“Hey, yeah, why not?” That is what I said when DUSTER came around. I’m busy enough, but thought I’d watch and review it. It will be tough doing all eight (8), but I’m a glutton for punishment, I guess. Just what made me lean into this one? Plenty of reasons. It is retro all the way, and I’m very down with reliving the 1970s for sure. It has Josh Holloway, whom I haven’t seen in anything since Lost. (No, I never saw Colony, Yellowstone, or the one M:I movie he was in). We also have Rachel Hilson returning to HBO after her stint in WINNING TIME: THE RISE OF THE LAKER DYNASTY. Plus, what can I say, the classic Plymouth Duster ride was alright. Anyway, let’s play that trailer and get us into the premiere episode of DUSTER.
When the opening scene begins, we get the feeling right away that this is FBI Agent Nina Hayes’ (Hilson) story to tell. She makes a bold request to her superiors that she wants to be assigned to work on the big case in Phoenix, AZ. Now, it is never the expected norm for a newbie on the team to request an assignment, but it
shows Hayes’ initiative and drive to do whatever it takes to get where you want to be, especially if you are a black woman in the 1970s. Lady luck is on her side as the case in question is down an agent. The case file on Ezra Saxton (Keith David) is handed to her, and we are on. Surely, there is some reason to be revealed weeks later, no doubt, as to why Hayes is assertive in getting the case. Time will tell. Which takes us to our other main player, Jim Ellis (Holloway). What plays out is the scene hinted at in the trailer of the red Duster ripping down a dusty road to answer a payphone that has been ringing. He is an errand boy for Saxton and gets his next assignment via the phone. Ah, the days 
of no cellphones. Ellis is not too eager to do the errand, but off he goes anyway. To our surprise, hanging with him is his niece Luna (Adriana Aluna Martinez). Is she his accomplice? The answer is yes, but unknowingly, as he makes the arranged exchange at a taco stand. But they are being tailed, it seems; I suspect a rival crime ring, perhaps. But Ellis’s muscle car outmaneuvers the pursuer. Now get this, the package he delivers to some house is a human heart on ice as he walks into a make-shift hospital in the middle of someone’s open heart surgery. Just another crazy day! And all that is before the credits.
All of this, of course, is set up for how Jim Ellis lives his life and with whom. We met Izzy (Camille Guaty), Luna’s mother, whom Ellis looks after. He gives her part of his pay for that last little errand. Plus, some words are exchanged that make us want to explore that relationship a bit more. This is important character establishment, but I’m waiting for how Agent Hayes meets up with Ellis. Hayes is greeted at the airport by a Navajo agent named Awan Bitsui (Asivak Koostachin, pictured), who gets her to the field office where we meet squad supervisor Nathan Abbott (Greg Grunberg). We meet some of the team, like Agent Chad Grant (Dan Tracy) and the secretary Jessica-Lorraine Sims (Sofia Vassilieva). They are all a bit shocked at her presence, but get into the nitty-gritty of their target, crime lord Saxton.
When we finally meet Saxton, he is at the head of the table where all his hoods, including Ellis, break bread. Thankfully, he is in a good mood because Ellis and his colleagues saved the life of his son Royce (Benjamin Charles Watson) that day. You know, the right amount of money can always get you a black market organ. Also present and liked by Ellis is Genesis Saxton (Sydney Elisabeth), the big man’s daughter. But the agents are moving fast. They learn that Jim Ellis is the registered driver of the Duster. They also question the dude at the taco stand, find out the parcel was a frozen human heart; check hospitals about the matter to no avail; then, thanks to Awan’s clever thinking, check medical equipment rentals and find out devices were delivered to Saxton’s house. Hayes and Awan are getting somewhere, but their racist colleagues aren’t appreciative of their quick headway into the matter. They must be behind the delay of the previous agent’s files on the case. Office compatibility due to racial tensions is quite palpable. Agent Grant even tells Hayes to stay away from Ellis. Why?
Ellis’s assignments never let up. His next job is to get a bit of blackmail material to take down a nuisance for Saxton. Ellis is out to get the dirty one one Bob Temple (Kevin Chamberlin). Hayes and Awan were waiting for Ellis to jump into the Duster, and the game is on. While Ellis is lining up with a sometime female accomplice, Hayes has the boldness to be waiting for him in his Duster. She straight up lays the law and asks him to be her informant to bring Saxton down, and his black market smuggling across state lines could go away. Of course, it backfires on her. So now what? Maybe Jim’s father (Corbin Bernsen) is the means to getting Ellis to turn, or at least, pursuing his father’s history could reveal something?
I know, I know, and the episode is still not over. Boy, they are packing in a lot and a lot of characters as well. Ellis bugs out and heads to Mexico to lay low from the Feds, but not before telling Izzy. He signs on with a local cartel, but hey, if he does that, he falls out of good graces with Saxton, right? Oh, he still manages, barely, to pull off some staged blackmail pictures involving Temple and Ellie’s accomplice. Hayes meets a big obstacle when Grant gets her transferred out for upsetting the applecart. But then, she is tipped off by an anonymous phone call from Charlotte (Gail O’Grady), Joseph Ellis’s wife, but not Jim’s mother. She rats out that Jim is going to cool off in Mexico and will inform Saxton of the reasons why.
There is one last telling story that needed to play out. I though it would show up much later but the powers that be wanted to overstuff this premiere episode with shit, so here we go. Hayes, thanks to Charlotte’s tip, knew Ellis was going to show up at Saxon’s place. She waited for Ellis and held him at gunpoint. She leads him away to watch a videotape that reveals how Elis’s brother died in a van explosion, and she reveals it as not an accident but a deliberate strike from Saxton to silence, the same sort of tactics Saxton used to silence Hayes’ father years before. She and Ellis share something in common – Saxton had their loved ones silenced. Ellis stewed over that revelation as he delivered the Temple blackmail photos to Saxton.
The last moments give us a cool montage as we find that Hayes had the notion to wait for Ellis’s return, and he did all to the Hollies tune “Long Cool Woman In A Black Dress,” and it is so appropriate. Check it out if you don’t know it. The song continues as the next morning we see our gal strutting into the field office, all sure of herself and proud. She places a signed Informant Contract in front of Abbot, and her transfer is made null & void. You’d think that would be enough to end the episode on, but at the last moment, we learn that Phoenix Police Sergeant Groomes (Donal Logue), who we saw earlier getting hush money from Saxton to always look the other way, had Hayes & Ellis under surveillance. Enough already!
We couldn’t cram anymore into this 55-minute premiere of DUSTER. We continue the ride next week.
