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| 2 | %%Image kept on page per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1651066610079274300 |
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| 6 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/homicide01.jpg]] |
| 7 | [[caption-width-right:350:The Season 5 main cast. [[note]]Left to right: J.H. Brodie, Det. Sgt. Kay Howard, Det. Frank Pembleton (front row); Det. Mike Kellerman, Det. John Munch, Det. Meldrick Lewis, M.E. Julianna Cox (middle row); Det. Tim Bayliss, Lt. Al Giardello (back row).[[/note]]]] |
| 8 | |
| 9 | -> "''You go when you're supposed to go, and everything else is homicide."'' |
| 10 | |
| 11 | Before ''Series/TheWire'' – hell, even before ''Series/NYPDBlue'' – there was ''Homicide: Life On The Street''. Based on the factual book ''Homicide: A Year On the Killing Streets'' by ''Baltimore Sun'' journalist Creator/DavidSimon and airing on Creator/{{NBC}}, the series charted the lives of a team of homicide detectives in UsefulNotes/{{Baltimore}}, both on and off the clock. The show actually hung under the threat of cancellation after the first, but two Emmy nominations and the popularity of fellow soapy police show ''Series/NYPDBlue'' got it renewed for a second season of just four episodes, making it the shortest season ever commissioned by a US network. |
| 12 | |
| 13 | Over time, the show managed to build a comfortable – if not spectacular – audience, and traded in several of the older, less conventionally attractive cast members for young studs. Still, the series continued to achieve critical acclaim for what was then considered to be a realistic look at police life, with cases going unsolved, killers getting off the hook and officers having very real character flaws. It finished after seven seasons in 1999, with a [[Film/HomicideTheMovie TV movie]] wrapping up the remaining plot threads in 2000. It is generally considered to be the high water mark for PoliceProcedural shows, at least until Creator/DavidSimon returned with another Baltimore-based cop show, HBO's ''Series/TheWire''. The realism stems in large part from Simon's experience writing his non-fiction book about a year embedded with BPD Homicide; viewers familiar with the book will have fun trying to work out which scenes are ripped from its pages (TOW has a list of the book's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homicide:_A_Year_on_the_Killing_Streets#Content notable cases]]). |
| 14 | |
| 15 | The character of Detective JustForFun/JohnMunch proved so popular that the character – always played by actor Richard Belzer – went on to make guest appearances in two ''Series/LawAndOrder'' series (including a French spin-off), ''Series/TheXFiles'', ''The Beat'', ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment'', ''Series/TheWire'' and even ''Series/SesameStreet''. Following the end of ''Homicide'', Munch appeared as a regular character on ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' from its premiere until his retirement early in the 15th season, and made occasional appearances afterward. |
| 16 | |
| 17 | The show was created by Paul Attanasio and was produced by Baltimore Pictures, the production company of executive producer Creator/BarryLevinson, initially alongside Reeves Entertainment. After the first season, however, Reeves Entertainment's parent company, Creator/ThamesTelevision, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and NBC assumed co-production duties. |
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| 19 | ---- |
| 20 | !This show provides examples of: |
| 21 | * AbortedArc: |
| 22 | ** A slightly ridiculous sounding plot about Bayliss being a teen activist was discarded for the infinitely more effective story of his childhood sexual abuse. |
| 23 | ** Pembleton's stroke arc was going to run longer, but fans wrote in saying they wanted the old Frank back. As a result NBC and the producers acquiesced and it was discarded in favour of Pembleton's marital problems. |
| 24 | * AccuseTheWitness: Given the nature of the show, getting the wrong guy initially is relatively common. Going after one of the witness is always the next step. |
| 25 | * TheAce: Pembleton. His reputation as a legendary detective is well-earned, considering the amount of black on his part of the board. Then, of course, is Kay Howard, who consistently has the highest closure rate [[AlwaysGetsHisMan (and her humps always get convicted.)]] |
| 26 | * ActionGirl: Howard qualifies, and even Russert in "All Through the House," where she goes out on the street with Lewis because she misses the adrenaline rush. |
| 27 | * ActorAllusion: |
| 28 | ** In "Heartbeat", Dr Dyer tells Dr Cox she's done dating homicide detectives after her break-up with Munch, and is now seeing a stand-up comic. She is played by Harlee [=McBride=], Richard Belzer's wife. |
| 29 | ** A possible subtle one. When Pembleton is interrogating Gordon Pratt he mentions Creator/JimThompson and ''Film/TheGetaway''. Talking about the film and its remake, Munch concludes that the remake wasn't worth remembering. The remake starred Creator/AlecBaldwin, brother of Creator/DanielBaldwin who played Beau Felton. |
| 30 | * AdaptationExpansion: Incidents off-handedly mentioned by Simon in the original, non-fiction, book would garner whole episodes based around them. |
| 31 | * AdaptationTitleChange: ''Homicide: Life on the Street'' was based on the book ''Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets''. |
| 32 | * AesopAmnesia: To an extent. Pembleton tells Bayliss that he's to embrace his vices and get to know them in order to be virtuous, because virtue isn't real virtue if it hasn't been tested. Because the context was a discussion of exploration of sexuality, Bayliss takes this to heart and learns to embrace the darker side of his sexuality, eventually identifying as bisexual. However, Pembleton's advice had a clear, non-sexual, element to it that Bayliss totally missed. As a result, he does not apply Pembleton's advice in dealing with his cases and [[spoiler: Bayliss eventually snaps and executes Luke Ryland when he is freed on a technicality]] |
| 33 | ** [[spoiler: In the episode where Felton is found murdered]] Howard mentions that Felton spoke to her about getting back together with his wife. This is in spite of the fact that Felton previously stated that he and his wife probably '''shouldn't''' be together. |
| 34 | * AffablyEvil: Many of the murderers and criminals the detectives go after are quite friendly and amicable, and sincerely so. Even some of the more unsympathetic antagonists make genuine approaches of friendship with the detectives. |
| 35 | ** Joseph Cardero from "Heartbeat" is quite polite and unassuming, despite it being clear to the detectives he buried a man alive simply for stealing a book from him. |
| 36 | ** Rose Halligan (Creator/LilyTomlin) from "The Hat" is a charming, friendly woman who gets along well with Kellerman and Lewis even as they escort her to prison. The two start to consider her as a friend and let their guard down, [[spoiler:which proves disastrous as she manages to escape because of it and murder another person.]] |
| 37 | ** Richard Laumer (Creator/TerryKinney) from "Map of the Heart". He killed his own father so he could inherit his trust fund, but it doesn't stop him from being a FriendlyEnemy to Bayliss and Pembleton. For their part, the two are so disgusted by him that they don't even bother reciprocating. |
| 38 | ** Bennett Jackson from "The Documentary" is one of the most depraved murderers, but he's still quite polite and helpful to Bayliss and Pembleton. |
| 39 | * AlasPoorVillain: Joseph Cardero in "Heartbeat". He's a drug dealer and a murderer who killed someone in an undeniably horrible way, but he's clearly mentally ill and remorseful over his killing. His SanitySlippage and ultimate suicide are portrayed entirely tragically. |
| 40 | * AlternateRealityGame: ''Homicide: Second Shift'', a web-based mini show. |
| 41 | * AmbiguouslyJewish: In ''Kaddish'' Brodie demonstrates his knowledge of Jewish burial rites and Yiddish, but his ethnicity is never stated directly. Munch also somewhat fits this trope - his name does not sound Jewish but he is Jewish - albeit non-practising. |
| 42 | * AndStarring: Creator/NedBeatty as Bolander. |
| 43 | * AntiVillain: Even the evilest murderers the detectives investigate tend to have some humanizing or sympathetic qualities. |
| 44 | * AnyoneCanDie: [[spoiler:Felton and Crosetti, as well as Giardello in the FinaleMovie. Luther, despite not being part of the main cast, also went out in quite a shocking fashion.]] |
| 45 | * ArcVillain: While the series was mostly episodic, several seasons had an overarching villain for the detectives to face. |
| 46 | ** The first season has Adena Watson's unidentified killer, the manhunt for whom is the focus of several episodes, and [[spoiler:his escape from justice haunts the rest of the series.]] Pony Johnson and Charlie Flavin also serve as the main antagonists of Howard and Felton's and Lewis and Crosetti's respective subplots. |
| 47 | ** The second season has [[DirtyCop Jimmy Tyron]]. Pembleton's efforts to get him to confess to murder and the blowback he faces from his colleagues serves as the main plot for most of the season. |
| 48 | ** Annabella Willis serves as the main antagonist for the first third of Season 3. After she's caught, Gordon Pratt takes over as the main antagonist as the detectives try to catch him after he shoots Howard, Felton, and Bolander. |
| 49 | ** Seasons 4 mostly has the detectives facing [[VillainOfTheWeek Villains of the Week]], but one of the final episodes introduce Luther Mahoney. Luther serves as the main overarching antagonist of the following season, [[spoiler:and like Adena's killer, his legacy hangs over the series long after his death.]] |
| 50 | ** Season 6 has Georgia Rae Mahoney, Luther's sister, serve as the main threat to the detectives after [[spoiler:Kellerman kills her brother.]] |
| 51 | ** Season 7 has Luke Ryland, a SerialKiller who develops a mutual personal enmity with Bayliss. |
| 52 | * ArtisticLicenseLaw: Mostly averted, thanks to the source material coming from an actual police department. |
