‘Line of Fire’ NBC Review: Peter Krause Heads a Clan of Federal Agents Who Are Better at Solving Crimes Than Getting Along

Having a police officer, a secret service agent or an FBI agent in the family is already enough to complicate everyone’s lives. But what happens when a single family brings together all those professions, and a few others related to law enforcement? That’s the premise of Line of Fire, a series that starts out on a relatively light note but gradually takes a darker turn. Its protagonists are the five members of the Hollingsworth family, all of whom work, in one way or another, in what is commonly known as «law and order.»

The premise of this NBC series, distributed internationally by HBO Max, seems tailor-made for a joke. Who keeps things under control in a household where members of the FBI, the Secret Service, the Department of Justice and the U.S. Marshals all coexist? Well, nobody, as it turns out. «It’s a family full of people who will stop at nothing to protect strangers but can’t stop hurting each other,» someone remarks after a particularly disastrous family dinner. That’s pretty much the idea.

There are five of them, all adults, and they no longer live under the same roof, but their professional lives keep bringing them into contact. The father, Mike (Peter Krause), is about to retire from the Secret Service. His middle son, Mike Jr. (Tommy O’Brien), has followed in his footsteps but has a decidedly strained relationship with him, to the point of keeping things from his father that he probably shouldn’t. The mother, Jane (Hope Davis), from whom Mike is «separated but not divorced,» is a senior member of the U.S. Marshals and finds herself investigating a case alongside their eldest daughter, Clare (Kat Cunning), who works for the FBI. The youngest, Russ (Taylor Bloom), has the least hands-on job of the bunch, but remains in the same professional universe, working for the Department of Justice.

The family’s chemistry initially comes through in a series of minor misunderstandings and pointed inside jokes. At one point, mother and daughter even argue in the middle of the investigation they’re working on because Clare hasn’t brought her new boyfriend home to meet the family. But the tone soon grows considerably darker when the murder of a female agent appears to be connected to a possible serial killer targeting people in law enforcement. Could the Hollingsworths themselves be on the list?

Created by Safran, a writer behind Quantico and Gossip Girl, the series benefits from a cast of familiar faces and a convincing sense of family chemistry. The tensions between mother and daughter, and father and son, escalate when Clare finally brings her boyfriend home for dinner. The evening doesn’t go well. Not at all. There’s also another important character to keep in mind, someone who is technically part of the family, though nobody seems particularly eager to talk about him. His name is Charlie, and he’s Mike’s son from his first marriage.

By making the family itself the center of the criminal investigation, Line of Fire sidesteps the more conventional «case of the week» structure typical of network television procedurals. Still, certain elements give away its more traditional TV roots: the sometimes heavy-handed musical cues, the frequent repetition and explanation of plot developments in the dialogue, and the carefully timed narrative hooks designed to keep viewers watching through commercial breaks.

That said, Line of Fire turns out to be considerably more entertaining than its premise and initial setup might suggest. It’s true that there’s nothing particularly groundbreaking about its familiar TV-procedural approach to a convoluted police investigation. But the idea of making the investigators themselves potential victims of the crime they’re trying to solve —people who, as it happens, don’t particularly like one another— adds an unexpected degree of inventiveness. And when they’re all members of the same family, one that can’t even agree on how to prepare dinner, so much the better.