Characters / Homicide Life On The Street Main Characters

Homicide: Life on the Street Main Character Index
Main Characters | Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice | Criminals | Others

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Frank Pembleton

Detective Francis Xavier "Frank" Pembleton

"We speak for those who can no longer speak for themselves."

Portrayed by: Andre Braugher

"Then what you will be privileged to witness will not be an interrogation, but an act of salesmanship. As silver-tongued and thieving as ever moved used cars, Florida swamp land, or Bibles. But what I am selling is a long prison term to a client who has no genuine use for the product."

An eccentric and arrogant but brilliant New York-bred detective. In spite of being one of the best detectives in the unit, he alienates his colleagues with his abrasive demeanor and his black-and-white view of the world.

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• 10-Minute Retirement: After being left to take the heat for covering up the Congressman Wade scandal and being suspended, Pembleton quits the force out of disgust with himself and vows to testify the truth, destroying Harris's career. However, after talking with both Bayliss and Giardello separately, he decides to willingly take the blame so he can return to work as a homicide detective.
• The Ace: He's generally considered the best detective in the squad, and he earns his reputation with the amount of black under his name on the board.
• Aesop Amnesia: The end of Season 1 has him actively attempting to be more sociable with his colleagues and bond with them. While he does mellow out to a degree after this, later seasons show he's mostly reverted to avoiding any significant socializing with them, with the exception of Bayliss.
• All Are Equal in Death: He believes that every life has value and every murder must be investigated with the same amount of effort, regardless of who the victim was in life.
• All-Loving Hero: Pembleton's a lot meaner than most examples, but he truly does believe that everyone are equals, and he puts a lot of effort into each case he investigates because he feels all victims deserve justice no matter what they've done in life.
• Ambition Is Evil: Pembleton's desire to climb the ranks isn't portrayed negatively, but his naïveté when it comes to how petty and politically minded the top brass are makes him very susceptible to their manipulations. He ultimately decides to give up his ambitions when he realizes that currying favor with the bosses and joining them would mean compromising his morals.
• And I Must Scream: After he's put into a medically-induced coma following his stroke in "Work Related", it's implied Pembleton is still conscious to an extent. He dreams about being Buried Alive and screaming for help into a black void, only for no one to hear him. Fortunately, he's able to recover enough to return to the job.
• "Angry Black Man" Stereotype: It's especially prevalent in the first season, but Pembleton often tends to loudly complain whenever he feels any of his white colleagues are being racist and becomes enraged whenever anyone shows signs of racism. It's toned down in the following seasons to an extent, but Pembleton reacts with pure, unfiltered fury whenever he sees signs of racism and he will never hesitate to call it out.
• Anti-Hero: Pembleton is dedicated to getting justice for all of his cases and this makes him an excellent detective; however, his uncaring commitment to finding the turn means he'll do anything to get to it, even if it hurts people in the process. He's also a judgmental, arrogant snob who's very hard to get along with and an unpleasant man in general.
• The Anti-Nihilist: He develops into this after crossing the Despair Event Horizon. Though he believes his job is pointless, he still does it to the best of his ability because he genuinely wants to see justice done for the victims.
• Armor-Piercing Response: After Felton, who has been berating him for hours on end, accuses him of only wanting to solve the Adena Watson case to humiliate Bayliss, Pembleton shuts him down with a few words.
  Pembleton: I don't care about Bayliss. I don't care about you. I care about bringing justice to an eleven-year old girl who was butchered. If you don't, go home.
• Armor-Piercing Question: In "Colors", when Bayliss angrily confronts Pembleton over nearly getting his cousin sent to prison for shooting a Turkish exchange student in perceived self-defense after his cousin is declared innocent.
  Pembleton: Bayliss, if the kid had been white, do you think anyone would have cheered?
• Badass Bookworm: Subverted. Pembleton is a bookworm who is quite the formidable intellectual opponent, but he's not particularly good when the time comes to draw his gun. It leads to Bayliss being shot in the sixth season finale when Pembleton freezes up in a firefight.
• invoked Badass Decay: In-Universe, following his stroke, his colleagues and superiors fear that Pembleton has lost his touch. Pembleton struggles more during his first cases, but he's able to recover and prove his doubters wrong.
• Badass Longcoat: He wears a pretty cool trenchcoat when he's out in the field.
• Berserk Button:
  • Being accused of being a Category Traitor pisses Pembleton off to no end.
  • Racism in general makes Pembleton even more confrontational than usual. Bringing up his race as a weakness can have dangerous results; Giardello telling him he needs to "choose a side" between the black community and the BPD results in Pembleton tricking an innocent man into confessing just to prove a point. Gaffney flat-out calling him "boy" results in Pembleton throttling him.
  • Any affront or perceived affront to Frank's pride or implying that he isn't as smart or capable as he thinks he is causes him to go berserk.
• Big Applesauce: While most other detectives were born and raised in Baltimore, Frank is a native of New York City who vastly prefers Baltimore.
• Black-and-White Insanity: His basic philosophical approach. In his mind, every murder is wrong and every victim deserves to be avenged. Acknowledging a middle ground doesn't come easy to him.
• Breakout Character: Became the fan favorite and signature character over the show's run.
• Breaking Speech: He's the bonafide master of this. The most memorable example is "Black and Blue", where he manages to talk an innocent man into confessing through a ten-minute long Breaking Speech by exploiting his friendship with the murder victim, all to prove a point.
• Break the Haughty: Frank's stroke at the end of season four all but destroys his self-confidence. It takes a long time for him to regain it and even then, he never quite goes back to how he was prior.
• Broken Ace: Pembleton is a brilliant murder detective, almost always getting his man and has a dogged determination to get to the truth. He's also an arrogant, anti-social snob who thinks he walks on water and is practically friendless because of his anti-social and cruel personality.
• Brooklyn Rage: He was born and raised in New York City and is very emotional, hot-headed and abrasive.
• Brought Down to Normal: His brilliance as a murder detective is dimmed by his stroke, although he gets better.
• Brutal Honesty: Frank can be very cutting and blunt when he wants to be. In "Requiem for Adena", Pembleton tells Gee he wants Bayliss off the case because of its similarity to the Adena Watson murder, and he doesn't want it screwed up the same way that investigation was. When Bayliss angrily asks if Frank means how he screwed up, Pembleton bluntly replies that yes, that's exactly what he means. There are other incidents throughout where he makes little effort to hide how little respect he has for all his fellow detectives, justifying their intense dislike of him.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Pembleton is a finicky, anti-social, and confrontational Jerkass who seemingly can't stop himself from getting into fights with his fellow officers, but it's mostly excused because he's a brilliant detective who has one of the highest clearance rates in the precinct.
• Can't Take Criticism: Pembleton is not good at handling criticism. When he so much as thinks he's being criticized, his reaction is at best a dismissive and snarky remark and at worst flying off the handle and going into a screaming fit.
• Career-Ending Injury: He suffers a stroke in the fourth season finale, and after he returns it's speculated that he's lost his touch as a detective. Barnfather and Gaffney even try to have him reassigned to Evidence Control out of fear of this before Gee stops them. Fortunately, despite numerous setbacks Frank is able to recover.
• Category Traitor: Pembleton is frequently accused of being one, which pisses him off to no end.
• Character Tic: He frequently presses his tongue against his cheek.
• Character Development:
  • It's subtle, but Pembleton becomes slightly nicer at the end of Season 1. While he's still prone to insulting his colleagues for the fun of it, he tries to make small talk with them and no longer loses his temper with them at the drop of a hat. It's not much, but it's still there.