| 53 | * ArtisticLicenseMedicine: The aftereffects of Pembleton's stroke at the end of Season 4 (halting speech, memory lapses, etc.) subside a lot faster than in real life. This was due to pressure from the higher-ups at NBC, who thought these impairments made Pembleton hard to watch. |
| 54 | * AssholeVictim: Deconstructed in "Subway". John Lange is undeniably an asshole, but it's made abundantly clear he doesn't deserve what happens to him. |
| 55 | * BackForTheFinale: The two hour movie brought back every single cast member, even those whose characters had died--[[spoiler: they greet Giardello in the afterlife when he himself passes away, with the ominous implication that someone else will be joining them soon (there's an empty seat at the table).]] |
| 56 | * BadassLongcoat: Pembleton usually wore a pretty cool trenchcoat when he was out in the field. Giardello also wore a fairly long wool overcoat. |
| 57 | * BasedOnATrueStory: Several storylines in the first two seasons were adapted from key cases and events in Simon's book, such as: |
| 58 | ** The murder of Adena Watson (based on the Latonya Wallace case, still unsolved) |
| 59 | ** The death of C.C. Cox (based on the case of John Randolph Scott, the only unsolved police-involved shooting in BPD history when the book was written) |
| 60 | ** The shooting of Officer Chris Thormann (based on the shooting of Patrolman Gene Cassidy) |
| 61 | ** The "Black Widow" murders arranged by Calpurnia Church (based on the murder plots of Geraldine Parrish) |
| 62 | * BeardOfSorrow: Tim Bayliss during the latter half of Season Four, and then again in the movie. |
| 63 | * BeAsUnhelpfulAsPossible: Early in the series, Lewis paraphrases one of the 10 "Homicide Lexicon" rules that Simon laid out in his book: "Murderers lie 'cause they've got to, witnesses lie 'cause they think they've got to, and everyone else lies for the sheer joy of it." |
| 64 | * BeautyEqualsGoodness: Subverted in the first seasons, when the cast members ranged from atypically handsome/pretty (Pembleton, Felton, Howard, Bayliss, Lewis) ordinary looking (Bolander, Giardello) to downright ugly (Munch, Crosetti). |
| 65 | * BeautyIsNeverTarnished: Averted ''hard'' in "Shades of Gray" (season 7), when Sheppard suffers a brutal beatdown, loses her gun, and ends up in the hospital. |
| 66 | * BerserkButton: |
| 67 | ** While usually very kind and pleasant, Gee's deep voice and imposing frame will haunt your nightmares if you even think of hurting a child. |
| 68 | ** Blind or no, you do not disrespect Teddy Pendergrass in Lewis' presence: His marriage more-or-less ended because his wife insulted his painting of Teddy Pendergrass. |
| 69 | * TheBigBoard: One of the things that made the series unique. Each shift used one side of a giant two-sided dry-erase board to keep track of its cases, listed by number and the victim's last name. Open cases would be in red and closed cases would be in black (or blue, if a cold case had been solved), and any cases determined not to be a homicide were erased. A similarly designed board was used by the real-life Baltimore Police Department[[note]]The show actually caused the Baltimore PD to stop using the board because commanders felt that it led to a public perception that detectives were keeping score. The board was reinstated after detective outcry.[[/note]] and in Series/TheWire. |
| 70 | ** In his guest appearance in Season 7, Kellerman would explain for the benefit of a jury exactly what 'The Board' is and how it works. Of course, long-term viewers most likely already knew, but it was good DescriptionPorn nonetheless. |
| 71 | * BittersweetEnding: |
| 72 | ** "The Last of the Watermen". Howard catches the murderer, but it destroys her relationship with her brother. However, she reconciled with her father and Chick, and parts in good terms with them. |
| 73 | ** The white gloves murder arc ends on one, which is heavy on the Bitter side. Annabella Wilgis is caught, but she's able to successfully sue the city due to Pembleton tricking one of her alters into burning herself. Pembleton also loses his faith as a result of the investigation into her murders. |
| 74 | ** "Full-Court Press" ends with both detectives on the school case knocked out after hearing about the SympatheticMurderer's DarkAndTroubledPast, while the killer himself seems quite satisfied and much calmer than you would expect from someone in his place, knowing that he won in the end. |
| 75 | * BlackAndGreyMorality: Whenever an episode isn't operating on GreyAndGrayMorality, it's this. The detectives are flawed and at times unlikable people, but at times the murderers are far worse than any of them. |
| 76 | * BlackVikings: Or, at least black Italian Americans, in form of Giardello and his family. Actually, a case of RealityIsUnrealistic as there are in fact pockets of mixed race peoples in certain parts of US who are African American in appearance, but identify with a European immigrant ethnic group, such as Italians, Croats, etc. |
| 77 | * BolivianArmyCliffhanger: Season 5 ended with all of Gee's detectives being rotated into other units. Largely undone in the Season 6 premiere; except for Howard, all of them returned to the homicide unit. |
| 78 | * {{Bookends}}: Dr Cox's first and last sequences in the show both show her driving fast and listening to the same punk rock song. |
| 79 | * BottleEpisode: "Three Men and Adena" and "Night of the Dead Living" in the first season both took place entirely in the squadroom. Both are fan favourites, the former is widely considered the best of the series, and even one of the finest TV episodes ever. "The Documentary" in Season 5 could also qualify. |
| 80 | ** "The Subway" takes place almost entirely in a subway station and includes only four of the nine regular cast members at the time. |
| 81 | * TheBoxingEpisode: Detective Paul Falsone goes by the boxing stage name "Paul 'Sugar Ray' Falsone." |
| 82 | * BreakTheCutie: Bayliss has this done to him in only a few episodes from his introduction. And it only gets worse from there. |
| 83 | * BreakThemByTalking: What essentially drove the killer in "Baby, It's You" to confess. |
| 84 | ** Pembleton and Bayliss tried to do this to the Arabber but he wound up turning the tables on them, and while what he said about Pembleton is debatable (Pembleton generally appears to be proud to be a black man) what he said about Bayliss (how he has a dark side) was spot on. |
| 85 | * BunnyEarsLawyer: Munch, Pembleton and Gee all have varying levels of this. |
| 86 | * BuriedAlive: "Heartbeat," which contains multiple references to Creator/EdgarAllanPoe. |
| 87 | ** "Lies and Other Truths," which has Pembleton and Bayliss investigating the death of a man who had this done to him on the grounds of Fort Holabird. |
| 88 | * BusCrash: At the start of season three, Steve Crosetti goes missing after returning from a holiday; he is found in the bay after committing suicide. In season four, Det Beau Felton is suspended, but is subsequently shot and killed at the end of season five after being reassigned (off-screen) to Internal Investigations. |
| 89 | * BuriedAlive: "Heartbeat" has Munch and Howard investigate the murder of a man who had been walled off in an abandoned basement and left to starve to death. The guilt-ridden killer decides to commit suicide by dealing himself off in the same location in an effort to repent. |
| 90 | * BusmansHoliday: Howard ends up having to solve a murder on her holiday in "Last of the Watermen". |
| 91 | * ButNotTooBi: Bisexual Tim Bayliss is never shown with a boyfriend, despite having been stated to have had sex with at least one man. The closest we come is Tim being rejected by one black, closeted, uniformed officer, and going on a dinner date with a man who runs a mostly gay restaurant. It even takes the show a season to actually ''use'' the word bi(sexual); before that, Bayliss just says he's 'not strictly heterosexual'. As a counterpoint, Bayliss is shown to have had at least one girlfriend whom he had a full blown love scene with. He also had brief affairs/flirtations with at least three of his female co-workers (Cox, Ballard, Sheppard) and [[Series/LawAndOrder Claire Kincaid]]. Somewhat {{justified}}, though, in that Bayliss doesn't fully acknowledge his attraction to men until season 6, just one before the last- and by that point he doesn't strike up a serious romance with ''anyone'' for the remainder of the series. |
| 92 | * ButtMonkey: Brodie. |
| 93 | * CelebrityCameo: |
| 94 | ** Famous Baltimore native Creator/JohnWaters, first as a bartender and then as a perp being extradited from New York by [[Series/LawAndOrder Detective Logan]]. It's unclear whether or not they're the same character. |
| 95 | ** During the second part of the three-part Season 6 premiere "Blood Ties", in which Munch and Kellerman are investigating a murder during a [[UsefulNotes/MajorLeagueBaseball Baltimore Orioles]] home game, real-life Orioles pitchers Scott Erickson and Armando Benítez made appearances. |
| 96 | * TheCity: Baltimore, one of the archetypal RealLife examples. |
| 97 | * CharacterDepth: Often remarkable for an episodic "Murder of the Week" series, although earlier episodes tended to be less 'episodic'. |
| 98 | ** The depth of character development in the early years probably hurt the reception of the newer detectives. This was especially true with Falsone, Gharty, and Ballard, who were made main characters in the first episode of the show's more fast paced sixth season, making their personalities seem arbitrary and flat in comparison with the traditional characters. |
| 99 | * CharacterizationMarchesOn: Throughout the first few episodes of the series, the writers are still struggling to get certain characters' characterization down. Howard is superstitious and jeopardizes a case when she believes she saw a victim's ghost in a dream, something the rational and pragmatic Howard would never do throughout the rest of the series (though, in fairness, she was suffering from sleep exhaustion). Similarly, Lewis and Crosetti are far more immature and childish than they would be for the rest of the series. |
| 100 | * ChristianityIsCatholic: Lt. Giardello, Detectives Crosetti, Pembleton, Felton. Partially {{justified|Trope}} in that Maryland has traditionally had a larger-than-normal Catholic population than the rest of the United States. |
