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Flashpoint
Show Guide
The Strategic Response Unit is a team of cops like no other – they’re the elite, the blueblood of the force. High risk is their business and life-and-death stakes are their world.
The SRU team is also unique; they rescue hostages, bust gangs, defuse bombs, climb buildings, see through walls and talk down suicidal teens. It takes years on the street, intense physical conditioning and elite marksmanship to qualify for the SRU. They have to prove that they’re at the top of their game on a daily basis – because if they’re not, there are hundreds of others willing to step in and take their place.
The team uses state-of-the-art equipment – sniper rifles, snake-cameras, robots, flash-bangs, night-vision and tasers. But beyond all of the cool gadgetry, the most important weapons in their arsenal are human intuition, a gift for words and their ability to read emotion. Each team member is uniquely trained in negotiating, profiling and getting inside a subject’s head. They stand out because of the rare balance between lethal hardware and people skills: pure muscle and pure intuition. They’re the envy of law enforcement everywhere.
The stakes are always high in Flashpoint – only here, the lives of the men and women on the team are also always on the line. That’s the nature of the job.
The SRU may be heroes, but they are also human. At the end of the day, they each go home haunted by what they’ve seen, by what they’ve had to do – pursued by new demons which they cram into already bulging closets. They lock down emotion and they second guess decisions made in the heat of the moment. These individuals are constant witnesses to the extremes of human distress. Not everyone is cut out for this.
Meet the Characters
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Dr. Amanda Luria
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Lewis 'Lou' Young
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Mike 'Spike' Scarlatti
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Sam Braddock
Characters
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Dr. Amanda Luria
A brilliant forensic psychologist – but a far cry from your earnest, academic or touchy-feely type. She certainly doesn’t act like your classic shrink: her confidence makes her sexy, along with her chameleonesque ability to blend in absolutely anywhere. This is just one way she puts people at ease…
Dr Luria sees through the defences of even the toughest ‘patients’ – be they SRU team members, or the individuals in crisis she meets on the SRU calls. A perceptive and patient woman herself, she’s intimately familiar with the specific syndromes involved in high-risk law enforcement. One of her favourite tools in getting to the truth is her cutting, deadpan wit – very effective in throwing her subject off guard. She’s even been known to whip out her Advanced Psychotherapeutic Role-Playing Tools – Barbies and GI Joes – to take the ‘serious’ edge off her time with someone in crisis. While Dr. Luria is always on call to her wary, adoptive family, the SRU, her “day job” as a forensic psychologist involves criminal behaviour assessment for Correctional Services – a risky and stressful job that gives her great insight into her research on risk assessment, violent offenders, hostage negotiation and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
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Lewis 'Lou' Young
Lou grew up on the tough, inner-city streets of Jane and Finch – thanks to a deadbeat dad and an addict mother. As a teenager, he hung with a tough crowd whose activities got them in increasing trouble with the law – until he was turned around by a street-wise Pentecostal priest. He got out of the life, deciding that he wanted to serve his fellow man. Lewis became a cop – choosing the guns and gangs division before joining up with the SRU.
Now? Lewis is a gentle, soft-spoken soul who knows every A-hole in town, remembers every case, and prays to God every night to thank Him for pulling him off the street and into his calling. He’s almost religious about his work, keeping his mind full of the latest technologies and tactics. But he is the furthest thing from a holier-than-thou saint. When the rest of the team asks him “what Jesus would do,” Lewis always replies with a smile: “Jesus would kick some ass.”
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Mike 'Spike' Scarlatti
Still the ‘rookie’ after two years on SRU Team One, Spike looks up to Ed, who’s mentored him up through the ranks. He’s an upbeat, likeable Italian guy who likes to see stuff blow up. Spike’s also a great listener, easygoing and intuitive.
As for his love life – Spike’s charm makes him popular with the ladies. He falls deeply in love with every girl he meets -- but for some reason his relationships don’t last more than a month. Could be that he still lives with his folks. In their basement, no less. Or maybe it’s because there are some things that scare even a SWAT guy…
Spike is obedient most of the time – and only occasionally rebellious. He’s trying to learn from his team “elders” while becoming his own man. Very funny, good at impressions, accents, and voices. He’s as good at defusing bombs as he is at defusing team flare-ups and the tension of tough calls.
