VINDICATION: Season 3

Name: VINDICATION: Season 3
Item: VINDICATION: Season 3
Author: Lillie Jaenchen

"Engrossing, Unpredictable, Faith-Based Police Drama"

Content: -1 Caution advised for older children, including teenagers, and sensitive adults.

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

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What You Need To Know:

Season 3 of VINDICATION is an engrossing, brilliantly written police drama streaming on Redeem TV and Great American Pure Flix. A new murder case confronts the program’s hero, Detective Gary Travis, who became a Christian in Season 1 and 2. This time, however, a member of Gary’s own household becomes a suspect. Also, he’s arrested himself, and his protégé in the police department, Kris, goes missing. Meanwhile, the only other honest detective working the case, Tre Millwood, must keep his cards close to his bullet-proof vest, because he can’t trust his boss or his fellow officers.

Season 3 of VINDICATION takes the program’s usual twists and turns them into a roller coaster ride. Tight scripts, top acting, skillful editing, and excellent camerawork always leave viewers wanting more. Season 3 has a strong Christian, moral worldview where the Christian faith of Detective Travis and his family grows, faces challenges and finds new paths to healing. For example, Travis starts a Bible study in jail. Movieguide® advises caution for children, however, because of drug references and the evil government officials and criminals in VINDICATION.

Content:

(CC, BB, PP, Pa, V, S, N, A, DD, MM)

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Strong Christian, moral worldview about a police detective working in a small Texas town includes, in Season Three: In Episode One, the detective recalls a conversation with a household member about going to Heaven or Hell and promising for both to talk to their church pastor for more details. In E2, a member of the detective’s Christian men’s small group has a conversation with his daughter about there being more to life than just “having fun,” citing “living for others” and “honoring God” as higher aspirations and a girlfriend sends her boyfriend a video of her singing a Christian hymn. In E3, the detective’s Christian men’s small group visits him in jail, another detective is told by a suspect’s family member about the workings of the Holy Spirit, and the detective is shown praying with fellow inmates. E4 opens with the detective leading a Bible study with four other jail inmates. E5 depicts the detective reading his Bible in bed at home, as well as his wife picking up his Bible the next day to read what he is reading. In E7, a character starts a conversation with the detective about reading the Bible, and the ex-wife of a member of the detective’s small group describes Brian as a new man since he made a commitment to Jesus. E8 opens with a pastor’s words at a candlelight memorial for a slain teenager, while one of the teenager’s friends now desires to talk to her parents about “Heaven and God,” then concludes with a surprise Christian baptism in a church worship service, plus a contradictory worldview depicted is an “anything goes” pagan outlook of financial gain at the cost of lives ruined or snuffed out by illegal drugs, the details of which are described in the categories below (a crooked cop is the central figure demonstrating this worldview, along with those characters with whom he conspires with);

Foul Language:

No obscenities, profanities or scatological issues;

Violence:

E1 has a body with a single gunshot in the morgue for ID, a description of the victim “bleeding out” before their body is dumped at site found, and the actual murder site shows jacket in a pool of blood. E2 has talk of another body found and “dumped,” shows a boyfriend hitting his girlfriend, then a male witness to this beats up the offender. E5 shows a thug taking precision rifle aim at an FBI surveillance team sitting in a car. E7 depicts shots fired at a police detective at a nightclub concert venue. E8 depicts a criminal person killing an associate;

Sex:

E2: An undressed woman invites a man married to someone else into her bedroom, and there’s an offer of a promotion in the police department if a person does a sexual favor for a city council member. E6: A woman hired to waitress at a party is instead forced to perform sexual favors behind closed doors; one of Tomlinson’s enforcers picks up the Texas Ranger at a bar for an implied sexual encounter and thus compromises the investigation;

Nudity:

E2: A woman undresses out of sight in the next room, throwing her clothes on a visible bed, while inviting a male detective to join her in the bedroom, and a woman sits by a swimming pool wearing a bikini;

Alcohol Use:

In E3, a police detective’s wife pours a glass of alcohol, and on a different night is shown unable to sleep and pouring more alcohol;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

No smoking or drug use, but the crooked cop is depicted making a major drug purchase for further sale and distribution; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

In E2, a city council member promises a police department promotion for sexual involvement, and in E7 the crooked cop makes a hefty drug deal for his own financial benefit.