  • After realizing the kinds of moral compromises it takes to rise through the ranks of the department, Pembleton abandons his ambitions rather than become a sleazy politician like his bosses.
• Control Freak: Pembleton hates working with other cops because he desperately needs to have absolute control over his cases, and Pembleton is prone to freaking out whenever his life goes out of control, such as the unit temporarily working out of an abandoned bank or Mary becoming pregnant.
• The Corruptible: Barnfather, Granger, and Harris all try to use Pembleton's ambition to convince him to become a shill for the department, while Giardello appeals on Pembleton's morals and loyalty to prevent this from happening.
• Cowboy Cop: A realistic example. Pembleton is well-aware that he can't outright break the law, which would both get him fired and lead to him breaking his own moral code. Instead, Pembleton often works in loopholes of the law, using it to break down perps during interrogation and get them to confess. He notes that it would be very easy for him to cross the line into a flat-out Dirty Cop, and he's genuinely afraid of doing so.
• Creepy Good: He can get downright sinister during his interrogations and they quite frequently go to some very creepy territory, but Pembleton is a fundamentally good if unpleasant man who tries his best to do the right thing.
• Crisis of Faith: Pembleton starts off as a devout Catholic due to his Jesuit upbringing, but his faith starts to falter due to the horrific violence he sees daily as part of his job. During the investigation into the white gloves murders, Pembleton becomes so horrified by the fact that the victims were all devout, faithful, and altruistic Catholics and that the killer is a religious fanatic who committed the murders because of her own, warped Catholic beliefs that he ultimately loses his faith entirely.
• Cultured Badass: Although he's very much a Non-Action Guy, he's a dangerously effective detective and extremely cultured. He's able to quote Latin off the top of his head, well-versed in Ancient Greek literature, and occasionally quotes poetry and classic literature.
• The Cynic: Downplayed. He was already quite cynical before, but discovering Annabella Wilgis was killing people out of her fundamentalist view of Christianity is what ultimately destroys Pembleton's faith and leads to him crossing the Despair Event Horizon.
• Deadpan Snarker: Pembleton has a very dry sense of humor, and is very happy to snark at everyone else for their perceived idiocy. It's just another reason why most other cops can't stand him.
• Defective Detective: He's downright obsessive in his drive for justice, which deeply affects him personally and his relationships, and he's abrasive and hard to get along with. However, he's also the only one of the detectives to hold down a stable relationship (with his wife), so he has some things going for him.
• Despair Event Horizon: During the investigation into the white gloves murders, Pembleton gradually loses his already waning faith and becomes convinced that his job will never allow him to accomplish any good beyond essentially cleaning up after someone is killed. He still continues to do his damnedest to see justice done for the crimes he investigates in spite of this, in spite of his newfound doubts over his job.
• Determinator: He will stop at nothing to get to the truth, and doesn't care who he hurts to do it.
• Dirty Cop: He occasionally borders on this, as his tendency to use loopholes in the law to solve his cases and his ambition causes him to drift towards unethical actions on occasion, much to his own disgust. Whenever he does so, karma will strike Pembleton almost immediately.
• Disability as an Excuse for Jerkassery: Bayliss calls Pembleton out on being increasingly abrasive towards him after his stroke no matter what Bayliss does. Pembleton ascertains that Bayliss expected him to change for the better after his stroke, and tells Bayliss he refuses to change his personality as a result of it. As Frank puts it, his sense of self was shattered by his stroke and the side effects have made his life hell; who he is is all he has left.
  Pembleton: I watch my weight. I watch my diet. I watch my blood pressure. Every eight hours, no matter where I am, or what I'm doing, I hafta take a little white pill. If I don't follow the rules, I die. I'm not going to treat you differently. I won't. 'Cause that's not who I am. And who I am is all I have left.
• Doesn't Like Guns: For all of his competence and success with his clearance rate, he hates to use his gun and is, by his own descriptiona, a poor marksman. This especially became an issue in "Fallen Heroes", where Bayliss takes the bullet after Pembleton doesn't shoot a suspect who was about to fire on him, causing him to resign in shame and guilt.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: After suffering a stroke at the end of Season 4, Pembleton becomes increasingly angry that his friends and loved ones are treating him with kid gloves. He grows infuriated with their pity because it only adds to the humiliation he feels from the stroke's side effects, and because he believes they think he's lost his competence as a homicide detective.
• Easy Amnesia: Thoroughly averted. Following his stroke, he develops aphasia and memory loss, something that deeply impacts his ability to function and communicate, which only adds to Pembleton's anger over his helplessness following his stroke.
• Everybody Has Standards: Pembleton can be quite a jerk, but he's generally quite polite to the Victim of the Week's family and witnesses. He also will back off when he sees others truly suffering, being uncharacteristically gentle when Tim reveals the sexual abuse he suffered as a kid.
• Everything Is Racist: Pembleton frequently accuses his coworkers of racism throughout the first season. Felton calls him out on it, accusing him of using his accusations of racism to justify his career stalling. Following this, Pembleton mostly grows out of it, which doesn't mean he still won't hesitate to call out bigotry when he sees it.
• Evil Stole My Faith: The constant violence and death he sees on the job eventually results on Pembleton losing his faith early in season 3. He regains it at the end of the season, apparently believing that Victor Helms' attack of conscience and inability to go through with murdering him was due to divine intervention.
• Failure Is the Only Option: He's left with this at the end of the movie. He can either turn Bayliss in for murdering Luke Ryland which he clearly doesn't want to do, or he can let Bayliss walk knowing he's likely kill himself. It's never stated which he decides to do.
• False Friend: A key part of his interrogations. He pretends to be sympathetic to the suspect's plight and acts as though he's their friend, making it easier for him to get confessions out of them.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • His pride. For all his virtues, Frank is incredibly prideful, overreacting to the most minor criticisms, carrying himself like others should be grateful to be in the presence of his brilliance and often genuinely unable to fathom that he could be in the wrong and bolstering his sense of self by treating everyone around him like shit. While everyone admits to his skill, almost none of his colleagues can stand him as a result, except Bayliss and even he has limits for how much of Frank's shit he is willing to tolerate. He also insists on being in control as much as possible and can't fathom being in the wrong or that other people could be better at something than him, leading to mistakes such as Glenn Holton escaping. It's only after his stroke that he eases up on this and can even admit to be wrong.
  • Wrath is his second biggest flaw. Pembleton is quite prone to blowing up at people for minor annoyances, especially when he's stressed. It eventually leads to him having a stroke, and in the aftermath his anger towards his loved ones as a consequence of his newfound disabilities leads to him pushing Mary and Bayliss away.
• The Finicky One: Pembleton is a rigid, humorless man who does not react well to being pushed out of his comfort zone. When the detectives are forced to work out of an abandoned bank due to a gas leak, Pembleton utterly loses it because of the change and location and becomes even more irritable than usual (though this is admittedly partially motivated by his stress over Mary's pregnancy).
  Bayliss: Frank, go home. You're, I dunno, discombobulated.
  Pembleton: OF COURSE I'M DISCOMBOBULATED! I WORK OUT IN A GODDAMN SAFETY DEPOSIT BOX, FOR GOD'S SAKE! [Pembleton walks over to a phlegmatic tube canister] LOOK AT THIS! [pulls it down] WHAT IS IT?!