| 101 | ** Averted with Detective Lewis, who is a Baptist. It's the source of a great deal of banter with his partner, the devoutly Catholic Crosetti. |
| 102 | * ClothingConcealedInjury: After surviving a bullet to the head, Bolander uses a hat to cover up his scar. In a CallBack, Pembleton later uses a hat to cover up the surgical scars on his head after his stroke. |
| 103 | * CrimeTimeSoap: May well be the TropeCodifier. Almost certainly the most acclaimed example. |
| 104 | * CompositeCharacter: Kay Howard is a combination of two detectives from the book. She has the personality of Rich Garvey, to the amusement of the author, but her status as the lone female in the Homicide unit comes from a woman on the second shift David Simon did not follow during his year with the Homicide unit. |
| 105 | * ConspiracyTheorist: Munch, but especially Crosetti. People more familiar with Munch's characterization in the Law and Order series may well be surprised to see that Crosetti was initially the crazed conspiracy theorist of the group. |
| 106 | * CopKiller: Used at least twice, with the same twist both times: the cop killer is himself killed shortly afterward, and the unlucky detective assigned to the case finds that nobody cares about justice for a dead cop killer. |
| 107 | ** "End Game" has Gordon Pratt, a racist SmugSnake (played by Creator/SteveBuscemi) shoot at three of the homicide detectives[[note]]Bolander, Felton and Howard [[/note]] (he didn't manage to kill them) and practically brag about it -- only to be shot dead in the last few minutes. In the follow up, "Law and Disorder," Bayliss is assigned to solve Pratt's murder and has to admit defeat because no cop will help him. |
| 108 | ** In the "Justice" two-parter, a cop killer is acquitted in court and murdered shortly thereafter. The dead cop's son (played by Creator/BruceCampbell) is suspect number one, but nobody can figure out the evidence trail until one of the detectives casually mentions that he owns a derringer. Gee explains that when he was a junior policeman, the Baltimore police always executed cop killers without trial, and usually did it with a derringer (which was easy to dispose of, and couldn't be traced back to the department). |
| 109 | * TheCoroner: Julianna Cox, as well as Dr Blythe, Dr Dyer, Dr Scheiner and Cox's replacement Dr Griscom. |
| 110 | * CrossOver: With ''Series/LawAndOrder'' and ''Series/StElsewhere''. |
| 111 | * CrossoverCouple: In the first ''Series/LawAndOrder'' crossover "Charm City" and "For God and Country", Tim Bayliss has a crush on Claire Kincaid but it doesn't go anywhere. |
| 112 | * DaChief: Lt Giardello. While expecting some drama and criticism from his underlings, he demands loyalty. |
| 113 | * DavidVersusGoliath: Full-Court Press features a SympatheticMurderer named [[MeaningfulName David]], a weak teenager who literally kills a giant bully with a shot (two actually). |
| 114 | * DeadpanSnarker: Munch. |
| 115 | * DefectiveDetective: Bayliss, who suffers from identity issues and deep emotional problems. Throughout the show he struggles with childhood abuse, his sexual orientation, and his religious beliefs |
| 116 | ** Humorously one ''Law and Order'' cross-over had a suspect/witness mis-read Detective Munch's NYPD guest badge as "Defective Monk". |
| 117 | ** Generally most of the squad was this. All had personal problems, and the only one who managed to hold down a marriage was Pembleton, albeit with some difficulty. Then again, the pressure of his job did cause him to lose his Catholic faith and suffer a stroke. |
| 118 | * DeliberateValuesDissonance: Comes up occasionally as the murderers try to justify their reasons for killing someone. For example, in season three an elderly man kills his wife rather than request a divorce because "I didn't want to hurt her feelings". |
| 119 | * DependingOnTheWriter: The series is fairly standardized, but the exception is Season 2's "Bop Gun." This was written by David Simon, and used a lot of the lingo ("humble," "yo," etc.) that was in the book and was later featured in ''Series/TheWire''. For most of the run, the show tended to use standard language, or included explanations with police jargon. |
| 120 | * DeskSweepOfRage: On the rare occasions when Giardello gets supremely angry or frustrated, he'll do this with his office desk. |
| 121 | ** In the second episode, Bayliss points out that he's trying to solve a red ball without even having a desk to work at. Giardello does this, declares it's Bayliss' desk and tells him to stop whining. |
| 122 | * {{Determinator}}: Bayliss, especially in his obsession with the Adena Watson case. |
| 123 | -->'''Bayliss''': ...I'm not gonna stop until I put this case down.\ |
| 124 | ''' Munch''': I forgot about this side of you.\ |
| 125 | ''' Bayliss''': What side?\ |
| 126 | ''' Munch''': The obsessive side. |
| 127 | ** Pembleton was, in many ways, exactly the same. To the point that he didn't care who he hurt in the process of getting to the truth, a prime example would be the episode 'Colors' where Pembleton jeopardized his friendship with Bayliss in trying to convict his cousin of murder. |
| 128 | * DeusAngstMachina: Bayliss [[spoiler: was molested as a child, had a terrible relationship with his father, gets some of the shift's worst cases, has a complicated and mostly unhappy social life, has health problems, takes a bullet for his best friend who later quits the job leaving him alone, and is eventually haunted by the VigilanteExecution he commits]]. |
| 129 | * DirtyCop: Kellerman; in a mundane but unsettling example of SelfFulfillingProphecy, as a consequence of being unjustly accused of being a Dirty Cop, he eventually does become one. |
| 130 | -->''' Kellerman''': ''(to his colleagues, who have organized a party to celebrate his acquittal)'' I was accused of being dirty. Now I look at your faces and I realize I'll never get that stain off me. There's always gonna be a little doubt. But just for the record, I never took any of Mitch Roland's money, okay? ... but I guess I might as well had. ''(he leaves)'' |
| 131 | * DisappointedByTheMotive: Bayliss is disgusted to learn that [[spoiler:a homeless man had murdered a Buddhist monk who was feeding him [[DisproportionateRetribution simply because he was offended that the monk had offered him a spoon.]]]] |
| 132 | * DocumentaryEpisode: In the fifth season episode "The Documentary". |
| 133 | * DoesntLikeGuns: Pembleton will only go as far as to hold a gun and draw down armed suspects. The irony is that after his stroke he needs to pass a mandatory fire-arms exam to return to active duty. |
| 134 | * DownerEnding: Many of them, but the ending of the final movie takes the cake, with [[spoiler: Giardello dying and Bayliss either going to jail or killing himself]]. |
| 135 | * {{Dramedy}}: While the series often tackled extremely dark subject matter, it was balanced out with character-based humor and BlackComedy. Humor was frequently mined from the detectives' {{Seinfeldian Conversation}}s and eccentricities, and the stupidity of their culprits. Creator/AndreBraugher even described the series as a "workplace comedy". |
| 136 | * DrivesLikeCrazy: Lewis, which becomes a RunningGag throughout the series. |
| 137 | * DudeWheresMyRespect: Both Bayliss and Kellerman feel this way when they first join the homicide unit. Brodie also feels this way when he works for the unit, even after he helps solve a murder in the fifth season episode "Valentine's Day". |
| 138 | * EstablishingCharacterMoment: The pilot has several, the most famous being Munch's "Montell Williams" rant. |
| 139 | * EverybodySmokes: Early seasons depicted most of the cast smoking like chimneys and scenes set in the squad room were practically hazy with cigarette smoke. Bayliss and Howard's attempts at quitting actually led to strife withing the squad because they asked for accommodations (like a dedicated non-smoking section) that Gee was unable and unwilling to make. Smoking gradually became less of a feature as the series went on due to changing attitudes towards the habit. |
| 140 | * EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: In "Thrill of the Kill", the vicious, sociopathic SerialKiller the detectives have been tracking turns himself in when they mistakenly arrest his brother, so he won't take the fall for the killer's crimes. |
| 141 | * EvilIsPetty: Equally common. One of the more horrific examples occurs in the season 7 episode ''Zen and the Art of Murder'', where a Buddhist monk is killed [[spoiler: because a homeless man he was feeding was offended that he ''offered him a spoon''.]] |
| 142 | * EvilTwin: Miles Dell from "Thrill of the Kill" is a vicious SerialKiller who drags his innocent twin Newton on a cross-country killing spree. However, Miles genuinely loves his brother and ultimately turns himself in when Newton is arrested and held responsible for Miles' crimes. |
| 143 | * ExasperatedPerp: Being interrogated by Frank Pembleton is a rather...trying experience. |
| 144 | * {{Expy}}: The original cast were based on the detectives from David Simon's book, but with names, genders and nationalities/race completely changed (examined in further detail [[http://www.litesrc.com/lemp/homicide/show/people.shtml here]]). Also, the actual BPD homicide unit (as described in the book) had three squads on each of its two shifts in 1988, with each squad consisting of five detectives supervised by a detective sergeant. On the show, Gee's shift consists of between six and eight detectives, who typically work in pairs, and has no sergeant until Howard passes the promotion exam at the beginning of Season 4. |
| 145 | ** The character Brodie was seen by some as David Simon's analogue, which would make him the only non original character to be based on someone from the book. |
| 146 | * FailureIsTheOnlyOption: Pembleton goes through this in the movie; [[spoiler:he can either turn in Bayliss for murder, which he doesn't want to do, or walk away knowing that Bayliss will probably commit suicide if he refuses to turn in his former partner.]] |
| 147 | * FairCop: Laura Ballard and Rene Sheppard were [[MsFanservice blatant attempts]] to get viewing figures up, after ExecutiveMeddling. |
| 148 | ** Howard was rather attractive, but regular-looking, as opposed to MsFanservice. |
| 149 | ** Russert, Cox (although she's not technically a cop), Stivers, and (for female viewers) Kellerman and Falsone weren't too shabby, either. |
