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To be fair, speaking as someone who has watched both seasons for SWAT, it’s actually pretty even handed with the social elements, considering Deacon makes it pretty clear that he doesn’t exactly approve of Chris’s lifestyle choices, and Chris even acknowledged his point about how it would only result in heartache. Heck, even the infamous gay pride episode was surprisingly even-handed in giving valid points to both sides of the aisle (as both the chief of police and Deacon made it pretty clear they didn’t approve of the lifestyle), and Chris made it very clear that the gay guy who held up an anti-gay radio station was ultimately in the wrong for his actions. That’s still better than Supergirl or, for that matter, The Red Line, which made absolutely NO attempt whatsoever at having any contrarian views against homosexuality being depicted in an even remotely positive light, or even commented on at all. Pretty much everyone in the show in Season 2 didn’t seem to be upset at, say, Alex becoming a lesbian for no real reason, not even her parents, who I’d expect to at least be taken aback at their only biological daughter pretty much denying them any chance at grandchildren, and if anything were overjoyed at her doing so (probably the closest anyone gave to non-100% acceptance was Mon-El, and even he was more baffled at it not being polyamory than truly condemning her coming out).

Trust me when I say this, I’ve seen far worse instances in other shows of SocJus pandering than in SWAT’s second season. For example, Supergirl in Season 2, heck, Supergirl Season 1 even (and that was the better season overall). Am I happy with the few elements that slip in, absolutely not (I wasn’t particularly fond of the racial profiling condemnation bit, and Chris’s bisexual/bigamous focus was one of the low points of the season if you ask me), but I at least know enough about current TV to realize the SocJus elements in SWAT are minor compared to various other shows.

Besides, even Season 2 still had a condemnation of radical Communist student groups (one of the recurring villains was a terror group that in its debut tried to reenact the Syrian Liberation Army from the 1960s, and in its later appearance had a pyrrhic victory where it is implied that SWAT only ended up furthering that group’s agenda by arresting them by causing a media circus where they demand a reduction of Capitalism), so the show’s at least anti-Communist, which is better than most shows (as one user pointed out here, the other female main character in The Red Line was a communist agitator in all but name, and treated largely positively).

As far as the topic at hand, when seeing the previews, I wasn’t too sure about the show, especially when, 1., the whole gay angle wasn’t even tried to be hidden, and 2., one of the trailers made it sound as though Chicago was the most segregated city in the world and that was a reason to riot (When hearing that, I was thinking “What’s this, the 1960s or 1950s?” How on earth does it have Jim Crow laws still in play? Now, if they willingly segregated, that’s one thing, and I can understand that bit, but the way the trailer depicted it, they made it sound as though Chicago was the modern day Jim Crow of cities). A side note, but watching the ending of Max Keeble’s Big Move is going to be a LOT harder to watch thanks largely to the crap Officer Paul Evans had to put up with, especially when unlike Troy McGinty, Officer Evans didn’t even deserve having a mob go against him since his shooting that doctor was an accident. I felt more sympathetic to him than the others, and he’s technically the antagonist. The reason I point this out is because Noel Fisher played both characters.