• Fire-Forged Friends: Not exactly friends, but he and Felton come to understand each other in "The Last of the Watermen" when they work a case together and even manage to hold a civil conversation, when previously they couldn't even stand to be in the same room as the other.
• Foil:
  • To Bayliss. On the surface, the two are as different as night and day, but it becomes gradually clear they have a lot of the same flaws and strengths. They're both self-righteous and arrogant, but while Pembleton is very vocal about his ego, Bayliss's egotism is tempered by insecurity and is mostly showcased through a doe-eyed act. They're both idealistic about their jobs, but while Pembleton is much more pragmatic and realistic about the job and is able to keep his emotions mostly separate from his work, Bayliss is naive to an almost crippling degree and lets his emotions and personal sentiments rule him and interfere with his job.
  • To Gaffney. They're both egotistical cops disliked by most of their colleagues. However, Pembleton is a hard-working, ambitious black man who is scarily competent at his job and despises racism but consistently fails at his attempts to move up the ranks, while Gaffney is an incompetent and racist white man who puts in absolutely no effort at his job and still manages to sleaze his way to the top.
  • To Howard. They're both the most competent detectives in the unit and have high clearance rates, and they both ambitiously crave to rise through the ranks. However, whereas Howard is generally professional and well-liked, Pembleton is hated by pretty much everyone for being a total asshole.
• Friend to All Children: While Pembleton mostly has No Sympathy for anyone around him, he's quite nice to children and often expresses an uncharacteristic amount of compassion for them. Both times a teenager is responsible for a murder he investigates, he's quite sympathetic to them and reluctant to prove them guilty.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: With the exception of Bayliss and Howard, no one else in Homicide likes him that much and just barely tolerates him because of his skill. He is actually able to get along with them whenever he makes an effort to socialize, but Pembleton rarely does out of ego. Even Bayliss and Howard have their limits too. It is worth noting the unit does care about him; when he suffers a stroke, everyone heads to the hospital to wait for him to get out of surgery and do make an effort to welcome him back and make life easier for him.
• The Gadfly: He's very prone to picking fights with his colleagues for the sheer fun of it, and twisting their statements out of context to harass them over it.
• Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing: Pembleton is abrasive and perpetually in a sour mood, where Bayliss is generally more upbeat and amicable following his Character Development.
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: Usually averted, as Pembleton generally has a good sense of the Villain of the Week's motivation, but it's played straight in "Control". As a father himself, he's unable to understand why Clifton killed his own young children and outright asks him why he did it. Clifton doesn't answer.
• Good Cop/Bad Cop: He's the Bad Cop to Bayliss's Good Cop. Where Bayliss is gentle and reassuring, Pembleton is brash and confrontational to suspects.
• Good Parents: To his daughter, Olivia, and his son, Frank Jr. He's quite gentle and nurturing with them, something that's quite rare for Pembleton.
• Good Is Not Nice: Pembleton is genuinely committed to finding the truth and getting justice for victims and has a staunch moral code that he follows religiously. Absolutely none of this makes him pleasant to be around; he's a snobbish, cold misanthrope who thinks he's better than everyone else and makes damn sure they know it.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Pembleton can easily be set off into a rage by any signs of disrespect, real or perceived, or even someone disagreeing with him. He's constantly blowing minor issues out of proportion into a grand slight against him and getting into arguments with other members of the unit over it, which plays a good part in why no one really likes him. It gets even worse after his stroke, where his inability to communicate causes him to become increasingly angrier.
• Happily Married: To Mary, played by Andre's real-life wife, Ami Brabson.
• Hard Head: Wields his bald pate as a blunt instrument against suspects in the box. When he comes back from medical leave, he's grown out his hair to cover surgical scars, and is also missing a few steps.
• Hates Everyone Equally: Pembleton looks down on everyone around him, regardless of race or creed. His high moral standards are pretty much impossible for anyone to meet due to his black-and-white perspective on the world, and he likes only a select few people, and respects even fewer.
• Headbutting Heroes: While Pembleton is an extremely talented detective, dedicated to his job and willing to see all murder victims as equals, he generally rubs those in his squad the wrong way, considering them amateurish by comparison. Having said that, his squad members get along with him considerably better than other members of the police force, which admittedly says more about Frank than anything else.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Bayliss who is Frank's closest and possibly only friend. In one episode, he even says that Tim is the only person he trusts besides his wife.
• The Hero: Thanks to Andre Braugher's excellent performance, Pembleton gradually emerged as the closest thing the show had to a main protagonist and gets the most focus out of the cast.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Contrary to his self-assured persona, Pembleton is constantly plagued by doubts over whether he's actually accomplishing anything worthwhile in his job and is deeply insecure.
  • For all his cultured persona, he's a fan of Jim Thompson novels, implicitly because they focus on Stupid Crooks like the ones he arrests day after day.
  • One of the first times he expresses open affection for Bayliss is in "Betrayal", where he admits he trusts his partner absolutely, Giardello is shocked and asks if he's talking to the same Frank.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: Underneath his cold, arrogant exterior, Pembleton is a compassionate, fundamentally good man who truly believes in finding justice for murder victims. He increasingly shows it off in Season 5 following his stroke, especially after Bayliss briefly ends their partnership and Frank is forced to admit that he truly does value Tim's friendship.
• Holier Than Thou: Frank can be very self-righteous at times. He always sees himself as the good guy, and constantly acts as though he has the moral high ground in even the pettiest of arguments, which he uses as a short-hand to ignore his own failings. He eventually quits when he can no longer justify his actions to himself.
  Kellerman: You know what I don't like?
  Pembleton: No, but I'm sure you'll tell us anyway.
  Kellerman: I hate people who think they know what's best for other people. I hate people who look down on people who can't control their every teeny little feeling. I hate people who sit around judging other people.
  Pembleton: Anything else?
  Kellerman: No, that about covers it.
• Hollywood Atheist: Subverted. After losing his faith, Pembleton refuses to even enter a church, even for Crosetti's funeral. However, his comments imply that he still does believe in God; he just hates him for creating a world where horrific violence and death happens every day.
• Hourglass Plot: Pembleton starts off as a Cowboy Cop and a borderline Knight Templar determined to see justice done no matter how many rules he had to bend, while Bayliss was horrified at how far he'd go. By the end of the series, Pembleton has grown much more empathetic and reasonable, while Bayliss snaps and performs a Vigilante Execution.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: During the investigation into the white gloves murders, Pembleton is initially subordinate to Gaffney. Gaffney is an incompetent, racist moron who rejects all of Pembleton's sensible advice and hurls racial slurs at him. When Pembleton reports to Russert that Gaffney had neglected to look at major evidence that a witness had pointed out to him, Russert transfers him to another squad and appoints Pembleton the new primary. He immediately begins assigning everyone in both Russert and Giardello's units specific jobs and manages to salvage the investigation from Gaffney's clusterfuck.
• Hypocrite Has a Point: He calls out Bayliss for his self-righteousness and how it prevents him from being a better detective. While Pembleton definitely isn't one to talk about this, considering how much of a self-righteous ass he is, he's right on the money about how Bayliss's doe-eyes act is hindering his potential as a detective and that he's using it to hide from his own dark side.
• Idealist vs. Pragmatist: The Pragmatist to Bayliss's Idealist. Pembleton is a cold, ambitious man who has a pessimistic view of human nature and is willing to do anything it takes to solve a case outside of police brutality. It's played with, as Pembleton is a moral absolutist who is frequently blind to shades of grey in a way Bayliss isn't.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Pembleton is massively arrogant, but whenever he opens up around Bayliss and Howard he reveals he's hiding a lot of self-loathing and insecurities underneath the surface.