| 150 | ** Bayliss, with long hair and glasses, may very well count. |
| 151 | * FallenHero: Kellerman. |
| 152 | * FatalFlaw: Bayliss' inability to keep himself emotionally distant from his job. |
| 153 | * AFatherToHisMen: Gee. The Movie drives this point home, as every detective that had appeared on the series previously returned to catch his assailant. |
| 154 | * FauxAffablyEvil: Luther Mahoney, at least until his VillainousBreakdown. |
| 155 | * {{Foreshadowing}}: |
| 156 | ** In "Fallen Heroes" part one, Pembleton has the chance to shoot [[spoiler: Junior Bunk during his killing spree in the police station]], but he hesitates. In part two, [[spoiler: he freezes in front of an armed suspect and Bayliss takes a bullet for him]]. In general, Frank being a NonActionGuy prone to making mistakes in dangerous situations had been foreshadowed several times (see also: first episode of season four). |
| 157 | ** The "Justice" two-parter centers around a detective who snaps after his father's murderer is pronounced not guilty despite having clearly done it, and kills him in cold blood. This ultimately destroys his life when it's discovered and he's arrested. This foreshadows [[spoiler:Kellerman and Bayliss's fates, particularly the latter. Both of them snap and kill a criminal they know to be guilty in cold blood, and it destroys their careers and emotional states.]] |
| 158 | ** Similarly, Jimmy Tyron, the ArcVillain of Season 2, is a police officer who shot an unarmed suspect in cold blood, which ultimately ruins his life. [[spoiler:It foreshadows Kellerman's killing of Luther Mahoney, which has a similar effect on him.]] |
| 159 | * ForTheEvulz: Most of the murderers featured in the series avert this, having committed crimes either out of passion or for money. It's played straight in "Stakeout"; when Giardello demands to know why a SerialKiller's accomplice helped him murder dozens of teenage boys, the accomplice replies he did it for money and because it "felt good". |
| 160 | * FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse: |
| 161 | ** Vaughn Perkins from "Bop Gun" is a sensitive teenager who lost his father at an early age and grew up with an abusive, drug-addicted mother, and eventually had to be raised by his aunt. He moved back in with his mother and fell in with a bad crowd, and he kicks off the events of the episode when he shoots a woman during a fit of rage during a mugging. When Howard, who has been sympathetic to him and believes him to be covering up for his comparatively more hardened accomplices, visits him in prison and confronts him about it, Vaughn bluntly tells her that what he did was unforgivable and that he deserves to pay. It's also deconstructed, as the episode still portrays what happens to him as tragic and points out that he's only being sentenced so harshly because [[MissingWhiteWomanSyndrome he's a black kid who shot a white woman]]. |
| 162 | ** In "Extreme Unction", Pembleton confronts a serial killer who the detectives have been conducting a manhunt for for the past few episodes about her motives. The killer goes on an impassioned monologue on how her upbringing with an abusive fundamentalist mother inspired her to kill her victims "in the name of God" (i.e., because they were women who didn't StayInTheKitchen). Pembleton laughs in her face and shuts her down. |
| 163 | --> '''Pembleton:''' You had ''no right'' to kill them, especially in God's name! Now I gotta believe, [[SuddenlyShouting EVEN IF YOU WALK OUT OF HERE SCOT-FREE]], '''[[SuddenlyShouting GOD IS GONNA MAKE YOU PAY!]]''' …One way or another. |
| 164 | ** In "The Last of the Watermen", Howard helps the Chesapeake Bay police arrest her brother's friend, who had murdered a conservationist whose restrictions on how much fishing the local oystermen could do essentially destroyed the local economy. When her brother confronts her on it, she points out that he still murdered someone regardless of the reason. |
| 165 | ** After Felton gets overwhelmed at a crime scene due to lingering trauma from getting shot a few episodes ago, Giardello goes to check on him. When Felton snaps at him, Giardello in turn angrily gives him a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech about how he's a subpar detective and that he's sick of Felton making excuses for it. While [[JerkassHasAPoint Giardello does have a point about Felton's poor track record]], it's still played as a KickTheDog moment. |
| 166 | * TheFriendNobodyLikes: |
| 167 | ** Felton is a subversion: he obviously has a deep friendship with Howard and Russert, but after his alcoholism starts to affect his job, most of the other characters turn on him. Even before then though, the others had treated him with hostility or indifference prior to his shooting. |
| 168 | ** Played straight with Officer Gharty, who was a DirtyCoward in his first appearance at the end of Season 4. He responded to a shooting call in a housing project, but didn't actually go in until the gunfire stopped; by that point, the shooters had killed each other. When brought before a trial board, he [[NeverMyFault tried to hedge responsibility for his actions]] [[KarmaHoudini and succeeded]]. When he later became detective, while never popular, he wasn't actively hated either. |
| 169 | ** Eventually played straight with Kellerman. After [[DirtyCoward Lewis and Stivers]] let him take all the blame for the Luther Mahoney shooting and [[TurnInYourBadge quit so they wouldn't be fired]], his fellow detectives treated him like trash over both it and that he was now working as a private detective, even with him helping the solve the case of the episode arc he had returned in.[[note]]It also may have been the reason that he had worked exclusively with Mike Giardello in the ''Homicide'' movie; he was there with Kellerman's fellow, previous detectives upon his return, but wasn't around to let his past actions color his perceptions of him[[/note]] |
| 170 | * FriendlyEnemy: Some of the perpetrators make sincere gestures of friendship towards the detectives and are quite amicable with them. |
| 171 | * GenreSavvy: Or possibly just pessimism. In the TrueCrime book on which the series is based, in cases where someone has been attacked with intent to kill but isn't dead when the homicide unit gets involved, the RealLife cops take it as a given that the victim will live if a suspect has been identified, but that they'll die if there are no suspects. |
| 172 | ** This idea was both played straight and subverted in the series itself. Notably [[spoiler: in the Movie Pembleton and Bayliss catch Gee's shooter and it seems like Gee will make a perfect recovery...only for Gee to die from an aneurysm soon after]]. |
| 173 | ** In the factual book upon which the series is based two detectives actually ''dance around the room in joy'' after being told that the surgeons operating on their victim have had to crack his chest, a surgical GodzillaThreshold procedure which (at the time the book was written) had a sub-10% survival rate. The man dies, and the detectives get their clearance. |
| 174 | -->'''Simon:''' ''Police are some sick fucks.'' |
| 175 | * GoodCopBadCop: Often, but not always, played respectively by Pembleton and Bayliss (see the episode ''Three Men and Adena''); inverted in ''Double Blind''. |
| 176 | * GoodPolicingEvilPolicing: The series has a more morally gray take on morally contrasted law enforcement. The upper echelons of the Baltimore Police Department are petty bureaucrats who care more about good publicity and settling grudges than they do about good police work. Lower-level officers receive a more sympathetic portrayal and are generally well-intentioned people who do the job as best they can, but the series does not shy away from showing how most of the officers are heavily flawed and damaged people, biases often heavily influence investigations, and corruption and police brutality are always covered up. Other law enforcement agencies are not depicted positively either. [[JurisdictionFriction The FBI constantly and often unnecessarily butts heads with the police over jurisdiction issues]], and the Secret Service covers up a political assassination to avoid an international incident. |
| 177 | * GreyAndGrayMorality: The detectives were flawed and often unlikable, while the criminals they pursued often had sympathetic and humanizing traits. |
| 178 | * GunsAkimbo: In "The City That Bleeds". |
| 179 | * HadToComeToPrisonToBeACrook: Junior Bunk Mahoney was a none-too-bright enforcer for his heroin-slinging family, and couldn't stop weeping when the squad brought him in. Fast forward a couple of years, and he's a gleeful sociopath who [[spoiler:shoots up the squad room, injuring several main characters]]. |
| 180 | * HalfwayPlotSwitch: "Bop Gun" starts out focusing on tourist Robert Ellison's (Creator/RobinWilliams) reaction to the detectives investigating his wife's murder after it becomes a red ball, and then gradually shifts focus to Howard's efforts to prove [[SympatheticMurderer the suspected shooter]] innocent. |
| 181 | * {{Handguns}}: Very rarely used or fired in the early seasons. Generally the Unit (and Pembleton especially) prefer to draw down armed suspects as opposed to shooting them. |
| 182 | * HeadbuttingHeroes: |
| 183 | ** During the first Law & Order cross-over, Pembleton tells Briscoe to 'shove it', and the BPD detectives and the NYPD don't seem to get along at all. They get on much better by the second half of the cross-over. |
| 184 | ** Generally Pembleton's arrogance puts him at odds with his squad members, particularly Felton, as he considers them amateurish. To be fair, he has a right to as, aside from Howard (who clears nearly 100% of her cases), Pembleton has the best clearance rate. However Pembleton gets along much better with his squad members than he does other squads and, as noted above, other Police forces. |
| 185 | * HeroOfAnotherStory: The other shift. They had their own web series during the final season. |
| 186 | * HeteronormativeCrusader: Bayliss starts out as one, but comes to embrace his darker side as the show progresses. |
| 187 | * HeterosexualLifePartners: Frank and Tim. Frank later stated that Tim and his wife were the only people he truly trusted. |
