3 out of 5

Created by: Erez Aviram and Tomer Aviram

covers season 1

It is only over the past few years that I would say I’ve become slightly more aware of geopolitics, besides the fact that certain world events (I’m an American; it’s 2025 as of this writing) have made major happenings quite hard to be fully ignorant of. I would by no means consider that slight awareness / exposure to be enough to comment properly on how Israeli comedy Hashoter Hatov (translated as ‘The Good Cop’) “sounds” to an American audience, but furthermore, I’d be commenting on it from a modern perspective – the show’s production is ten years in the past at this point. I’m not worried to offer a political opinion in general, I just really don’t know how to feel on this one: if I’m being over-sensitive to certain takes; if I’m reading too hard into what I know of modern Israel versus a comedic – and intended for popular entertainment – portrayal of its culture. So I will mention a few things at the start here that may be worth considering, but the review will try to focus on this as (essentially) a cop sitcom, and whether or not it’s effective in that regard. With that framing, I offer this stuff for consideration how it might impact your appreciation of that comedy, as it definitely had me cringing at some points.

• There are a few jokes about Gaza, in a similar fashion to how a New Yorker might joke about Jersey. (And the show’s network, Yes, had some Gaza-related controversy as well.)
• There are several jokes about Arabs in general, comparing the two cultures (Isaeli; Arab); some of these have self-awareness; some feel a bit more casual and thoughtless.
• There are several jokes that reference Israeli dignitaries, whom I admittedly had to look up. Some of these jokes might make light about, say, rape allegations. (But again, we could compare this to joking about Bill Clinton, or Trump.)
• Police brutality and corruption is very unblinkingly a joke on the show, and I didn’t get the sense that it was done in any kind of elevated commentary fashion, more just like – let’s roughs up someone innocent and points a gun at them! Whoops! Slapstick!
• Not anything cultural, but costar Moshe Ivgy plays a creep on the show and was indicted for sexual harrassment.
• And more generally: the show is very masculine. In other reviews I’ve read, people mention this positively, claiming the show is poking at that masculinity, and indeed, it is clear that lead Danny (Yuval Semo) is intended to be a parody of a manly man in a manly profession. But still, women on the show are ditzy girlfriends or wildly in love with men or lesbians or etc. Danny’s mother, Yona (Leora Rivlin) is a more positive portrayal, constantly stepping out on her own and on her own terms, but that is in the context of a toxic marriage to which she keeps returning. Casting my thoughts back to 2015, gender representation definitely was different, but this is more akin to a decade earlier than that – early 00s, where being a “strong female” on a cop show meant wearing a short skirt.
• Along these lines, while the show is not outright homophobic, there are a couple gay and trans beats that have an undercurrent of… the lesbians being okay because they’re chicks, but otherwise, straight is the way to be. Again, cast your mind back to a couple decades back, in terms of US TV.

Danny, tough cop in the Petach Tikva district, is facing troubles at home: his steady girlfriend turns out to be gay. This kicks off an ongoing run of romantic woes for Danny, which often get debated upon by the gossipy pool of his fellow police: Commander Rabi (Guy Loel); Danny’s partner, Dubi (Yigal Adika); Arab officer Razi (Loai Nofi); and administrative cop Korin (Ortal Ben-Shoshan); this also is the main thread of the show, weaving some daily hijinx Danny is going through into his day-to-day job. This often involves the scheming of his father (Ivgy), with continually contrived methods of getting cash, such as faking an injury, or stealing a dog, pitting Danny’s dedication to duty against family, with whom he’s been crashing, post-breakup.

Over the course of the 15-episode first season, not much changes. This is not a show of character growth or linear plotting; it is a true sitcom. A close proxy would be Brooklyn 99, as there’s a similar sense of “memory,” carrying over some basic plot beas and jokes to kind of mimic character growth, but that proxy is true to B99’s first couple seasons, which were truly very sitcommy before the show found its rhythm with its principles.

But that’s okay: Hashoter Hatov isn’t aiming to be more than silly, and all of the leads hit a pleasant balance between straight-faced and goofy that makes it very watchable, with the “serious” moments never hung on for too long before being followed by something goofy happening. Semo is very willing to lean in to the man’s man shtick for Danny, although the line is a bit grey as to whether or not he’s actually a tough guy – and I do think the writers (and Semo) would prefer us to see Danny as pretty damn cool. Thankfully, the roll of nonsense that occurs around Danny is frequent enough that this can never get too indulgent, and the repeated cycle of being berated by Rabi for breaking the rules, then solving whichever case by breaking those rules again, is satisfying; we get generally closure on an A- and B-plot each episode, flip-flopping whichever one focuses on a case and whichever one focuses on family or a girlfriend.

Hashoter Hatov, stripped of cultural context, is an enjoyable cop comedy. There’s a bit of oddball humor to it that makes the Brooklyn 99 reference an easy one, and helps to lend any given episode some appreciated looseness, but the overall style of humor is very straight down the middle – a sprinkling of dad jokes and easily accessible gags. The cast is pleasant; the shooting style is of the Arrested Development casual style. Whether or not the “extras” highlighted above are enough to shoo you away is obviously a personal call, but I think it can even be interesting to consider the show even with that stuff (and whatever else I likely didn’t catch) biasing you – as it can be good to stop and think how such things come across from different perspectives.