  Pembleton: You know, every day I get out of bed and drag myself to the next cup of coffee. I take a sip and the caffeine kicks in. I can focus my eyes again. My brain starts to order the day. I'm up, I'm alive. I'm ready to rock. But the time is coming when I wake up and decide that I'm not getting out of bed. I'm not getting up for coffee, or food or sex. If it comes to me, fine. If it won't, fine. No more expectations. The longer I live, the less I know. I should know more. I should know the coffee's killing me. You're suspicious of your suspicions? I'm jealous; I'm so jealous, Kay. You still have the heart to have doubts. Me? I'm gonna lock up a 14-year-old kid for what could be the rest of his natural life. I gotta do this. This is my job. This is the deal. This is the law. This is my day. I have no doubts or suspicions about it. Heart has nothing to do with it any more. It's all in the caffeine.
• Insane Troll Logic: He's very prone to twisting people's words into something either moronic or cruel so he can mock them about it or get enraged about he claims they really meant.
• Insufferable Genius: He's brilliant and knows it, and he isn't afraid to rub it in everybody else's face. Part of his character arc in Season 5 is regaining his confidence without becoming this again.
• It's All My Fault: After fervently denying it to anyone who will listen, Pembleton acknowledges he crossed the line during Annabella Wilgis's interrogation by tricking one of her alters (a seven-year old girl) into burning herself (he believed that she was faking insanity and thought that it would make her cop to it), and the real reason he was angry about her subsequent lawsuit was because it forced him to acknowledge that he had finally gone too far during an interrogation.
• It's All About Me: Pembleton has a nasty habit of believing everything in the world revolves around him. He frequently turns his cases into a way to boost his ego, and he turns innocuous gestures into grand slights against him, all through the power of his truly massive arrogance. During the investigation into Bolander, Howard, and Felton's shooting, which winds up involving multiple units, Pembleton tries to take over the entire investigation himself and insists on overseeing almost every detail because he can't deal with the fact that being primary in the case doesn't give him total control over it.
• It's Personal: He takes cases involving hate crimes and bigotry very personally. It's most notably demonstrated during the first crossover with Law & Order, where he attempts to ensure that Neo-Nazi Alexander Rausch is put on trial to prove that racism has no place in the modern world.
• I Work Alone: Pembleton starts off as the only detective without a partner, and he's extremely reluctant to partner with Bayliss. He gradually grows out of this in Season 5 once Bayliss breaks off their partnership.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Pembleton can be quite a jerk, but he frequently makes good points about the world around him that people can't argue with.
  • Pembleton's criticisms of Bayliss's biases are always dead-on, and he often points out how Bayliss is frequently downright insensitive to minorities and the LGBTQ community.
  • During an argument with Felton, Pembleton accurately points out he's prioritizing his personal hatred of Pembleton over the investigation they're conducting and bluntly tells him to shut up and do his job.
  • Deconstructed early in Season 1, where Bayliss frequently ignores Pembleton's genuinely helpful advice because Pembleton is such an asshole. He only starts listening to him after they come together as partners in "Three Men and Adena" and Frank acknowledges his approach isn't working and takes a more respectful one.
  • In "Requiem for Adena", Frank accurately points out that Bayliss's regret about not solving the Adena Watson case is influencing their current investigation of a similar murder. However, he's so rude about it and unsympathetic to Bayliss's emotional turmoil and bluntly accuses Bayliss of messing up the previous one that he alienates his partner.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Frank is self-righteous, egotistical, asocial, condescending, abrasive and generally not the nicest person. But he has frequent moments that show he's fundamentally a good person capable of kindness. Bayliss and his wife Mary tend to bring this out in him more than anyone.
• Jerkass Realization: Pembleton has trouble relating to people and enjoys riling his colleagues up, but he'll apologize if he realizes he's deeply hurt them. Unfortunately, it's generally difficult for him to tell, but he will swallow his pride and try to make it up to them if he realizes it.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Pembleton himself knows he's perpetually on the verge of doing this. His tendency to follow the law to the letter while using any loophole he can to get the job done makes him extremely susceptible to the possibility of becoming a Dirty Cop.
• Karma Houdini: When Annabella Wilgis presses charges against the police department because he tricked one of her alters into burning herself, the city settles out of court with her and Pembleton faces no real consequences over it. However, because of his pride, he's outraged that the city even settled at all, before eventually admitting to himself that he crossed the line.
• Kick the Dog: "Requiem for Adena" sees him at his worst. While he's correct Bayliss is emotionally compromised, he's quite cruel to him and shows No Sympathy to the fact that Bayliss is clearly struggling and even bluntly tells Tim he screwed up the last investigation, ignoring that it was his first case.
• Kick the Morality Pet: Pembleton is usually quite kind to Mary, making it startling when he screams at her following his stroke. He's horrified afterwards, and it's a sign of how much his stroke has traumatized him.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Pembleton is deeply pessimistic and, after crossing the Despair Event Horizon, genuinely believes everything he does for the sake of his job is pointless. He still puts his all into every case and genuinely tries to see justice down whenever he can, no matter the consequences.
• Knight Templar: At first, Pembleton is determined to see any criminals in his way be convicted and is perfectly willing to bend the law and disregard morality to see it through. He gradually grows out of it over the course of the series as he becomes more empathetic and kind, but Bayliss gradually develops into one himself.
• Lack of Empathy: Pembleton is frequently quite unempathetic and frowns on showing emotional vulnerability. Whenever his colleagues are struggling, Pembleton frequently ignores their turmoil or becomes angry at them if he feels they've interfered with his investigation.
• Large Ham: Frank can be very theatrical at times, especially when he's working his magic in the Box. He shouts, makes wild hand gestures, and generally acts as though a tornado were given human form and allowed to run wild through a police precinct. Andre Braugher gets a lot of chances to show off his Julliard training.
• Laser-Guided Karma: After he helps cover up Congressman Wade's false kidnapping charges, the cover-up is immediately uncovered by the media and becomes a major news story. Harris leaves Pembleton to take the fall, and he's suspended while Barnfather and Giardello berate him for his actions.
• Loss of Identity: Pembleton rests most of his self-esteem on his competence as a detective and his much-vaunted intelligence and wit. His stroke takes all of these away, and Pembleton is left struggling with a sense of identity. He tells Bayliss he refuses to change his personality afterwards because "who I am is all I have left."
• Love at First Sight: He claims in "Valentine's Day" that he knew Mary was the love of his life as soon as he saw her.
• Married to the Job: Pembleton is dedicated to his job and sees it as a higher calling, and by Season 5 it becomes clear he values it above his family. Mary leaves him midway through the season once she realizes Pembleton's work will always come first. After Frank leaves the department at the end of Season 6, their marriage improves considerably.
• Misery Builds Character: Frank's devastating stroke at the end of season 4 not only nearly kills him but shatters his confidence and it takes him a long time to regain it but it does make him kinder, more empathic and humble and generally easier to get along with, even able to admit when he's wrong.
• Must Have Caffeine: At one point, Pembleton admits to Howard that caffeine is pretty much the only thing that gets him through the day. In a dark twist, Pembleton equates it to the fact that he's edging closer and closer to the Despair Event Horizon each day.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Though he initially denies it, he eventually admits the reason he's so angry about Annabella Wilgis's lawsuit is because it reminds him of how he crossed the line during his interrogation of her.