| 188 | * HistoricalCharactersFictionalRelative: In "The Old and the Dead", it is revealed that Megan Russert is the cousin of Tim Russert, then the moderator of ''Series/MeetThePress''. |
| 189 | * HollywoodAtheist: After the episode ''Extreme Unction'' Frank lost his faith, but it's debatable whether or not he became a full-on Atheist. Of note is the incident where he refused to attend Crosetti's funeral because he didn't believe any more and didn't want to go to Church, and the incident where he refused his daughter a baptism (only to recant, although he fails to attend said baptism, the result of which being his wife leaving him.) In the reunion movie he's teaching religious philosophy at Fordham(!) which may or may not indicate he's regained his faith. |
| 190 | ** Bayliss experiments with a variety of faiths, culminating in Zen Buddhism. However, the fact that he shot a man (one who pulled a gun on him) made him, in his opinion, a bad Buddhist. Bayliss eventually abandons religious belief entirely. |
| 191 | * HollywoodPoliceDrivingAcademy: Lewis must have been an honor student. Ironically, however, the only time Lewis gets into a really bad accident, he's not driving the car, Mike Giardello is. |
| 192 | * HustlingTheMark: In "All Through the House," Bayliss tries to rope in the detectives for a "friendly" game of hearts. Pembleton calls him out on hustling, while Giardello opts to instead take him to school. |
| 193 | * IAlwaysWantedToSayThat: In the episode "Double Blind", after Pembleton interviews a neighbor of a shooting victim (who's an airline pilot), and tells him, "Don't leave town." The neighbor blanches at this, until Pembleton laughs and tells him he's kidding. As he and Bayliss leave the building, Pembleton admits, "I've always wanted to say that." |
| 194 | * IdealistVsPragmatist: Detective Frank Pembleton and his partner Detective Tim Bayliss have this dynamic. Bayliss is a sensitive, naive, and kind man who frequently reacts with outrage to the crime he investigates and empathizes with victims to an unhealthy degree. Meanwhile, Pembleton is ambitious and cold, focusing primarily on getting the job done no matter what, and is perfectly willing to bend the law to do so; he will destroy his own personal relationships and deliberately screw people over if it means solving a case. It is played with, as Pembleton is actually a [[BlackAndWhiteInsanity moral absolutist with a black-and-white view on morality]], which is what motivates a lot of his ruthlessness, whereas Bayliss is a lot better about acknowledging the moral grayness that motivates most of the crimes they investigate. |
| 195 | * IdiotBall: |
| 196 | ** The Sniper episodes: Eight detectives really couldn't figure out that "EROMITLAB" is "BALTIMORE" backwards? |
| 197 | ** The first episodes of season six feature a murder committed by a member of a prominent black family. They give the idiot ball to Pembleton, who refuses to even consider that a member of this family would perpetrate this crime as they did a lot of good for the city, even though their only other lead was a long shot. The reason they gave Pembleton the idiot ball was so [[CreatorsPet Ballard could look good]]. This didn't get her off on the right foot with fans. |
| 198 | ** The story arc where Bolander, Felton and Howard get shot. The Homicide squad spend two episodes hunting down the pedophile the detectives were supposed to serve the warrant on, despite the fact that everybody they talked to said he wasn't violent (and therefore probably didn't shoot the detectives), and despite the fact that they went to the wrong door in the first place. Finally, in the third part, they have the sense to hunt the man whose door they knocked on. |
| 199 | ** Ed Danvers' office picked it up in a series of errors involving Ryland, including not showing up for a hearing, allowing him to go free on a procedural matter. Then passed to Bayliss, who proceeded to punch Danvers in the jaw and eventually [[spoiler: kill Ryland in the finale]]. |
| 200 | ** The ''Law & Order'' crossovers tend, probably due to RuleOfDrama, to prioritize JurisdictionFriction over solving cases Ed Danvers and Jack [=McCoy=] had to almost be forced to work together at times. |
| 201 | ** Generally played straight with many criminals, but the worst example had to be a kid who shot another teen in a bowling alley- he honestly believed the police had to let him go because the victim was not his originally intended target. |
| 202 | ** Megan Russert, when demoted THREE RANKS (from Captain to Detective) by an angry Barnfather for not kissing his butt, simply pouts a bit and doesn't fight it. Instead of going to her famous reporter cousin (Tim Russert had a cameo prior as himself, establishing this) and making massive media headlines over how corrupt the BPD was, she just goes home for a bit and then reports in at the squad room as usual. |
| 203 | * ImprobableAge: Captain George Barnfather oversees the Homicide unit despite being younger than Gee. Actor Clayton [=LeBouef=] was 38 during the first season but could have passed for ten years younger. It gets even more ridiculous when he gets promoted to Colonel, making him Gee's boss's boss, all while looking younger than most of the detectives. No doubt intentional as he only had his job period due to greater willingness to pander to the upper brass, more so than any actual qualifications. |
| 204 | ** The episode "Every Mother's Son" features a fourteen-year old perp who shot a similarly aged victim in a bowling alley. Most of the characters highlight how he's too young to be killing people. |
| 205 | * INeverSaidItWasPoison: Subverted in the episode "Bad Medicine." |
| 206 | * InsaneEqualsViolent: The culprits in "A Many Splendored Thing" and "Subway" are motivated to kill by their mental illnesses. They're both treated fairly sympathetically by the narrative, and the former even turns himself in out of guilt. |
| 207 | * InsufferableGenius: Frank for the first four seasons. Then the writers bring him crashing down to earth, without his ability or anyone who wants to work with him. |
| 208 | ** Then late in Season 5 he regains his former ability only to quit at the end of Season 6. |
| 209 | * IntercontinuityCrossover: As of 2015, Munch has appeared in no less than 11 TV series. They are: ''Homicide: Life on the Street'', ''Series/LawAndOrder'', ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'', ''Series/TheXFiles'', ''The Beat'', ''Series/LawAndOrderTrialByJury'', ''Series/TheWire'' and, no, this isn't made up, ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment'', ''Series/ThirtyRock'', ''Series/SesameStreet'' and ''Series/JimmyKimmelLive''. |
| 210 | ** It's a wordless cameo, but in "A Doll's Eyes", a young boy's heart is air-lifted to a Chicago hospital, where Creator/MandyPatinkin is waiting, implying the hospital was ''Series/ChicagoHope'' and that was Dr. Geiger. He was a heart surgeon, after all. |
| 211 | ** Alfre Woodard appears in the Season 6 episode "Mercy" as Dr. Roxanne Turner, the character she portrayed on ''Series/StElsewhere''. |
| 212 | * InternalAffairs: Ironically, Kellerman is initially persecuted by IA for being unjustly accused of taking bribes; later, his execution of a suspect is never properly investigated. |
| 213 | * InternalHomage: The first scene of the first episode is repeated with the exact same dialogue in the last scene of the last episode. Also, in "Nearer, My God, To Thee" (episode 14), Munch issues a cynical monologue about TV and technocracy; in "Kaddish" (episode 73), a WholeEpisodeFlashback, a younger John Munch delivers the same monologue, but with a hopeful tone. |
| 214 | * InterruptedSuicide: Lewis talks Kellerman out of suicide. |
| 215 | * IronicNurseryTune: The ending of "Requiem for Adena", with "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" playing as we see the soon-to-be-father Pembleton looking at the empty cradle and a burnout Bayliss trying to forget about his first case, the murder of a young girl, tossing the portrait of the victim (which he kept framed on his desk) in the garbage bin. |
| 216 | * ItWasHisSled: In-universe. A season seven case featured the accidentally fatal tranquillising of an old-movie theatre patron who drove away customers by spoiling the endings to classic films. Inevitably this came up. |
| 217 | * JackBauerInterrogationTechnique: Very much averted as hitting suspects is illegal and most detectives can't be bothered with the risk. Only about three examples come up: all involving Bayliss and all ending with him being stopped and/or swiftly reprimanded. |
| 218 | ** - However, making suspects THINK they're getting physically threatened is not uncommon. |
| 219 | ** This exhibits the show's realism. In real life, hitting suspects for statements is absolutely forbidden and can destroy a detective's career. Acting threatening without saying or doing anything that looks to an objective observer like a threat is very much allowed and in use. |
| 220 | ** In the episode ''End Game'', Gordon Pratt believes that the Detectives will physically assault him and he says racially inflammatory things to the primarily black detectives, as a result the interrogation becomes an exercise in physical restraint. Lewis eventually leaves the room because Pratt makes him so angry. |
| 221 | * {{Jerkass}}: Felton, Gharty (both accused racists), Pembleton , Munch, Bolander (while generally nice the way he treats Munch is exactly how Pembleton treats Bayliss) and, after a long character arc, Kellerman. Gaffney, however, is easily the biggest. |
| 222 | ** Danvers was originally, but this was probably because of the pressures of his job. As the series progressed he became much more likeable. Bayliss also followed similar character development, but he could be even more unlikeable if he outright hated a suspect, and at times his attitude would mirror Frank's. |
| 223 | * JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Munch. |
| 224 | * JumpedAtTheCall: Not the call per se but Bayliss is initially very enthusiastic about being a Homicide Detective. |
| 225 | ** This is reflected upon almost ironically in Bayliss' final scene in the series, Bayliss reflects on the many moments in all seven seasons, culminating in a recollection of what he said to Giardello when he first arrived. |
