And then, to save them from this awful purposelessness, this dreadful freedom, their Sergeant reappears, and ... hurray? They are still on the force! "File the report. Finish up," he says in his hard but secretly loving way.
God, they nearly die of gratitude. To be a real human being you need something to give your life purpose and take your freedom away, you need something to belong to, the corporation, the force, the platoon, the kiwanis, the brigade.
* * * * *
OUTSIDE news hours television no longer even pretends to offer images of the real world. Nor does it offer fantasy that is moving enough to disturb you, to make you laugh or to scare you. Instead there is silly reassurance, something on the order of cake-eating people while there are food riots in the streets.
"Mod Squad" is proof that someone who is paid to keep their finger on the nation's pulse thinks that America is scared of its young. America is afraid of the rock and roll army, scared of its rejection of their values, scared of the drugs kids take instead of alcohol, scared the kids might really be having fun in spite of the imminent wrath of God, scared that it might be true when the young say that adults lives are boring, trivial, and nourishing as spit.
"Mod Squad," with its unrecognizable caricatures of these scary kids, is reassurance for frightened adults. The images say that kids who reject the advantages offered them are not morally superior but spoiled troublemakers who will regret it later, that black people just need more of the old free enterprise system, that the Army makes a man of you, that any of these hippie kids would just jump at the chance to play ball, to get on the bandwagon, to join the team.
T.V. offers these silly images because it's what people want to see, it's the line of least resistance, it gets the high ratings and moves the goods. But for many Americans T.V. is the primary source of information, their window to the world. And in fact, no matter what T.V. says, there is a war going on, the worst in America is facing the best, something is going on here that Mayor Daley doesn't understand and that scares him to death. And a country whose official "reality" on T.V. is so at odds with what any kid knows is actually happening is a country gone schizoid.
At the end of "Mod Squad," the black kid, incredulous at being taken back on the force, says, "We thought we were finished." And the tough cop replies, "That's the trouble with you kids today. You think too much."