  • In "Every Mother's Son", he's horrified at himself when he arrests a 14-year old kid for shooting another boy and the kid confesses almost immediately, sealing his fate. When the kid is convicted, Pembleton gives him advice on how to survive in prison.
• Never My Fault: Pembleton often refuses to accept blame whenever he screws up and virulently denies it. It takes a truly massive failure for him to actually admit he's at fault.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: His insistence on leading the QRT raid on Glenn Holton's hideout and refusal to listen to Jasper's advice in "The City That Bleeds" leads to Holton realizing that the cops are closing in on him and escaping.
• Nightmare Sequence: While he's left catatonic following his stroke, Pembleton suffers numerous nightmares of himself being dead, culminating in one where he dreams he's Buried Alive, hinting he's still conscious and unable to communicate.
• No Medication for Me: He stops taking his medication following his stroke because he feels it dulls his mind, and he wants to be able to fully concentrate on acing his firearms exam so he can go back to his old job.
• No Sense of Personal Space: He frequently gets very up close with suspects during interrogations, in an almost seductive manner, as a means to make himself look like he's their friend.
• Non-Action Guy: Pembleton is pretty much useless in situations where he's actively needed to draw his gun. It eventually leads to Bayliss getting shot.
• Not So Similar: In Season 5, Kellerman remarks that they're both in the same boat seeing as they're benched from active duty (Pembleton due to his stroke and Kellerman due to a corruption prone). Pembleton snidely remarks that they aren't similar at all, because he wasn't accused of a crime. In a rarity for Pembleton, he apologizes to Kellerman in his own way and lets him know he believes he's innocent.
• No Social Skills: Downplayed as Frank does have social skills and can even be quite charismatic when he wants to be but he is also extremely egotistical, anti-social and volatile and is quick to resort to anger or insults the second he isn't in charge or feels disrespected or you just catch him on a bad day. The end result is that everyone agrees he's a great detective but almost no one actually likes him and he has no chance of ascending beyond his current role.
• No Sympathy: He can certainly empathize with the people around him, but Pembleton rarely has any sympathy to spare for people. He's quite judgmental of the people around him for their failings regardless of the factors behind it, and tends to be the first one to say Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse. He's typically apathetic to his colleagues when they undergo emotional turmoil, and whenever Bayliss is clearly struggling Pembleton rarely cuts him any slack and often is quite cruel to him. It takes his stroke and recovery for him to start to ease up on this behavior.
• Not So Above It All:
  • After getting his reasonable suggestions about handling the Catherine Goodrich case are all rudely shot down by Gaffney, Pembleton gets his revenge by lowering Gaffney's seat so that he slams into the desk when he sits back down.
  • When Gaffney calls him "boy", Pembleton immediately challenges him to a fight and starts throttling him when Gaffney stupidly accepts. Gaffney's only saved from getting the shit kicked out of him when Russert intervenes and starts guilt tripping them both.
  • For all of Frank's rhetoric that "every life has value" and lecturing other detectives when they act otherwise, he's noticeably unbothered by Gordon Pratt's murder and doesn't offer Tim any assistance or encouragement, repeating the usual claim about unlikable victims that "whoever did it saved the taxpayers money", due to both his racism and Frank's bitterness at not being able to get him to confess. He even offers up a defense of police going abov the law in such a way when Tim asks how it's any different from criminals, saying "we're the good guys".
  • After being informed he passed his firearms test, meaning he can go back on active duty, the ever-dour Pembleton cheerfully screams "Woo-hoo!"
• Oh, Crap!: When Victor Helms breaks into his house and turns on all the gas heaters while Mary is still inside, Pembleton visibly panics and rushes back home.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Pembleton is never sociable on the best days, but it's clear how hard he's taking failing to get Gordon Pratt to confess to shooting Bolander, Felton, and Howard when he throws Munch across the room for calling him out on it.
  • Pembleton is usually unflappable, so it's horrifying to see him sobbing in fear when Victor holds a knife to his throat.
• Panicky Expectant Father: Pembleton is already easily agitated, but when Mary becomes pregnant in Season 4 he becomes extremely stressed about having a baby and the changes he'll have to make to his life. He becomes much more abrasive than usual, and the built-up stress eventually results in him having a stroke.
• Parents as People: He's a loving father, but he's initially terrified of having a baby and resentful of the changes in his life he'll have to make. He mostly puts this baggage behind him once Mary gives birth to Olivia, and proves quite doting to her.
• Personal Horror: He prides himself on his independence, intelligence, and eloquence, meaning his stroke is a tailor-made hell for him. Pembleton finds he struggles with retaining his short-term memory, he needs to depend on other people in order to function, and he can't properly communicate thanks to his aphasia and Speech Impediment. Since his sense of self is deeply tied to his ability to do his job, this only makes Pembleton feel more helpless.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: He makes a homophobic quip in "Hate Crime", though he's otherwise fairly progressive in his attitudes.
• Pop-Cultured Badass: He's a fan of Jim Thompson novels and occasionally references pop culture, and he's one of the most competent detectives in the unit.
• Pragmatic Hero: Pembleton won't outright break the law, but he'll do anything he can to solve a case no matter how ruthless. He's fine with alienating or hurting his colleagues emotionally, and viciously harassing innocent people if it means he'll be able to close the case.
• Rage Against the Heavens: As he slowly starts to lose his faith in God over the course of the investigation into the white glove murders, Pembleton starts raging against God for creating a world where senseless, brutal violence and death happens every day.
  Pembleton: Damn Him!
  Bayliss: The killer?
  Pembleton: God.
  Bayliss: Frank, I don't think you can ask God to damn Himself. And if you do, don't stand next to me because I don't want to get hit by lightning. This is a new suit.
• Raised Catholic: He was taught by the Jesuits and is still a fairly devout Catholic as an adult, even becoming a Jesuit teacher himself after leaving the police.
• Real Men Love Jesus: He tries to but the difficult nature of his work makes maintaining his faith even harder.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: After he returns to work from his stroke, Barnfather and Gaffney decide to send him to Evidence Control out of the belief he's no longer competent enough to do his job and the fear he could have another stroke. Fortunately, Gee talks them out of it.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: He gives one to Bayliss in "A Many Splendored Thing", calling him out for his self-righteousness and putting on a doe-eyed persona since it actively interferes with investigations and only holds him back as a detective.
• Rude Hero, Nice Sidekick: Pembleton is an abrasive Insufferable Genius with a Hair-Trigger Temper, while Bayliss is an affable and empathetic Nice Guy.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Pembleton follows the law to the letter and refuses to compromise his morals, meaning he'll clash with his superiors, colleagues, or anyone else when they break the law. The one time he averts this by helping Harris cover up a Congressman's crime, it costs him dearly.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: He's the Manly Man to Bayliss's Sensitive Guy. Pembleton is aggressive and blunt, where Bayliss is soft-spoken and gentle. Ironically, Bayliss has the more traditionally masculine interests, while Pembleton is a fan of literature and art.
• Skewed Priorities: In "A Doll's Eyes", he continues to demand that Bayliss pay him back six dollars even when Bayliss is pouring his heart out to Pembleton about how much this case is affecting him.
• Slobs vs. Snobs: Pembleton's rivalry with Felton stems from this. Pembleton implicitly comes from a middle to upper-middle class background, while Felton grew up in a rough blue-collar neighborhood, and the two of them are at constant odds. Pembleton despises Felton's crudeness and mild racism, while Felton hates Pembleton's snobby and judgmental personality. The two are eventually able to settle their differences in Season 3 after working in a particularly horrific case together.