| 226 | * JurisdictionFriction: In on episode, Kellerman is disgruntled by the fact that the F.B.I are ''not'' interested in the matter of a corrupt judge that he's bringing to them. [[spoiler: One of the agents later tracks him down and, off-the-record, admits that they're already investigating the judge but official policy is not to discuss corruption investigations with local authorities.]] |
| 227 | ** Kellerman experiences further friction when he finds himself working the same case as Falsone from opposite ends. The BPD refuses to share its information with Kellerman. |
| 228 | ** There was some friction between the NYPD, Pembleton and Bayliss during the first Law and Order cross-over. NYPD refuses to include Pembleton or Bayliss in their investigation so Pembleton, already annoyed at the fact he came all the way to New York for a 'We'll keep you informed', decides to work the case by himself. They then get a better interrogation of their suspect as a result of the information they had that the NYPD didn't. However, during this interrogation, Pembleton inadvertently violates the suspect's rights[[note]] Frank didn't know that, in New York, if a suspect says he 'thinks' he wants a Lawyer, he gets one and the interview is over. Conversely in Baltimore, the interview ends if, and only if, the suspect says 'I want a lawyer' or words to that effect (See [[{{Pilot}} Gone for Goode]])[[/note]] thus jeopardising the case and pissing off the New York authorities even more. Nevertheless the NYPD and the BPD then decide that it's probably best they work with each other rather than against each other for the remainder of the case, and the BPD are more accommodating when Briscoe and Curtis come to Baltimore. |
| 229 | ** The third Law and Order cross-over has this trope played straight, with the BPD and NYPD trying to work a case and the FBI and Independent Counsel probing that case to offer deals to the suspects in exchange for information about President Clinton's wrong-doings. Mike Giardello is caught in the middle. |
| 230 | * KarmaHoudini: A realistically terrifying number of them. |
| 231 | * KavorkaMan: Ed Danvers, despite being short and balding, manages to date both Kay Howard and later gets engaged to a beautiful defense attorney. It should be noted that Ed is both a very nice guy and works in an impressive field which he is very good at. Then there is Kay's [[BiggerIsBetterInBed endorsement of him]]. Munch also, despite being a sarcastic, conspiracy-obsessed nut jerkass and not anyone's definition of attractive, dates and marries many attractive women. |
| 232 | * KickTheDog: Gee tells Felton, who had just come back to work after being shot, that he hadn't been up to the job for a long time, even before he got shot. To be fair, the episodes before that showed Felton drinking and becoming increasingly erratic after his wife disappeared with his children, and his name had more red under it than most. In addition Felton actually lost evidence (that turned out to be a red-herring, but he didn't know that) during one of his drunken escapades. |
| 233 | ** "You still walk on water, don't you Frank?" To be fair, Pembleton himself had previously kicked the dog when he didn't show Munch any gratitude for calling an Ambulance and then for coming to visit him while he was in the hospital (although, given what he was going through it's understandable. Pembleton also didn't think that Munch would care, given his persona around the squad room). |
| 234 | * KnightInSourArmor: Many examples but Munch really takes the cake on this one. |
| 235 | * LaterInstallmentWeirdness: Pembleton's JurisdictionFriction battles with Rey Curtis and Lennie Briscoe in the later ''Series/LawAndOrder'' crossovers can be seen as this, given his previously friendly relationship with Curtis' predecessor, Mike Logan. |
| 236 | * LieDetector: Munch and Bolander trick a stupid perp into thinking that a photocopier is actually a dangerous, radioactive lie detector. Such was actually common practice at the Baltimore Police Department and was detailed in the book the series was based on, and then later re-used in The Wire. |
| 237 | * LighterAndSofter: Season 4 is noticeably much less dark than the preceding or following season. While still having some dark and thought-provoking storylines, the increased focus on the more comedic Lewis and Kellerman and the lack of serialized story arcs made it much lighter. |
| 238 | * LovedByAll: |
| 239 | ** After Detective Steve Crosetti [[spoiler:is DrivenToSuicide]], no one has anything bad to say and has nothing but fond memories of him. The only exception, Bolander, simply didn't know him and never actually had a conversation with him. |
| 240 | ** Lieutenant Al Giardello is beloved by his detectives for being a BenevolentBoss and AFatherToHisMen who always looks out for their well-being without fail. [[spoiler:When he's non-fatally shot in the FinaleMovie, all of his detectives (even those who were retired or off the grid) return to Baltimore to find his shooter.]] |
| 241 | * LyingToThePerp: Frequently in order to get a confession. |
| 242 | * MauveShirt: Officer Chris Thormann, recurring mostly in the first season, and one of the few officers to appear outside of the main cast, chatting up many of the main characters, and being friends with Crosetti who mentored him. He even had a story arc, mentioning his wife wanting kids, then getting shot and blinded, and forced to live with the consequences, while his wife was pregnant. When Lewis investigates [[spoiler:Crosetti's death]], Thormann is seen at home with his wife, holding the baby. In a later episode Lewis and Thormann have become friends following [[spoiler:Crosetti's death, and they celebrate an annual 'In memoriam' for him at a jazz club]]. |
| 243 | * MedleyExit: Very frequent - and memorable. |
| 244 | * MoodWhiplash: The conclusion of the movie. As the squad is celebrating Giardello's recovery and Bayliss and Pembleton catching his assailant, Brodie walks in: |
| 245 | --> '''Brodie''': "[[spoiler: He died. Lieutenant Giardello died.]]" |
| 246 | * MotorMouth: Munch, on occasion. In one episode, he meets up with Gee at the laundromat on a lazy Sunday; Gee just wants to read the paper in peace and winds up storming off when Munch can't stop babbling about ''nothing.'' (A bit of a KickTheDog moment, since Munch is hurt by the snub and comes across as kind of desperate for company.) |
| 247 | * MummiesAtTheDinnerTable: In "The Documentary", a lonely mortuary worker borrows corpses so he can host dinner parties by himself. |
| 248 | * MurderDotCom: "Homicide.com". |
| 249 | * MustHaveNicotine: Most of the characters are chain smokers and the squadroom is thick with smoke in earlier seasons. |
| 250 | * MyGreatestFailure: Bayliss eventually became a competent detective, but was always haunted by his inability to solve his first case, the murder of a young girl. |
| 251 | -->''' Bayliss''': Don't you see, Frank? The killer beat me. He beat me. Dooley, Tucker, whoever he is, he beat me. It was my first case Frank, my first case. I hadn't even started to be a Homicide Detective yet, and he beat me. I put everything I had into that case and it wasn't enough. |
| 252 | * MysteryOfTheWeek: In later seasons. |
| 253 | * NegatedMomentOfAwesome: At the end of "The City That Bleeds", after pretty much the entire department unites to find the man who shot [[spoiler:Bolander, Howard, and Felton]], Pembleton and Bayliss lead a QRT squad to close in on the suspected shooter. While a badass rock song plays, they burst into his home and pursue him onto a railroad track… only to find that he's escaped through a hole in a chainlink fence. |
| 254 | * NiceGuy: Lewis, Kellerman until late season 5, and Bayliss. |
| 255 | * NoBisexuals: Averted; Tim Bayliss openly identifies as bisexual later in the series. |
| 256 | * NobleBigotWithABadge: Gharty was supposed to be this. It got toned down significantly, along with many other of Gharty's negative personality traits, presumably because the executives felt that viewers could not empathise with a main character who was both a racist and a coward. |
| 257 | * NonActionGuy: Pembleton, one of best investigators of the squad, hates firearms and is a terrible shot. |
| 258 | * NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: Despite most of the characters being Baltimore natives, none of the cast were from there with only Lewis, played by Philadelphia native Clark Johnson, having the accent. Braugher's New York native Pembleton has a Chicago accent and Creator/ReedDiamond sounds more Brooklyn than "Bawlmer". Probably for the best as the Baltimore accent is very difficult to grasp and can be off-putting if done poorly. |
| 259 | * NotSoHarmlessVillain: The VillainOfTheWeek in "The Hat" is such an AffablyEvil eccentric and so cooperative that Kellerman and Lewis let their guard down around her, even taking her out to dinner while escorting her to prison. She seizes the opportunity to escape and murders another woman before she's recaptured. |
| 260 | * ObstructiveBureaucrat: Col. Barnfather was essentially this though later episodes were far more sympathetic to his predicaments. |
| 261 | * OffOnATechnicality: Many examples, but the best is probably Luke Ryland's acquittal because of the state's failure to try him for murder within a 180 day period. This pushes Bayliss over the edge. |
| 262 | * OneOfOurOwn: |
| 263 | ** A season three arc had the unit work over-time to catch the man who shot Bolander, Howard and Felton. The Unit and Pembleton in particular specifically refuse to let Violent Crimes (who would normally handle a non-fatal assault case) handle the case. |
| 264 | ** [[spoiler:In season five, knowing that Daniel Baldwin was probably never going to come back, the writers killed off Felton for some easy drama. The result was the unit, again working overtime, to try and catch Felton's killer.]] |
| 265 | * OneSteveLimit: Mostly played pretty straight, or as straight as most TV series play it, but there were two Mikes in the main cast; Mike Kellerman and Mike Giardello. This isn't as noticeable as in some series because they were rarely on camera together (and were not main cast members at the same time) and because Kellerman was generally referred to by his last name and Mike Giardello generally by his first, as his father, Al Giardello, was also a major character. |
