WARNING: SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 12!
Will Meachum Be Climbing the Ladder?
In the penultimate episode of Season 1, Todd gets scarier – and his threats get more personal – and Meachum contemplates his future, now that he has one.
Blythe asks him if he’s thought about moving up the ladder to Lieutenant or Captain, and when Meachum makes a joke of it, calls him on it.
Blythe: Your main problem is you sell yourself short. You make jokes because you’re insecure. You’re a natural leader, don’t have disdain for ambition.
Meachum: I didn’t know we were doing an FBI psych profile…
(Thereby proving Blythe’s point)
It seems like something that Meachum hasn’t really let himself consider, but he does often take the lead and the team follows him almost instinctively, so I think Blythe is onto something. Meachum has a lot of baggage though, and his defense mechanism of knocking himself down before someone else can do it keeps getting in his way.
He admits that to Blythe later that day.
Meachum: I was thinking about what you said this morning… I appreciate it. Sometimes I have a tendency to get in my own way with things, I don’t know why.
Blythe offers to put in a word for him with the LAPD higher ups.
He does start taking charge more, calling more of the shots when the team is out in the field and generally starting to seem like a leader.