Top hat stuff

A new recruit, a young woman of color, arrives in Sandford. Ever since she was a young girl she dreamt of meeting Nicolas who has become something of a legend after he exposed the Sandford cult and cleaned the town up. He even seems to be the rare case of a truly ethical police officer who follows the evidence instead of profiling people and isn’t afraid to go for the rich old white people at the top.

Nicolas is very pleasant and even a bit cheeky like at the end of the movie but he’s also much older and acts his age. He introduce her to his police officers who have all been swapped out with younger people. All except Danny. The new police officers are pleasant enough but kinda intimidating, and Danny is like a ray of sunshine at the station. He is a sweet and jovial middle aged man who calls everyone love and sweetheart and his desk is allowed to be messy and cosy for some reason. Weight and Pegg have said several times that Danny is Nicolas’ romantic interest in the movie so the recruit notice Nicolas squeezing Danny’s hand when he introduce him but she doesn’t see a ring on either of their fingers. Nicolas informs her that troublemakers have been running circles around them for months so she came at just the right time.

At first she’s very impressed with Sandford. It’s clean, safe and people are very friendly. But then she starts noticing the cameras everywhere. Some were inherited from the previous force but there’s also a lot of more modern cameras. Then she notice that people immediately change their whole personality when they notice her. She starts putting things together and realize things might not be as idyllic as she thought.

She weren’t sure if Nicolas and Danny were out so she didn’t say anything but while she’s on patrol with Nicolas a shop owner asks him when he’s going to “put a ring on it” and Nicolas tells them he doesn’t want to rush things and doesn’t need the law to dictate his and Danny’s relationship. He’s completely oblivious to how contradictory that excuse sounds coming from him because he’s too convinced that he’s not as much of a stickler for the rules as he used to be.

Eventually the new recruit finds Danny sitting alone at the pub. The owner is very attentive and overly friendly with him which seems to bother Danny but he doesn’t say anything. She has a talk with Danny and he admits that he knows the townspeople are scared of the police now and he feels guilty because Nicolas was always obsessed with the law and Danny taught him to enforce it with violence. Now Nicolas is upending the town in search for the mysterious troublemakers and Danny doesn’t know what to do. The recruit tries to tell Danny that he’s the only person Nicolas listens to but Danny won’t hear it.

It naturally ends with a big climax where it’s revealed that the troublemakers are the old police force who were pushed out and replaced with a new force who is extremely loyal to Nicolas. The old gang confronts Nicolas with what he has done to the town but Nicolas doesn’t believe them. He yells “I am the good cop!” and goes into a rant about him being the one good apple who exposed the rot of the barrel and made Sandford safe and lawful, but when he asks Danny to confirm Danny just says “…People are scared, Nicolas” That completely deflates Nicolas and it clearly hurts him when Danny tells him that the townspeople are even afraid of Danny, that he doesn’t even feel part of the town he grew up in anymore because everyone are walking on eggshells around him, that they see him as an extension of Nicolas. And in a way he wants that. He wants to be part of Nicolas, but not like this. That finally force Nicolas to wake up and see what he has become. The new force aren’t pleased with this and action ensures.

By the end he finally marries Danny and the two of them retire together because Nicolas realize he’s not the new blood the town needs. He’s still nosy and becomes the head of the neighborhood watch but he has no real power anymore.