'Community Squad' Season 1 Recap: What To Expect From Season 2?

Community Squad (Division Palermo) is an eight-episode, lighthearted watch about a bunch of people who were part of the newly formed Urban Guards. Since the organization wanted to be as inclusive as it could, there were a lot of people with different disabilities hired for the role. Our protagonist, Felipe, was probably the only member who wasn’t differently abled, and he was adamant to prove his worth and show his people what he was capable of. So let’s find out what kind of mess Felipo finds himself in and if he is able to get out of it.

Spoiler Alert

How did Felipe join the Urban Guards? 

Felipe Rosenfeld had never imagined that his life would turn upside down in just one day. He was in a relationship with a girl named Paula, and he had imagined his entire life with her. He was just about to move in with her when something unprecedented happened, and it made him realize that Paula had a lot of issues with him. He was at a furniture store with her, deciding what kind of bed they should have in their new home, when the store owners pranked the customers by sending their employees dressed as robbers. Felipe, in the blink of an eye, ran from one end of the store to the other in order to save himself. He didn’t even try to save Paula, because he was just that petrified. That moment changed everything for him. Paula told him that she didn’t want to be with a man who was scared of everything. Actually, Paula didn’t like the kind of man he was. Felipe, in general, lacked passion, something that his father said to his face later that day. After breaking up with Paula, Felipe went to meet his father, who told him very subtly that he didn’t have the potential to work for his company. He gave him some cash and told him to work on himself and, moreover, find something that he was passionate about. Felipe’s father was quite the manipulator, and he knew how to have his way without making his real intentions known to the other person. To make matters worse, somebody stole that cash from Felipe, and he didn’t know what to do after that. A member of the newly formed Urban Guards, Diego, came to help Felipe out, and he asked him to file a formal complaint at his office. There was a misunderstanding at the Urban Guards’ head office, as Diego’s superiors thought that Felipe had come there to get recruited and not to file a complaint. So by the end of the day, Felipe had lost his job, his girlfriend had broken up with him, and his morale was at an all-time low, but even after all that, he had a new job, and he was now an Urban Guard. Felipe had mixed feelings about being recruited into the force. On one hand, he felt a little proud of himself, and it made him feel that he did amount to something, but on the other, he saw how people disrespected the Urban Guards. They were not considered to be real cops, and they were seen more as helpers than law enforcement officers. 

What did Felipe and Sofia find out about Diego’s attackers?

Felipe wanted to do something of substance. He wanted to make a real impact, which he knew wouldn’t happen if he stuck by the rules of his organization. Felipe partnered with Diego, or let’s just say that there was nobody else who wanted to partner with him. He saw a truck/van parked improperly, and he went inside a warehouse to check who the owner was and ask him to remove it from there. A man suddenly walked up to them, and shot at Diego. Felipe somehow managed to escape the warehouse, but that incident had a deep, lasting impact on him. Fortunately, Diego survived, but he was in a coma, and the doctors weren’t very hopeful about his condition. That was a turning point in Felipe’s life, as he decided to find out who that person was and if he was linked to any particular syndicate.

During this time, Felipe grew really close to Sofia, his colleague, and he realized that he had developed feelings for her. This was quite unusual for him, since he never thought that he could fall for somebody who was wheelchair-ridden. He realized that he was probably being a little discriminatory and looking down upon people with disabilities. But that was what he felt, and he tried his level best to not hurt them through his actions. Sofia also had her own issues and preconceived notions. She didn’t like people sympathizing with her. She was a strong and independent woman, and whenever somebody tried to be there for her, even if they had the best of intentions, she felt belittled. Like that one time when her parents gifted her a wheelchair, she felt really irritated, as it probably made her feel that she was not capable of supporting herself financially. Similarly, with Felipe, the moment he started getting a bit too affectionate with her, she started repelling him. They did get intimate with each other a couple of times, but after that, Sofia made sure to maintain her distance from him.

