Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Class Of ‘09’ On FX/Hulu, Where FBI Recruits In 2009 Deal With A Changed Bureau In 2023 And 2034

Time-jumping has been used as a storytelling method a lot lately, especially since the success of This Is Us seven years ago. But sometimes the writers of these shows forget that, even if you’re jumping between timelines, you still need a cohesive story to tie them all together. A new FX/Hulu series suffers from this problem.

CLASS OF ’09: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: People being tracked from a street camera. Then we pan back and see dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of those views on a big screen, until it’s reduced to floating code and data.

The Gist: “THE FUTURE. 2034.” FBI Director Tayo Miller (Brian Tyree Henry), walks into a room at FBI headquarters and sees a screen with that data. Then a “System Assessment Warning” pops up for a man named Amos Garcia (Raúl Castillo). At a large house, Special Agent Amy Poet (Kate Mara) is outside; she uses her ocular implant to assess the situation and see why Garcia is now a bigger threat. Outside the house, she sees Agent Murphy (Jake McDorman), whom she hasn’t worked with in years; neither are actually on the Garcia case, but they’ve been summoned to this house. Garcia isn’t there, but there’s a room full of screens full of the same data Miller was looking at, plus news footage of Miller saying how safe the country has been under his watch.

“THE PAST. 2009.” Poet drives into Quantico for her first day as an FBI trainee; she and Murphy enter at the same time, and their banter is immediately saucy. She meets her dormmate Hour Nazari (Sepideh Moafi), who doesn’t even know if she can afford to buy a trainee uniform. The group is introduced to their instructors, Drew (Brooke Smith) and Gabriel (Jon Jon Briones), who ask them to talk about themselves. Hour talks about her Iranian parents coming to the US because of persecution. Daniel Lennix (Brian J. Smith) thought he’d better serve as an agent than as a lawyer. Poet talked about being a nurse at a mental health facility and being recruited by an agent. Miller, who is also in the class, stands up and talks about not being able to help people in his former insurance career.

“THE PRESENT. 2023.” Poet has been undercover in the Philadelphia police department, looking to expose rampant corruption there. For instance, her partner shoots someone unprovoked after they enter the man’s apartment on a bogus report of gunshots. As she briefs her fellow agents on the operation, she was able to infiltrate the corrupt group when others couldn’t because she acted like she didn’t care about being in the group. She gets the order to be there when the bust happens, which she thinks is highly dangerous. But after the bust, Lennix, who is her boss, tells her he gave the order; she needs to look burned out and stressed. He needs her to go undercover within a new AI unit in the bureau, run by Hour.

“THE PAST.” In 2023, Poet mentions that she and Lennix used to be together, and we see the beginnings of that relationship during their time in Quantico. The recruiting class of ’09 has gotten close, and Lennix finds out a lot about Poet, including the fact that she’s been on her own since she was 18 when her mother died after a breakdown. They drive by a motel, and at first Poet passes it, then she turns back and they do what one might think they’d do in a motel.

“THE FUTURE.” Miller defends his decade as director, and how he’s changed the bureau through the implementation of an artificial intelligence system that anticipates threats. After the hearing, Poet asks him why she was sent after Garcia, who is apparently a mutual friend of both of them. Miller tells her that he’s become dangerous and a threat to both of them.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Um, maybe This Is Us, except with federal law enforcement?

Our Take: Class Of ’09, created by Tom Rob Smith (American Crime Story) is certainly ambitious, telling its story over three timelines. But just because it’s ambitious doesn’t mean it’s good or compelling to watch. In fact, the first episode of the series is frustrating and confounding as it slowly brings us into the stories of each timeline without a ton of context or any indication of how they tie together, aside from the fact that these agents are from the same group of recruits.

As far as we can tell, the 2009 segments set up the relationships and show the different viewpoints the bureau will be getting by recruiting people from non-law-enforcement professions. The 2023 segments set up the AI scenario and how both Poet and Miller will get involved with it in different ways. And the 2034 segments will illustrate how far Miller has taken the AI, likely to the point where he’s abusing it and arresting people for “pre-crimes,” Minority Report-style.

We’re just guessing, though, because the first episode doesn’t reveal all that much, aside from Miller assessing Garcia, someone who may have been a fellow agent, as a threat because his AI told him so. The episode ends with Garcia dead in Poet’s apartment, after telling her that he’s being sought after for his thoughts. So obviously there’s something sinister going on, especially with Miller. But we’re going to be spending the subsequent episodes rocketing back and forth between storylines and it feels like we’re just going to get yanked away from a particular story just as it’s gaining momentum.

The performances are good, especially from Mara and Henry. We’ve seen Mara before as the thick-skinned person with a questionable past, but Henry undergoes a conversion from a chubby recruit who’s unsure of himself to the super-confident and maybe evil FBI director. But Smith spends so much time mired in details from each timeline, we can’t generate any enthusiasm for good performances in timelines where there’s nothing propelling the stories forward.

Sex and Skin: There’s the motel scene between Lennix and Poet. But that’s about it.

Parting Shot: After Garcia is shot by other FBI officers, they ask Poet what he said to her; she lies and says that what he was saying was nonsense.

Sleeper Star: Both Brooke Smith and Jon Jon Briones have the thankless task of playing the Quantico instructors, who will be a large part of the 2009 timeline but likely won’t go any deeper than just being instructors.

Most Pilot-y Line: “I think we’re about to have one of those friendships that starts off really bad then gets really good,” Murphy tells Poet during their meet-cute banter at Quantico.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Class Of ’09 is too busy jumping between timelines to tell a cohesive story that has any kind of momentum.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.