• Smoking Is Not Cool: While most of the detectives stopped smoking as it became societally unacceptable, Pembleton remained a smoker as it had been established prior he was quite ardent about not quitting. However, he's frequently chided about his bad habit and he's eventually forced to quit after his stroke.
• Socially Awkward Hero: Pembleton is fairly asocial, has trouble trusting people, and often antagonizes people for laughs. All of this makes him very effective at interrogations, but not so much at socializing with his colleagues.
• Sophisticated as Hell: 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 Sympathetic Murderer heading to prison "keep your ass to the wall."
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Beneath Pembleton's arrogance and abrasiveness, he's constantly struggling to keep his faith in a Crapsack World. It gets worse after his stroke, as Pembleton holds on to his abrasive personality to cover for the fact his stroke has destroyed his sense of self.
• Speech Impediment: After suffering a stroke, Pembleton develops a stutter and frequently slurs his words. It only adds to the humiliation he feels, as the eloquent Pembleton can no longer speak his mind.
• The Spock: Pembleton tries to use logical and practical thought processes for his investigation while pushing his personal feelings aside. He doesn't always succeed at it, but for the most part he's better at emotionally disconnecting himself from his cases than the other detectives.
• Surrounded by Idiots: Pembleton views everyone around him as amateurs, with very few exceptions. A lot of this has to do with him being a judgmental snob, but he's competent enough that he can get away with it most of the time although he needs to be occasionally reminded that everyone else in the unit is there because of their skill same as he is.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
  • Whenever he partners with Felton, the two are just barely able to contain their loathing for the other man and constantly snipe at each other. In "The Last of the Watermen", Pembleton and Felton manage to come to an understanding and even bond to an extent.
  • When he partners with Lewis in "Law and Disorder", the two prove to be constantly at each other's throats because Lewis doesn't gel with Pembleton's analytical approach to his cases and because he feels that Pembleton is a Boomerang Bigot, as he had agreed with a racist white woman's assessment that a shooter had come from the projects because it was more likely statistically.
• That Man Is Dead: Implied. In "White Lies", Pembleton admits to Bayliss that following his stroke, he wishes his old life didn't hang over him because he fondly remembers being The Ace and has now been relegated to a desk job.
• Token Religious Teammate: Most of the main characters aren't particularly religious or don't have their faith focused on, but Pembleton's Catholicism is a very prominent character trait. A major part of his character arc is his struggle to hold onto his faith while doing a job that requires seeing the worst of humanity day after day.
• Took a Level in Cynic:
  • After crossing the Despair Event Horizon, Pembleton becomes convinced that everything he does on the job is entirely pointless, since he's never able to actually prevent any of the death he sees, only play clean-up after the fact. He still does his damnedest to see justice done whenever he can, and always tries to do the right thing.
  • He's initially quite blind to the underhanded tactics and politics involved in rising to the top of the department. After the Congressman Wade scandal, he realizes exactly what being promoted would cost him and decides to give up his plans of advancement so he won't become a self-serving politician like Harris or Barnfather.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Pembleton becomes even more hostile than usual in Season 4 due to the stress of his wife getting pregnant, and his own fears about raising a child, to the point that even Bayliss struggles to be around him. He also becomes increasingly abrasive and selfish following his stroke due to the trauma and the humiliation of his newfound symptoms.
• Took a Level in Kindness:
  • He mellows out slightly at the end of Season 1. While he's still a Jerkass, he makes an effort to be more sociable and isn't as confrontational and mean-spirited as he was at the beginning of the series.
  • He does this again after Season 5 when the combination of the devastating effects of his stroke and Bayliss ending their partnership after revealing he was sexually abused as a child cause Frank to be a lot more humble, empathic and generally easy to get along with, even respecting and appreciating Tim more as a partner and as a friend.
• Tranquil Fury: When Risley Tucker accuses him of being a Category Traitor, Pembleton goes into a seething fury but keeps his cool so that he won't make the interrogation inadmissible as evidence, settling for giving Tucker a Death Glare. It's otherwise averted, as whenever Pembleton gets angry, he makes damn sure you know he's angry and why.
• Troll: Pembleton is very fond of antagonizing his colleagues for a laugh, and frequently provokes them into an argument by taking something their words and twisting it into something heinous, stupid, or both.
• Turn in Your Badge: After being suspended for covering up the Congressman Wade scandal, Pembleton throws his badge on Giardello's desk and quits the force. No one takes him seriously, and though he does plan on burning his bridges with the BPD by revealing Harris's involvement, he ultimately decides to publicly take the blame so he'll be able to keep his job.
• The Unfettered: Played with. Pembleton has lines he won't cross and always works within the letters of the law, but he's constantly using loopholes to give himself a lot more leeway to solve his cases, especially when he's in the Box. Pembleton acknowledges that he's essentially playing a balancing act to prevent himself from going too far, and he's horrified whenever he does.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Due to his ego, Frank has a serious issue expressing gratitude for others or acknowledging anything good they've done. Tim gets this worst of all as Frank constantly belittles and talks down to him, no matter what Tim does to earn his approval or help him when he's in trouble. He eases up a bit on this after his stroke, especially towards Tim.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: During his marriage counseling session in "Valentine's Day", Mary implies that Pembleton used to be an idealist who believed in things other than himself, before becoming the generally self-centered and self-absorbed Insufferable Genius he is in the series proper.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Bayliss. Pembleton and Bayliss disagree with each other's personal philosophies, but Bayliss thinks the world of Frank and is deeply loyal to him. Pembleton is genuinely appreciative of this and views Bayliss as one of his few friends and an equal, though he rarely expresses this.
• Virtue Is Weakness: Pembleton views needing emotional support as a weakness, making him often unsympathetic to his colleagues when they're struggling. Bayliss gets the worst of it, with Pembleton rarely showing him compassion and generally bullying him when he shows vulnerability. After suffering a stroke, Frank lashes out at any efforts his loved ones make to support him because he can't bear being vulnerable himself.
• What You Are in the Dark: Barnfather and Granger secretly offer him a promotion to shift commander, at the cost of replacing Giardello. Pembleton is tempted, but he ultimately chooses not to accept it and confesses to Giardello. However, Giardello already knew, and and is disappointed it took him this long to confess.
• White Bread and Black Brotha: Inverted. The black Pembleton is a cultured, elitist snob, where the white Bayliss is comparatively more laid-back and jokey and far more reckless.
• With Friends Like These...: His relationship with Bayliss in a nutshell. Bayliss is his Only Friend, which Pembleton rewards by constantly belittling and criticizing him whenever Bayliss does something that Pembleton doesn't like, no matter how small the issue actually is.
  Bayliss: You're my best friend.
  Pembleton: What am I supposed to say now, that you're my best friend? I don't have best friends.

Tim Bayliss

Detective Tim Bayliss

"Let me say, sir, this is where I've always wanted to be."

Portrayed by: Kyle Secor

A rookie cop assigned to Homicide at the start of the series. Bayliss is reserved and moral, but often naive to the gritty realities of police work, though he's far more able to see shades of gray than his partner Pembleton. He has a tendency to become emotionally invested in his cases, much to his own detriment, and he has deep-seated emotional problems that result in outbursts of violence.

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• Abusive Parents: Bayliss is not on good terms with his father, and bluntly tells Pembleton that the man had only ever really saw Bayliss as an inconvenience. The man was physically and emotionally abusive, and his immediate reaction to Bayliss telling him his uncle had been molesting him was to accuse him of lying.
