Coroner Review: Confetti Heart (Season 1 Episode 6)

I only have five stars to give, and I give all five to Coroner Season 1 Episode 6, “Confetti Heart,” with my whole heart. 

The reason for this rating is only slightly emotional. The fact is that Coroner combines all the elements of what makes this show great with an important social justice issue to create a perfect episode of television. 

Opening the old coroner’s cases is the perfect way to incorporate Jenny’s actual job into the story without making her an honorary detective.

I do not watch this show because I want to watch a police procedural. The farther it is from that, the better. 

More importantly, Koffi Abanda’s death allows the show to address the worldwide issue of police brutality against Black and indigenous people and people of color. 

It doesn’t claim to have answers — the only goal is to show us how complex situations can be.

The complexity is not meant to garner sympathy for Bell and Deveaux. We know by the end of the episode that they tasered Koffi after shooting him to cover up their actions. 

Jenny’s wonderful work as a coroner lets viewers know this for sure. But, her only goal is to re-open the case and get a retrial. 

We don’t know for sure if the officers will be convicted or not. So this is just one step toward justice. Coroner isn’t a show meant to tell the whole story. 

We could learn Bell and Deveaux’s fate through McAvoy, but that would be a bonus. It’s probably best if McAvoy stays away from Bell and Deveaux all together and just supports the Abanda’s as best he can. 

We learn how messy and corrupt these cases can be just by watching what happens to McAvoy. 

He’s threatened by fellow cops on his own property and can’t tell Jenny about it, even though she’s right inside, for a multitude of reasons. 

For one, she’s white. For another, she’s not a police officer. She might be blinded by a desire for justice that would cause more trouble than good. But more than that, McAvoy is far from perfect. He risks so much by going to Deveaux’s home and nearly killing him. 

There is absolutely no excuse for killing an unarmed black man who just wants to put his trumpet away. But at the risk of being too cliché, two wrongs don’t make anything right. 

McAvoy puts his career on the line for revenge that won’t heal Kenia or Imani’s hearts. Then again, he used to call a woman who lost her son at the hands of these cops “mama.”

He abandoned his community for the police force even if he had every idealistic intention of coming back when he “healed” the tensions between police and the community. 

I do understand his anger as best I can. It just reiterates the complexity of the situation and in a way, that’s all a TV show should aim to do. 

Jenny and Donovan get as much justice as they possibly can at this juncture. It’s even amazing that they’ve stretched it this far. Trust that in reality, families of Black victims face far more red tape. Imani and Kenia have been ripping through it, but they haven’t always had Donovan and Jenny’s help. 

If Coroner tried for a “happier” ending it would be completely unbelievable. 

R.I.P. to all of the unarmed Black human beings around the world who have been shot for just living their lives. 

We need to shift our attention to Jenny for just a quick second because it’s brilliant how Coroner weaves her anxiety and mental health storyline into this episode without taking away from the importance of the social justice issue it is confronting.  

The mark of a good show is one that doesn’t have to pause every single ongoing storyline just to address a bigger issue. 

Although Jenny barely takes a wrong step — including the compassion and understanding she shows Kenia and Imani by letting them stay in the courtroom until the coroner’s inquest resumes — it’s still very hard to believe she’s doing as high pressure a job as she is without taking time to heal and focus on her mental health. 

Autopsy Notes:

• This episode is beautifully directed and paced. 
• The opening scene is a great way to draw viewers into the coroner’s inquests — it shows us what happened to more than one victim, at least in Jenny’s mind. 
• Ross definitely could’ve taken the episode off, it would’ve been fine. 
• Kenia’s breakdown in court is necessary storytelling. We need more stories about what it’s like to be the relative of a police shooting victim on TV.  
• The scene in which McAvoy gets pulled over is brilliant and necessary to show the different forms of racism non-white people deal with every day. 

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Coroner airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on The CW.

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