos.

“Just about every aspect of Carlos’ life is something that I’ve not just witnessed but grew up in, in the neighborhoods in South Central Los Angeles,” Gallegos says. “I was born in San Pedro but raised everywhere between

112th and Watts, all the way through Carson, Compton and Gardena. So I do have a personal responsibility to the character. I feel like portraying him as real as possible from where I came from and giving that person a voice on the street, that was pretty important to me to make him a real person.”

Carlos and his family speak in Spanish; in other scenes Russian is spoken and in others Korean. It gives the series more of a filmic and interesting quality than a standard cop procedural.

“It’s not like a blend or not anything like that,” Morgan says, addressing the show’s diversity. “It is full — I mean, these guys kill it. I mean, to be able to learn that and to come in and convey that and — we embrace, not only in the writing room but in terms of the story and actually in practice, what you guys will see in series.”

Across

1. Parsons of “The Big Bang Theory”

4. “Cagney & Lacey” actress

8. Anna Faris sitcom

11. Suffix for legal or journal

12. “Normal, __” (2000-01)

13. Goof

14. Sarah Michelle Gellar series (3)

17. Teriyaki marinade

18. “Men __ __ Certain Age”

19. Part of the foot

21. “__ Trek: Voyager”

24. “The Hangover Part __”; ’11 Bradley Cooper film

25. “__ Ordinary Family”

26. Sabrina __ Beauf

27. Initials for playwright Simon

28. Character on “The Simpsons”

30. “Planet of the __”; 1974 sci-fi series

Down

1. “__ Pilot”; John Wayne movie

2. Suffix for fool or ghoul

3. Former Attorney General Edwin __

4. Small flat-bottomed boat

5. Cry of discovery

6. Wife to Todd, Fisher and Burton

7. Ma, for one (hyph.)

8. “__ __ Work”

9. Miner’s discovery

10. Miniver or Doubtfire: abbr.

15. 2003-10 crime drama series (2)

16. “Quantum __ __”; 2008 James Bond movie

19. “__ Street Blues”

20. Start of the “Old MacDonald” refrain

22. Francis or Murray

23. Role on “Friends”

29. Hell’s ruler

31. Marshall, for one

33. Undergarment

34. “Why Did __ __ Married?”; 2007 movie

35. “__ a Living” (1980-89)

36. Long or Peeples

37. Mary Richards’ boss

38. Hampton or Holiday

39. “My Mother, the __”

40. Trauma centers: abbr.