• All Are Equal in Death: He eventually adopts this philosophy from Pembleton after his stroke. While he frequently lets his emotions affect the case, Bayliss still tries to find justice even for victims he finds repulsive.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Bayliss' real-life counterpart, Tom Pellegrini, had been working Homicide for two years and developed a knack for it when he got the LaTonya Wallace case, meaning he was more confident, skilled at his work and able to lead, even if the case ended up unsolved. Here, poor Tim gets stuck as primary on Adena Watson on his first day and is hopelessly out of his depth and is afforded no sympathy or leeway by other detectives who all found their feet with low-level cases where they could make mistakes and learn without being under harsh scrutiny.
• Armored Closet Gay: Bayliss expresses homophobic attitudes and is a Heteronormative Crusader in the early seasons, though he grows out of these attitudes over time. He eventually comes out as bisexual and starts dating men.
• Ascended Fanboy: Bayliss's entire career was him trying to work his way into Homicide, and he admiringly describes them as "thinking cops" on his first day on the job. He learns the hard way how wrong his romanticized vision of the job really is.
• Audience Surrogate: As the resident rookie, Bayliss is still learning the ropes of Homicide, and thus often needs things explained to him (and the audience). He's also not desensitized to violence like everyone else, and thus often has the most raw reactions to the crimes he sees.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: In "Control", while watching a recording of Clifton being informed his family is dead, Bayliss notices Clifton's knees buckle right before he's told they're dead, meaning he had to have already known what the reporter was going to say.
• The Bartender: He works as one at the Waterfront on the side alongside Munch and Lewis, albeit much less than them.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: In one episode, Bayliss admits to Pembleton he wishes his partner would be more polite.
  Bayliss: You never say please, you never say thank you.
  Pembleton: Please don't be an idiot. Thank you.
• Berserk Button:
  • Due to his own abusive childhood, Bayliss takes cases where children are harmed extremely personally and he has been known to assault suspects if there's even a modicum of evidence that they have done so.
  • If you get the office lunch, don't ever forget to pick up his grilled cheese. Pembleton learns this the hard way when he forgets, and Bayliss proceeds to start pranking him as revenge.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Bayliss is shy and unassuming, but he frequently shows off a nasty temper and a self-righteous streak that frequently pushes him into Rabid Cop territory, and he even assaults suspects when a case hits too close to home with him. It culminates in him killing Luke Ryland after realizing he would continue his killing spree in a new city.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Bayliss is genuinely soft-spoken and compassionate and a sincerely nice person, but it hides a nasty mean streak. It's repeatedly pointed out by characters that he has a hidden dark side he refuses to acknowledge, which leads to it coming to the surface in various explosions of violent rage.
• Break the Cutie: When Bayliss first walks into Homicide, he's a Wide-Eyed Idealist Ascended Fanboy eager to do his job. Then he gets saddled with the Adena Watson case, which emotionally destroys him by dredging up memories of his own abuse, and he's left reeling when he can't solve the case.
• Broken Ace: He's a good detective with it being implied in Season Five that he might even be better than Frank and he's otherwise charming, handsome and runs a successful business on the side. Beneath it all though, he's got serious anger problems stemming from his abusive childhood and tries too hard to cover it up by seeming idealistic and naive.
• But Not Too Bi: 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 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 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.
• Butt-Monkey: The second Bayliss walks into the squad room, he's treated like shit by everyone with the arguable exception of Giardello. He's mostly accepted into the unit by Season 3, but he's still prone to being mocked by everyone else.
• The Casanova: In Season 3, Bayliss becomes increasingly promiscuous and makes a habit of asking out any woman he sees. He has a somewhat mixed success rate, but he does get into a lot of relationships over the course of the series even if many of them don't last.
• Character Development: In the early seasons, Bayliss was quite judgmental of people with different lifestyles and occasionally outright bigoted, but Pembleton's influence encourages him to start growing out of it. Compare his utter disgust with the harmless local BDSM community in "A Many Splendored Thing" to his complete sympathy for Elijah Sanborn in "Prison Riot".
• Chick Magnet: Women coming onto him during investigations is a very frequent occurrence, especially in the early seasons. Bayliss, being The Casanova, enjoys all of it.
• Coming-Out Story: In Season 6, he comes to realize his attraction to men, although not exclusive to men.
• Condescending Compassion: After Pembleton comes back to work following his stroke, he grows angry with Bayliss's attempts to support him. Pembleton feels that Bayliss's coddling is humiliating and a result of no longer believing Pembleton is competent enough to do his job.
• Cosmic Plaything: Life seems to enjoy piling misery on poor Bayliss.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Bayliss deconstructs the Wide-Eyed Idealist. After playing the archetype to hilt for most of the first two seasons, Pembleton calls him out on it and points out that much of this is an act Bayliss puts up to hide from his own inner darkness, and that his doe-eyed routine is obnoxiously self-righteous.
• Decoy Protagonist: He initially seems to be the White Male Lead of the show, but it quickly becomes clear that the show is an Ensemble Cast and that Pembleton is the closest thing to the main protagonist.
• Defective Detective: He has deep-seated emotional problems and identity issues, and is dogged throughout the series by the Adena Watson case.
• Determinator: Deconstructed. Bayliss is determined to solve the Adena Watson case, but he obsessively dedicates himself to it long after it's apparent that it's too late for him to ever really solve it, and his crusade proves detrimental to his mental health.
• Disappointed by the Motive: In "Zen and the Art of Murder", he's incredulous to discover that the reason a Buddhist monk he deeply respected was murdered was because he gave a homeless man a spoon at the soup kitchen, because the guy thought it was disrespectful for whatever reason.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: He reaches his Rage Breaking Point with Pembleton not out of any of his partner's verbal abuse, but because Pembleton tried to comfort him after Bayliss revealed he was molested as a child.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Bayliss quickly gets angry that nobody in the murder squad has any respect for him at all, to the point he doesn't even have a desk for the first two episodes. Giardello bluntly tells him that he has to earn the other detectives' respect, though he concedes that the Adena Watson case is asking a lot of him.
• Everyone Has Standards: Bayliss may be a Heteronormative Crusader, but he's downright pissed when a murderer tries to victim-blame the woman he killed for being into BDSM. Bayliss screams at him to take responsibility for his own actions and nearly throttles him before Pembleton pulls him off.
• Experienced Protagonist: Subverted. He spent years on the SWAT team and the mayor's security detail, but Howard and Felton quickly pinpoint that he actually has very little field experience.
• Extreme Doormat: Bayliss is extraordinarily tolerant of people even when they're being quite cruel to him. He accepts all of Pembleton's verbal abuse with little complaint, and frequently accepts being insulted or his colleagues behaving poorly. It's another way he's suppressing his darker side.
• Foil: To Pembleton. On the surface, the two are as different as night and day, but it becomes gradually clear they have a lot of the same flaws and strengths. They're both self-righteous and arrogant, but while Pembleton is very vocal about his ego, Bayliss's egotism is tempered by insecurity and is mostly showcased through a doe-eyed act. However, while Pembleton's moralizing stems from a black-and-white view of the world, Bayliss is much more adept at seeing shades of gray. They're both idealistic about their jobs, but while Pembleton is an otherwise pragmatic man who's naive about what it takes to rise through the ranks and is able to keep his emotions mostly separate from his work, Bayliss is naive to an almost crippling degree and lets his emotions and personal sentiments rule him and interfere with his job.