More Detail:

** TELEVISION GUIDE **

HEADLINE: ** Engrossing, Unpredictable, Faith-Based Police Drama **

Title: VINDICATION: Season 3

Quality: * * * * Acceptability: -1

SUBTITLES: None

WARNING CODES:

Language: None

Violence: V

Sex: S

Nudity: None

TV RATING: TV-PG

STARTING DATE: September 1, 2023

STARRING: Todd Terry, Venus Monique, TC Stallings, Peggy Schott, Steve Mokate, Dequan Ryan, Justin Armstrong, Barry Victor Piacente, Alivea Disney, Matt Holmes, Candace Kirkpatrick, Megan Glover, Brett Varvel, Marianne Haaland, Andrew Cheney, Tenley Stitzer, Brandi Price, Emma Elle Roberts, Laurie Coker

DIRECTOR: Jarod O’Flaherty

PRODUCERS: Jarod O’Flaherty, Corey Cannon

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: William Curtis, Michael Scott, Linda Blazy, Mike Jeffs

WRITER: Jarod O’Flaherty, Alan Tregoning, Matt Chastain

BASED ON THE NOVEL/PLAY BY: N/A

NETWORK: Redeem TV/Great American Pure Flix

GENRE: Drama/Police Drama

INTENDED AUDIENCE: Older children and adults

REVIEWER: The Rev. Dr. Gary L. Olsen

OVERVIEW REVIEW: VINDICATION: Season 3 is an engrossing, brilliantly written, half-hour, faith-based police drama streaming on both Redeem TV and Great American Pure Flix. The series focuses on Detective Gary Travis of the fictional East Bay, Texas police department. VINDICATION captivatingly tells the story of both law enforcement in a small but growing town and the personal, family lives of those keeping the peace or breaking the law. Tight scripts, top acting and excellent camerawork always leave viewers wanting more.

Unlike Season 1, VINDICATION: Season 3 picks up a storyline left suspensefully hanging at the end of the last episode of Season 2. That final scene shows Detective Travis taking one last look at a chalked body drawing on an empty warehouse floor that, the previous night, had hosted a guns-drawn standoff between a crooked cop, a crime boss and a familiar detective from another precinct, a standoff the outcome of which was not revealed. So, Season 2 viewers are watching the first episode of Season 3 with great eagerness to find out which of the three died in the duel.

Anyone diving into VINDICATION for the first time via Season 3 need not have seen Seasons 1 or 2. After continuing to remain anonymous for the first few moments of Episode 3.1, the morgue identification by Detective Travis reveals that the victim is a fourth person, seemingly unrelated to the previous night’s event. Thus, the script puts off the resolution of the standoff in lieu of pursuing this new homicide case.

The murder case will last the story arc of all eight episodes of VINDICATION: Season 3, providing the series’ usual twists and turns mimicking a ride on a roller coaster with tunnels in the dark. For example, a member of Detective Travis’ own household becomes a suspect. Also, Detective Travis is himself arrested.

As a result, the Travis household is in emotional turmoil. Meanwhile, the detective in the warehouse, Kris Tanner, Travis’ protégé, goes missing. Also, the dirty cop turns out to be the East Bank Police Chief, and he just gets down and dirtier as he utilizes a crime syndicate couple to bully, even assassinate, any opposition.

The only other honest detective officially on the case, Tre Millwood, is investigating most of this while having to keep his cards close to his bullet-proof vest, because he thinks he can’t trust his boss nor his fellow officers. Add the involvement of the Texas Rangers and the FBI, plus a rousing Texas rodeo, and you have a host of mysteries that come to an end during the last thrilling episode of Season 3.

Season 3 of VINDICATION maintains the program’s high quality suspense writing, skillful editing, excellent acting, artful cinematography, meticulous production values, and visionary directing. The episodes mix ingenious unpredictability and contagious intrigue. Consequently, VINDICATION: Season 3 continues to provide enthralling and gratifying entertainment, with a Season 4 in the making for 2024.

The dominant worldview of all seasons of VINDICATION is a strong Christian worldview. In Season 3, the Christian faith of Detective Travis and his family grows, faces challenges, provides paths to healing, and is appropriately shared with those around them. While Detective Travis leads a Bible study in jail with a small group of fellow inmates, his wife Becky experiences a faith meltdown, admitting that she’s exhausted “asking God for things that never happen.” However, Daughter Katie, an agnostic in previous seasons, steps up and responds, “Let me ask, then.” Also, as in previous seasons of VINDICATION, the good guys win, and the bad guys lose when all is said and done. As an extra treat, the final episode ends with an unexpected baptism for a new believer with whom Travis had shared Jesus.

Of course, Season 3 of VINDICATION, being a police drama, has an evil antagonist. In this case, the antagonist is a symbol of intentional evil who deepens his involvement in an illegal drug trade spanning a series of small towns along a state highway, with the town of East Bank as the hub. The villain’s enforcers, Vince and Raven, make offers that the villain’s targets can’t refuse. Whether compromising morality through sex, beating up influential community leaders until they cooperate, or even taking the lives of the opposition, the head villain, his hoodlums and the community’s criminal class portray a violent and godless side of life. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution for older children because of this graphic underbelly of government, criminal corruption.

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