Someone has been breaking into local businesses, taking nothing & leaving frogs behind. A silly series of pranks? That’s what Rome assumes until Kenny catches the Frog Man in the act and takes a bullet to the chest for his trouble. The “Frog Man” side of this episode goes some strange places and ultimately the episode tries to wring some poignancy out of the culprit’s identity, but it just comes off as silly and not at all sad. What does work is the fallout between Kenny and Max following Max’s near death on the job. Kenny’s lost faith in Max as a partner, but, even more critically, in himself as a police officer. There’s a great scene at the end of the episode when Kenny and Max finally get past all the anger and just talk with sadness about the violence that they can’t escape. Max has a wonderful moment when she muses that she and Kenny are both under thirty and they’ve both nearly died in the past month. “We’re just kids,” she says. “Just kids.” This stuff feels very real and very sad. The episode is a good one; if the Frog Man had turned out to be something different than he was, the episode could have been great. As it is, it’s only a slight detraction. 3 stars.
tl;dr – the mystery of a violent burglar doesn’t work very well, but a subplot involving Kenny & Max struggling to deal emotionally with the violence of their job is well-done and moving. 3 stars.