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Sam Braddock
Sam recently left military service overseas with the JTF 2 (Joint Task Force 2, Canada’s elite Special Operations counter-terrorism force) to join the SRU. He strides into any situation with the cocky confidence and sense of entitlement of a guy who was born for prestige.
But behind the mask, he’s desperately trying to learn what’s “normal” – years of hiding his emotions from a stone-cold father have left him at a loss. Empathy doesn’t come easy for Sam – he knows how to make a good first impression, but after that, things sometimes go sideways.
Sam is the only son of a dysfunctional, high-ranking military policeman. He grew up on international military bases, doted upon by his homemaker mother. And he developed an uncanny gift at sharp-shooting – a dangerous skill, when combined with an itchy trigger finger. But Sam carries secrets connected to his time in Afghanistan and his discharge from the army – secrets his new teammates wouldn’t be happy to find out about. Lucky for him, his father had enough pull to keep his son’s discharge quiet. Lucky for him? His father was able to steer him into the SRU.
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Julianna 'Jules' Callaghan
Jules is an exceptional markswoman, ex-RCMP, who holds her own in the testosterone pumped team environment. She has a grounded, natural prairie-girl confidence that looks you in the face, tells it like it is and expects the truth back. She comes from “The Hat” – Medicine Hat, Alberta. She grew up as the only girl among four brothers, raised singlehanded by her father after their mother died. In this family, girl or boy, you pull your weight, you suck it up, you don’t get anything you didn’t earn. And you learn to shoot.
Not that Jules didn’t have her rebellious phase. Jules has always been a risk-taker who ‘gets’ people easily and enjoys high-stakes situations. A teenage party girl and troublemaker, she saw the light after an all-night conversation with a female RCMP officer in the back of a squad car… There’s a place after all for girls who don’t dream of malls, makeovers and manicures.
She relaxes with triathlons, late-night home improvements, and all-out games of paintball. Long walks on the beach, and a quiet evening in front of the TV… not so much. Which explains her dubious track record in dating – and her growing attraction to her new teammate, Sam Braddock.
Jules is comfortable around the guys, and they accept her as one of their own. But she’s also watchful, still struggling for her own identity within a group that will always define her as being a little different from them.
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Sgt. Gregory Parker
Serious, sharp-minded, a talented people-reader. He knows how to reach out, how to talk to people at their level – whether it’s a homeless schizophrenic off his meds, a hardened gang member, or a troubled youth about to make a big mistake. His uncanny people-reading skills were developed early: as a child he wouldn’t have survived if he didn’t learn to anticipate whether his father was about to beat him or hug him that night…
Seven years ago, Parker’s unconditional passion for his work burned out his relationship with his wife, and he turned to heavy drinking, infidelity, and aggression he couldn’t control. When she left, she took their 10-year old son; and Parker hit rock bottom. The empathy, gentleness, insight and sobriety he embodies today are a testament to the extraordinary effort he put into recovery. He believes the best of people, because he’s living proof people can change. He’s proud of his team, and makes a great father to them – perhaps because he blew his chance of being a father to his own son.
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Ed Lane
Alpha Male of the team. Outgoing, charming, competitive, a risk-taker. Like a kid who’s used to getting what he wants. He’s the best in a group of elite cops and he knows it. When he’s not on the job, he’s with the team. Drinking beer with them in the ‘Man-Cave.’ Or playing guitar, alone, in his basement. Those choices come at a cost to his relationship with his wife and his son. But it’s easier that way for a cop with Trauma-Bond – someone addicted to life-and-death drama, someone who finds it easier to get back into the fray than face his neighbours at a backyard BBQ.
It’s not often that Ed has to use lethal force on the job – but every time he does, he’s sick about it. He bears the weight on behalf of the whole team: after all, it’s his bullet that ended some guy’s life. But this is the burden he’s chosen, and this is the job he’s been training for all his life. It’s somehow easier for Ed to shoulder that unspoken responsibility than to ask his son how his day was at school. The last thing he wants to do is bring this job home with him– but his decision to not involve his family in his professional secrets has a serious cost.
Parker is the one who sees most clearly that a sense of balance is missing in Ed’s life – but he’s been there, and knows this is something a man must learn for himself. That doesn’t mean he’s not going to watch him closely…