Deep down, Sofia knew that Felipe was a good man, and that she too was attracted to him, but still her sensibilities didn’t let her be in that space. I believe the biggest breakthrough that Felipe very unknowingly made was when he found out there were recreational drug pills hidden inside a toy that he had procured from Diego’s belongings. He realized that the man who had shot Diego was a part of a crime syndicate, and there was some toy shop that these people were using as a front to carry out their illegitimate activities. Also, Felipe and Sofia were able to find out that the van he and Diego had seen parked outside the warehouse belonged to the Cassata Brothers, who manufactured toys. Felipe tried contacting his superiors, especially Julio Garcia Reynoso, commissioner and deputy security chief of Palermo, but the man was just not convinced by his theories. Julio told Felipe that what he was saying was absurd and it didn’t make any sense to him. 

Who was the mole in the Urban Squad? 

There was a reason why Julio Garcia Reynoso was trying to obstruct Felipe’s investigation. It was because he was equally involved with the people who were in control of the drug distribution channels. As Felipe had expected, Gabriel and Ariel, who ran a toy shop named Grandpa Kermanns, were the ones who peddled drugs on the streets. Dogo, the man who had shot at Diego, also worked for them, and he was the one who did all the dirty jobs for them. Julio started to realize that Felipe was on the verge of uncovering the truth, and he obviously didn’t like that fact. He had tried to stop Felipe as much as he could, and he had recruited his man (Piero) to keep a close watch on Felipe, but to no avail. That’s when Dogo came into the equation, and he decided to do something to make Felipe feel threatened. Felipe’s car was set on fire to prove to him what the people he wanted to go against, were capable of. But after Felipe accidentally discovered that there were pills hidden inside a toy, he decided to go to the police and tell them all about it. Julio had already started eliminating weak links that he knew could lead the authorities to him. He had killed Dogo in front of Ariel and Gabriel, as he didn’t want to negotiate with anybody who was not ready to obey his orders and do what they were told. Julio knew that he couldn’t afford to make any mistakes, and so he did what he felt was right in that situation. He assured Felipe that he would raid the toy store, and probably that was the exact point where he had decided that he would have to eliminate Felipe too. Felipe requested to join him on the raid, and Julio knew that that was the best opportunity he would get to kill him and make it look like an accident. Also, around this time, Diego came back to his senses, and he told everybody that Julio was the one who was running the entire show. Julio ordered his men to kill Diego, but Vivian, one of the squad members, saved his life. She saw a doctor trying to inject him with something, and she hit him not because she knew that he was going to kill Diego but because he was the sole eye witness in the case. 

Julio killed Gabriel and Ariel, and then he even shot at Felipe. But a person who nobody had expected to be there, Esteban, a member of the local police force who had partnered with Felipe in the past, arrived at the scene and saved Felipe’s life. The Urban Guards were under a lot of scrutiny after what they had done at a rave party, and orders had already been passed to disband the community squad. When the squad leader, Miguel, realized that Felipe’s life was in danger and the people who were responsible for ruining their image at the rave party were the ones who had held him captive, he unleashed his fury. It was Gabriel’s people who had spiked the drinks of the community squad at the rave party just so that they could sell drugs to the guests. Miguel and the entire squad realized that even if their organization was being dissolved, they needed to end things with a bang and take a stand for one of their own. There was a huge gunfight at the end between the Urban Guards and Julio’s men. Julio managed to escape from the scene and had to go into hiding, as he knew his cover was blown and people had come to know that he was involved in the smuggling business. 

What to expect from season 2? 

At the end of Community Squad season 1, we got to know that Julio had an arrangement with a woman named Chang Cho. She was the one who smuggled drugs from Korea and gave them to him to sell on the streets. Julio had managed to escape after all the chaos, but he wasn’t able to take the money with him. He wasn’t able to pay Chang Cho, and she also knew that he had become a liability now. So she killed him in the hotel room where he was hiding and left the scene. As for Felipe, he was alive, and he was happy that his friend, Diego, had recovered from the coma. 

Jose Figueroa became the new coordinator of the community squad, and he happened to be Vivian’s father. Jose went up to Miguel, and he told him that he was expanding the intelligence agency and he needed somebody from the Urban Guards. So it could be possible that in Community Squad season 2 we might see Felipe working for an actual law enforcement authority and being a part of covert operations. Felipe knows what Sofia wants from life, and I think that he would give her her space and not try to impose himself on her. He liked her, and I believe that he was mature enough to keep his feelings to himself till the time Sofia isn’t ready for commitment. Also, I think Chang Cho is going to play a crucial role in the scheme of things because the urban squad had her money, and she would want to get it back from them and make them pay for what they had done. 

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