| 266 | * OrphanedPunchline: Meldrick Lewis frequently tells the same filthy joke about a bear, of which the audience only ever got to hear the punch line: "You're not here to hunt, are you?" In one episode, his partner Kellerman only says that line, to which Lewis replies that the build-up to the punchline is the whole point. It's actually a real joke, and [[http://www.laughy.com/humor/2031.shtml pretty funny]]. |
| 267 | * OutOfCharacterMoment: Several, usually acknowledged by the writers, when the show either wrote-off or were in the process of writing off characters. |
| 268 | ** Crosetti commits suicide but previous episodes demonstrated Crosetti to be a fairly Conservative Catholic and not suffering any significant pain other than arguments with his ex-wife and daughter. |
| 269 | ** The typically proper and conservative Bolander is unlikely to get drunk and get naked while on duty or at a function like a Police conference. |
| 270 | *** Hell, even characteristic drunk Felton is established to be the kind of drunk that simply stumbles from place to place, getting even more drunk, as opposed to what he's stated to have done to get himself suspended. Also, him and Bolander never hung out. |
| 271 | ** Pembleton's drive for his work would never allow him to quit the force. In fact, Frank turned in his badge under similar circumstances in Season 3 (angered at Departmental cover-ups, plus the Deputy Commissioner screwed him over), only to return after Bayliss asserts that he could never be anything other than a cop. This incongruity is addressed in the last episode of Season 7 (where Bayliss confides to Sheppard that he always thought Frank would come back) and the Movie (when Tim asks Frank to turn him in, saying he'll always be a cop). |
| 272 | ** Giardello runs for Mayor but throughout the series it's firmly established that Gee has no mind for politics, and commits what might be considered political suicide a number of times. |
| 273 | *** His focus on drug legalization was also highly suspect. While it could be motivated by the Mahoney affair (and the few drug dealers we see in the film aren't too happy about it because it'd put them out of business), it is very unlikely he'd want to legalize drugs and felt like [[spoiler:little more than a weak excuse for his killer's motive.]] |
| 274 | * OutOfFocus: Howard and Munch from season 4 on, although Munch was never side-lined as badly as he was on SVU. This was because their partners had both been suspended and thus there was no one for them to play off of (although Howard and Munch often did team up themselves). |
| 275 | ** Pembleton (amongst others) in Season 6, in favour of the newer characters. Understandably people weren't happy. |
| 276 | * PayEvilUntoEvil: Mostly subverted. Some of the murderers killed their victim to avenge some slight, but the detectives are rarely sympathetic. |
| 277 | * PerpSweating: The interrogation room, affectionately termed "The Box", is where the magic happens. |
| 278 | * PlatonicLifePartners: Howard and Felton. |
| 279 | * PointyHairedBoss: Detective - later Captain - Gaffney. Granger (who turned out [[spoiler: to be corrupt]]) and Barnfather certainly had their moments. |
| 280 | * PoliceProcedural: Though much more character and story based than most other examples at the time. |
| 281 | * PromotionToOpeningTitles: The series didn't engage in this as often as you might think, with a majority of the new regulars being introduced as regulars. However, Brodie was a recurring character during the fourth season, added to the opening credits for Season Five, while Gharty and Falsone appeared in the Season Five two-part finale, becoming regulars the following season. Gharty had appeared in the fourth season, a cowardly beat cop who somehow later was promoted to detective and moved to Internal Investigations. |
| 282 | * PsychopathicManchild: Larry Biedron from "Subway" proves to be quite childish once his MaskOfSanity drops, and he's repeatedly pushed people in front of oncoming trains. |
| 283 | * PutOnABus: Bolander was unceremoniously written off after the third season. Unlike [[spoiler:Felton and Crosetti]], however, he did avoid a BusCrash. |
| 284 | * RabidCop: Usually Pembleton. |
| 285 | * ReadingYourRights: Mostly accurate, thanks again to the source material. |
| 286 | * RedOniBlueOni: Bayliss and Pembleton, respectively; Bolander and Munch, respectively; Crosetti and Lewis, also respectively. |
| 287 | * RepeatCut: Used frequently in the first few seasons, toned down significantly thereafter until the show basically lost another of the things that made it unique. |
| 288 | * {{Retcon}}: In Season 1, Howard is the primary investigator on a double-homicide committed by a drug dealer named Pony Johnson. In Season 6, Johnson is the prime mover behind another murder. Because the actress playing Howard, Melissa Leo, had left the show by that time, the case was retconned to make JustForFun/JohnMunch the primary, so he could get the detectives up to speed on Johnson. Why they didn't just write a scene detailing the necessary exposition with a mere mention of Howard instead is a mystery. |
| 289 | * ARiddleWrappedInAMysteryInsideAnEnigma: When Munch and Kellerman work on a case involving a suicide jumper killed by a stray shotgun blast on the way down from a tall building, Munch describes it as "a riddle, surrounded by a mystery, wrapped inside an enigma, and stuffed inside a body bag." |
| 290 | * RippedFromTheHeadlines: A good deal of cases are almost carbon-copies of real Baltimore murders which happened during David Simon's time shadowing the Baltimore Police Department's Homicide Unit during 1988: |
| 291 | ** Bayliss's Adena Watson case was based upon the case of Latonya Kim Wallace, a young girl who was murdered in Reservoir Hill, becoming a "red ball" murder[[note]]I.e, a case that brings the attention of the press and the brass, and thus a case that matters.[[/note]] [[spoiler: Sadly, like in real life, Adena's murderer is never brought to justice.]] |
| 292 | ** The "BlackWidow killer" Calpurnia Church from the first episode is based on Geraldine Parrish (Parish = Church, geddit?), who murdered a string of husbands - the BPD found tens of life insurance policies naming her as the beneficiary. She, like Church, pretended to be a voodoo master, and, like Church, the investigation into her crimes prompted multiple exhumations at city cemeteries. |
| 293 | ** The real-life shooting of Officer Gene Cassidy and the subsequent uphill struggle to secure a conviction for his attacker, Butchie Frazier, are the basis of a season 1 plotline for Crosetti. |
| 294 | ** The death of John Randolph Scott in suspicious circumstances likely involving BPD officers in the book is recreated during Season 2. [[spoiler: Unlike in real life, the killer is brought to justice.]] |
| 295 | ** The more common example of reheating recent news stories was not deployed as much as some other procedurals, but occasionally made an appearance: |
| 296 | *** "Colors" is based on the real case of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshihiro_Hattori Yoshihiro Hattori]], a Japanese exchange student who was shot dead by a paranoid householder in Baton Rouge while looking for a fancy-dress party. |
| 297 | *** "Saigon Rose" is based on the case of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoinette_Frank Antoinette Frank]], a New Orleans patrol officer who committed a deadly armed robbery of a Vietnamese restaurant. |
| 298 | * SerialKiller: A few are featured, though in a generally more realistic light than most media and only after the more minimalistic first two seasons. |
| 299 | ** The ArcVillain of the first episodes of Season 3 is Annabella Wilgis, a FemaleMisogynist who murders women because she believes that a woman should StayInTheKitchen, and hated them for becoming involved in the community. |
| 300 | ** "Thrill of the Kill" centers around the detectives pursuing an itinerant serial killer (Creator/JeffreyDonovan) cruising America's highways and murdering people along the way. |
| 301 | ** The villains of "Stakeout" are a serial killer and his accomplice who torture and murder teenage boys. |
| 302 | ** Luke Ryland, a recurring villain in the final season, is a serial killer who develops a personal enmity with Bayliss. |
| 303 | * ShipTease: The first Law & Order cross-over has Bayliss go out with Claire Kincaid. |
| 304 | * ShoutOut: |
| 305 | ** The non-plot names on the murder board are taken from the show's crew and their friends and family. |
| 306 | ** Also, Munch gets Falsone to partner with him on one case by saying, "[[Film/{{Diner}} I'm buying at the diner]]." |
| 307 | ** Somebody on the writing staff must have liked grunge, because there are perps named [[Music/AliceInChains Layne Staley]] and [[Music/{{Nirvana}} Krist Novoselic]]. |
| 308 | ** In "Kaddish", Munch's high school love interest Helen Rosenthal is raped and murdered. This is a reference to the nurse of the same name who was a regular character in ''Series/StElsewhere'', which was likewise produced by Tom Fontana. |
| 309 | * ShownTheirWork: One of the most realistic cop shows during its time, due to the nature of its source material (David Simon's account of a year he spent watching the Baltimore homicide unit at work). Detectives almost never use their weapons or go to an arrest without backup. |
| 310 | * SignatureHeadgear: Lewis is rarely seen outside the station house without his really rather cool trilby. Pembleton was also given to wearing a pretty sweet fedora at times. |
| 311 | * SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: ''Definitely'' on the cynical side. |
| 312 | -->''' Munch''': ''(to Pembleton, former ace detective of the squad, who is returning to work after a stroke)'' [[KickTheDog You still walk on water]], don't you Frank? |
| 313 | * SmokingIsCool: At the beginning of the series it seems the entire unit smoked, with Bayliss and Howard being mocked for attempting to quit in the first season finale. Most of the replacement detectives were non-smokers, while most of the originals succeed in quitting. Giardello is explicitly retconned as a non-smoker; in the early seasons he enjoys cigars, but in season 4 he claims to have only smoked as a teenager, even telling Frank that “Smoking isn’t cool.” |
