Shots Fired’s Ashe Akino (Sanaa Lathan) is a lot of things. She’s a powerhouse detective, a loving mom, and a woman who’s not afraid to throw a vase "by" someone else’s head. We learn that last fact in the federal detective’s introductory scene, where her ex’s new bae Paula demands Ashe’s daughter Kai (Laila Lockhart Kraner) goes to bed.
Ashe doesn’t play games, so she flings a household item at the woman’s head as a reminder little Kai has a mother and it’s not Paula. Ashe’s ex Eli (Angel Bonanni) isn’t such a fan of her extreme tactics and takes her outside for a stern talking-to. That’s when Ashe asks Eli of his new girlfriend, “Does she know what you really like? How you like it? Does she know when you’re with her, I’m inside your head?”
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Except, that’s definitely not the original line Lathan said during filming. In the unedited director’s cut of “Hour One,” Ashe actually taunts her ex by saying, “Does she know what you really like? How you like it? Does she know when you’re inside her, I’m inside your head.”
While you may have just cheered over that mic-drop of a quote, FOX was not so happy about the explicit dialogue.
The network deemed Ashe’s no-holds-barred line of questioning too graphic, and asked creators Gina Prince-Bythewood and Reggie Rock Bythewood to remove it from the final product. The writers confirmed as much during a Paley Center screening of the original installment, which still had the supposedly controversial line.
Although the creative couple had to cut Ashe’s fire statement, there’s nothing else FOX wanted omitted from the entire nine-hour project. That’s good news since that means the investigator is fully allowed to be a sexual, complex women for the rest of the series without interruption.
In the pilot alone, we see Ashe have an honest and no-strings-attached sexual encounter with her partner’s very fine brother Maceo (Shamier Anderson). Before their hookup, Ashe tells the football player, “I appreciate the sentiment, but you sound like a real bitch right now."
While we think attacking a man for not wanting to have sex — as Ashe did — is a major no-no, the risqué line is something that most network exec with toss out the window before an episode hits the airwaves. Here’s to many more eyebrow raising lines from TV’s latest bad gal.