3 Things to Know as ‘L.A.’s Finest’ Season 1 Arrives on Fox

LA's Finest Gabrielle Union Jessica Alba
Premiere
Spectrum Originals/Sony Pictures Television/FOX

After premiering last year on the Spectrum cable system, Season 1 of this high-octane spinoff L.A.’s Finest from the Bad Boys movie franchise joins Fox’s fall lineup.

Gabrielle Union reprises her film role as Sydney Burnett (the sister of Martin Lawrence’s character), a hard-living former DEA agent turned LAPD officer. Jessica Alba (above right, with Union) packs an equal amount of heat as her more grounded partner, Nancy McKenna.

Here, the onscreen duo and fellow L.A.’s Finest executive producers Brandon Margolis and Brandon Sonnier give us the lowdown.

Their backstories are…complicated.

The series begins with the revelation that Syd and Nancy are each dealing with trauma from the past and concealing something from the other. “As any partners will tell you, secrets can only stay hidden for so long before they blow up in your face,” Margolis teases. Those ghosts, Alba adds, resurface throughout the season. “We have to deal with that personal, uncomfortable stuff, but we do it together,” she says.

LAs Finest Season 1 Syd Nancy Jessica Alba Gabrielle Union

(Nicole Wilder/Spectrum Originals/Sony Pictures Television/FOX)

Family members visit.

Don’t look for a cameo by Lawrence, but other Burnetts pop by, Union reveals — and some will leave a mark: “If you see them more than once, they’re there for a reason.” That said, Sonnier adds that he and Margolis “are huge fans of the films and look for any excuse to thread them into our expanded BAD BOYS universe. There are Easter Eggs throughout the series.”

They protect and serve and look good doing it.

To research their roles, Union and Alba met with women inside the LAPD and found some to be just as chic as these highly skilled characters, who, in the premiere, take on a cartel. “A lot of [them] were serving full face and hair,” reports Union, scoffing at the notion that “you can’t be sexy and still be capable at your job.” As she says, “They showed us!”

With additional reporting by John Griffiths

L.A.’s Finest,  Broadcast Series Premiere, Monday, September 21, 8/7c, Fox