| 314 | ** Pembleton in particular had a love of cigarettes until he was finally forced to quit after suffering a stroke. |
| 315 | * SmugSnake: Luther Mahoney. Also, Roger Gaffney, Deputy Commissioner James Harris and Independent Counsel William Dell. All the worse because [[spoiler:he wins in the end]]. |
| 316 | * SoBeautifulItsACurse: Sheppard in the last season. |
| 317 | * SophisticatedAsHell: Pembleton is one of the triumphant examples in TV history. He's a Jesuit-taught omniglot, and during interrogations you can see both suspects and fellow cops struggling to keep up. He also peppers his dialogue with blunt colloquialisms, such as calling Ed Danvers "the midget dweeb" and warning a young SympatheticMurderer heading to prison "keep your ass to the wall." |
| 318 | * SpecialGuest: Among those who made guest appearances were Creator/SteveAllen, Creator/LewisBlack, Creator/WilfordBrimley, Creator/SteveBuscemi, Creator/BruceCampbell, Creator/JoanChen, Creator/VincentDOnofrio, Creator/JeffreyDonovan, Creator/TateDonovan, Creator/CharlesDurning, Creator/CharlesSDutton, Creator/KathrynErbe, Creator/EdieFalco, Creator/PeterGallagher, Creator/PaulGiamatti, Creator/JohnGlover, Creator/LuisGuzman, Creator/JakeGyllenhaal, Creator/MarciaGayHarden, Creator/NeilPatrickHarris, Creator/PatHingle, Creator/JamesEarlJones, Creator/TerryKinney, Creator/BrunoKirby, Creator/JuliannaMargulies, Creator/JenaMalone, Creator/AnneMeara, Creator/DavidMorse, Creator/TerryOQuinn, [[Music/{{Aerosmith}} Joe Perry]], Creator/ChrisRock, Creator/JKSimmons, Creator/FisherStevens, Creator/JerryStiller (in a different season from wife Anne Meara), Creator/EricStoltz, Creator/TonyTodd, Creator/LilyTomlin, Creator/MelvinVanPeebles, Creator/KateWalsh, Creator/IsaiahWashington, Creator/RobinWilliams, Creator/DeanWinters, and Creator/ElijahWood. |
| 319 | * SpotlightStealingSquad: Falsone and Ballard in the sixth season. They weren't well liked to say the least. |
| 320 | * StupidEvil: Many, many instances. It's made extremely clear that the vast majority of homicides are committed by petty criminals with poor impulse control and not evil masterminds. The crowning example has to be a perp in season 4 who, upon being arrested for soliciting a prostitute and with some heroin on him, offers to confess his involvement in multiple serial killings as an exchange, basically trading an at best minor sentence for life in prison. |
| 321 | * SuicideByCop: Lifer Elijah Sanborn tries to commit this by confessing to a prison house slaying he didn't commit. Bayliss, offended that Sanborn would be depriving his children of a father, convinces him to recant. |
| 322 | * SurprisinglySuddenDeath: [[spoiler: Happens in the 2000 movie. Giardello comes through surgery for his gunshot wounds and appears to be recovering well, but a few scenes later, Brodie informs everyone that he has died.]] |
| 323 | * SympatheticMurderer: |
| 324 | ** Mitchell Forman from "A Many Splendored Thing". He murders a man over a pen that only costs $4.00, but it's made clear that it was caused by mental instability rather than malice and he tries to commit suicide out of guilt. He eventually turns himself in peacefully when Lewis talks him out of killing himself. |
| 325 | ** Vaughn Perkins from "Bop Gun", one of the few perps to ever show regret for their crime. He's a sensitive teenager who shoots a woman during a botched mugging, and ultimately enters a guilty plea for a life sentence as penance. Howard finds him so sympathetic that she initially tries to prove he's taking the fall for his accomplices, only stopping when he confesses that he did it in front of her. |
| 326 | ** Downplayed with Larry Biedron from "Subway". He's a PsychopathicManchild who pushed a man into the path of an oncoming subway train, and has done so before, but Bayliss points out he was institutionalized, but he was let out because of budget cuts even though he clearly still needed psychological help. That said, Pembleton and Bayliss are quick to mock him when he complains about being cold [[MoralMyopia while his victim, currently pinned between the train and the subway platform, is slowly and agonizingly dying from his injuries a few feet away from him.]] |
| 327 | * TakingYouWithMe: One of two options that Gee offers to Kellerman once the details of the Luther Mahoney shooting become known. He can face a criminal trial and possibly win, but the false reports that he, Lewis, and Stivers wrote on the incident will inevitably come to light, giving the bosses grounds to fire all three of them. If Kellerman [[TurnInYourBadge quits]] instead, the matter will be closed and the other two can keep their jobs. He quits. |
| 328 | * TeamDad: Giardello, to the point that the squad won't take orders from Gaffney when he's appointed Captain unless Gee tells them to. Gee was so beloved by all the detectives that when he got shot everyone who had ever worked in the unit, regardless of whether they moved, quit or retired, came back to work the case. |
| 329 | * TheTeaser: Many episodes have teasers featuring a SeinfeldianConversation between two or three of the detectives. |
| 330 | * TokenBlackFriend: One of the first primetime Drama series to avert this trope by giving African-American characters leading roles and storylines. |
| 331 | * TookALevelInJerkass: |
| 332 | ** Kellerman becomes more neurotic, suspicious, and unpleasant after he was charged by Internal Affairs. And even after he was cleared, he keeps on being an a-hole to his colleagues. |
| 333 | ** Lewis also qualified, particularly in the last two seasons. |
| 334 | %%* TragicHero: If we consider the final movie, Bayliss. |
| 335 | * {{Transplant}}: Munch joining ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit''. |
| 336 | * TrashTheSet: The shootout at the end of the sixth season. |
| 337 | * TrickedIntoSigning: A ourier who needs the detectives to sign for a package turns out to be a process server working with Georgia Rae Mahoney's lawsuit against the city. |
| 338 | * TurnInYourBadge: Done by both Pembleton and Kellerman at the end of Season 6 -- Pembleton out of disgust at what Kellerman did and guilt over Bayliss taking a bullet to save him, and Kellerman to protect Lewis and Stivers from being fired over the Luther Mahoney shooting. |
| 339 | ** Pembleton briefly does it in Season 3, after the deputy commissioner talks him into covering up a congressman's false crime report and then leaves him to take the blame once the truth comes out. |
| 340 | * TyrantTakesTheHelm: Roger Gaffney. Giardello is not happy about Gaffney's promotion, along with the rest of the unit, who all hate him. |
| 341 | * UrbanLegends: A very complicated killing in the episode "Shaggy Dog, City Goat" is directly adapted from the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Opus Ronald Opus urban legend]]. |
| 342 | * VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: A lot of the murders are dramatized versions of real Baltimore murders Creator/DavidSimon saw the real BPD Homicide unit work when he was writing his book. |
| 343 | * VigilanteExecution: |
| 344 | ** At least two of them, involving respectively [[spoiler:Kellerman and Bayliss]]. In each case, the killers are eventually broken by the consequences of their actions. |
| 345 | --->'''Det Kellerman''': ''(shooting Luther Mahoney in cold blood)'' You have the right to remain silent. |
| 346 | ** It's never directly stated but heavily implied that [[spoiler:Munch killed a violent racist who shot Howard, Bolander, and Felton.]] |
| 347 | * VillainEpisode: Third-season finale "The Gas Man" was almost a pure example, but the heroes ended up with dialogue anyway. |
| 348 | * VillainousBreakdown: |
| 349 | ** Luther Mahoney maintains his cool throughout his time on the series, knowing that he's protected himself very well and has nothing to fear from Lewis and Kellerman. But in his final appearance, when everything starts going wrong for him, he doesn't take it very well. |
| 350 | ** Joseph Cardero has a spectacular one at the end of "Heartbeat", that culminates in him committing suicide. |
| 351 | * VillainWithGoodPublicity: Luther Mahoney. |
| 352 | * VitriolicBestBuds: Munch and Bolander; Pembleton and Bayliss; Lewis and Crosetti. |
| 353 | * WhamShot: Felton arriving at Russert's home and kissing her at the end of "Nearer to My God Than Thee", confirming that not only is he having an affair, but he's having it with her. |
| 354 | * WideEyedIdealist: Bayliss for most of the series though when he breaks, he breaks hard. |
| 355 | ** This is particularly notable in the second season when Bayliss claims that [[SexEqualsLove sex is love]] and decries the act of sex for pleasure as 'dehumanising'. Pembleton makes a point of telling him that he's either pretending to be virtuous or is simply an idiot. Later in the series Bayliss drastically changes his stance as he begins to embrace his bisexuality. |
| 356 | ** Kellerman starts out as a kind of young idealist. Like Bayliss, he eventually breaks. |
| 357 | * WhamLine: The conclusion of the movie. As the squad is celebrating Giardello's recovery and Bayliss and Pembleton catching his assailant, Brodie walks in: |
| 358 | --> '''Brodie''': "[[spoiler: He died. Lieutenant Giardello died.]]" |
| 359 | * WholePlotReference: "Heartbeat" is one long ShoutOut to the works of Creator/EdgarAllanPoe, particularly "The Telltale Heart". |
| 360 | * WrapItUp: Homicide The Movie. |
| 361 | * YouDidntAsk: In "In Search of Crimes Past". a bartender reveals he never told Bolander about the victim having an affair with the man who turned out to be the real killer, in a case that led to the wrong man almost being executed, simply because the Big Man never asked him about it directly. |
| 362 | * YouJustToldMe: Pembleton finally gets Kellerman in the Box to interrogate him regarding Mahoney's shooting. Pembleton knows [[spoiler: Kellerman murdered him, but believes this is true because he thinks Mahoney didn't have a gun, and presses Kellerman to admit there was no gun. Kellerman finally shouts "He ''had'' a gun!" while unthinkingly miming a "gun hand" held to his side, mimicking Mahoney lowering his gun. Pembleton realizes then that yes, Mahoney was holding a gun, but no, he wasn't pointing it at Kellerman, and thus, Kellerman murdered Mahoney in cold blood.]] |
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