• Freudian Excuse: Bayliss's nasty temper and Rabid Cop tendencies stem from his traumatic childhood, where he was repeatedly raped by his uncle and emotionally abused by his father who Tim told about the abuse but did nothing.
• Friend to All Children: Bayliss has a soft spot for kids, sharing a sweet moment with the children of a murder victim in "Bop Gun". The flip side is that he often becomes enraged at any case where kids are victims.
• Genre Savvy: A very dark example. Bayliss is well-aware of how much cases involving children being harmed affect him, and he tries to pass off a case involving a young boy being left brain dead to Violent Crimes in "A Doll's Eyes" because he knows it will emotionally destroy him. He fails, and turns out to have been absolutely right.
• Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing: Bayliss is generally much more upbeat and amicable than the perpetually grouchy Pembleton.
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: Pembleton repeatedly points out that Bayliss is unable to understand why the murderers he confronts during his job do what they do, and notes that Bayliss's inability to do so stems from his own inability to confront his own dark side.
• Good Cop/Bad Cop: He's generally the Good Cop to Pembleton's Bad Cop. Bayliss is kind and empathetic, making an effort to comfort the victims and get the culprit to trust him. Pembleton by contrast is brash and confrontational with everyone, especially the people he interrogates.
• Grew a Spine: In Season 5, after Bayliss realizes he's competent without Pembleton's help and gets increasingly fed up with his verbal abuse, Bayliss cuts ties with him and maintains a friendly but aloof distance from him.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Bayliss is prone to destructive acts of rage when he's feeling emotional, and it's fairly easy to make him lose his temper. It's not unknown for him to flat-out throttle suspects if they piss him off, and he's prone to outbursts of violence even outside the job.
• Hates Rich People: Bayliss is surprisingly hostile to the prep school in "The True Test", given that he has always been one of the more stereotypically middle-class of the regulars. He explains to Frank that this is because the school rejected Jim's application, he believes because his cousin's family were the wrong kind of rich, and that the disappointment and humiliation had a permanent negative effect on his personality.
• Heteronormative Crusader: Played With. Bayliss is fairly homophobic and finds homosexuality off-putting, but he's horrified when he investigates a Homophobic Hate Crime and is self-aware enough to hate the fact that he's so hung up about it. It's played straighter when it comes to the BDSM community, which he has a virulent hatred for that drives him to assault a witness at one point. He gradually grows out of this and becomes more tolerant, eventually coming out as bisexual.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Frank, who even says that Tim is the only person he trusts other than his wife.
• Holier Than Thou: He frequently lapses into self-righteousness, which gets so bad to the point that even Pembleton calls him out on it. He gets better about it after the second season, and becomes much more open-minded.
• Honor Thy Abuser: He discusses this trope in "Prison Riot". Bayliss's father was abusive and Tim basically cut off all contact with him in adulthood, but he reflects he still wishes he was able to settle his problems with him before he died and reach an understanding with the man.
• Honor Thy Parent: In "Prison Riot", he encourages Elijah Sanborn's daughter to reconcile with her father because he knows from losing his own father she'll regret not spending more time with him after he died. Bayliss acknowledges privately that Elijah is, for all his faults, a better father than his, resulting in him taking sympathy for the man.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Bayliss has a very idealized view of Pembleton and tends to overlook his flaws at times. While he's well aware Frank can be a Jerkass, Bayliss frequently makes excuses for him and ignores his worst behavior. One episode also has him idealize a doctor who turns out to be a murderer.
• Hot-Blooded: His passionate reactions, especially when children are harmed ^note  due in no small part to his Rape as Backstory mentioned below, sometimes hurts his cases.
• Hourglass Plot: Bayliss starts off as a polite Wide-Eyed Idealist shocked at Pembleton's moral absolutism and willingness to bend the law. By the end of the series, Pembleton has become much more empathetic and quits the police out of disgust, while Bayliss snaps and extrajudicially executes a murderer who had gotten off.
• Hypocrite: He joins Homicide because he admires them for being "thinking cops" who primarily use their brain. However, it quickly becomes clear that Bayliss is ruled almost entirely by his emotions.
• Idealist vs. Pragmatist: The Idealist to Pembleton's Pragmatist. Bayliss is a naive, sensitive man who has trouble understanding the senseless violence he sees over the course of his job and tends to take his cases deeply personally to an unhealthy degree. It's played with, as Bayliss is actually fairly good about understanding the shades of gray that he frequently has to deal with in the line of duty, unlike Pembleton who, while more understanding of what he sees, has a rigid view of killers and victims and doesn't take well to shades of grey.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: He's prone to self-righteousness, but it's a cover for his insecurities and self-loathing.
• Innocent Bigot: Bayliss's biases frequently affect his investigating. Both Lewis and Pembleton both call him out on automatically assuming that poor, black suspects are guilty, and he demonstrates a lot of prejudice towards non-heteronormative communities that he isn't even fully aware of. Pembleton takes great delight in calling him out on it constantly, and Bayliss for his part tries to expand his world-view as a result.
• It's Personal: He takes cases involving children being harmed very personally, due to his uncle sexually abusing him when he was five.
• Jerkass Ball: He's much crueler than usual in "White Lies". He teases an obviously stressed Kellerman about his corruption charges, and later mocks Pembleton - who is still recovering from his stroke - about his inability to go back in the Box when Pembleton bruises his ego by rightfully calling out one of Bayliss's mistakes.
• Jerkass to One: He's usually soft-spoken and polite, but he has a particular enmity for Kellerman for no real reason. He takes the most pleasure in teasing him, even mocking him at one point when he's charged with corruption.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: In the first two seasons. He's obnoxiously self-righteous, whiny, and racist, but he's a genuinely well-meaning and moral man who tries his best to do the right thing. Much of this is a result of being the unit's resident Butt-Monkey on account of being the new guy and the stress of having such a major and grissly crime as his first case; once he settles into the unit and is mostly accepted by his peers, he mellows out immensely.
• Jumped at the Call: Bayliss is very excited to be a homicide detective at the beginning of the series. He's very swiftly disillusioned about the nature of the job.
• Karma Houdini: He generally gets away with his violent outbursts on account of being a cop, outside of occasionally being humiliated by it.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Not at first, but he becomes this after he Took a Level in Cynic. He's well-aware being a homicide detective is a miserable job and is aware of his limitations, but accepts it and goes on doing his job.
• Knight Templar: He gradually develops into one over the course of the series, becoming increasingly harsh in how he wants justice delivered. It culminates in him murdering Luke Ryland to prevent him from escaping justice.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: After getting everyone angry at him when he, in a stroke of bad luck, winds up being the primary on Pratt's murder, Bayliss realizes Munch's alibi is false. However, he chooses not to press it and convinces Gee that the case is unsolvable.
• Love at First Sight: He falls in love with Emma Zoole shortly after meeting her, although the relationship quickly gets torpedoed by Bayliss's actions.
• My God, What Have I Done?: He's horrified when he nearly shoots a young boy during a raid in "Every Mother's Son".
• My Greatest Failure: His failure to solve the Adena Watson case haunts him throughout the series.
• Naïve Newcomer: Despite already being an experienced investigator and a former SWAT team member, Bayliss is almost cripplingly naive and unprepared for the realities of being a homicide detective. Pembleton eventually calls him out on it, and points out that his supposed naïveté stems more from Bayliss's self-righteousness and arrogance than anything else. He caps it off by bluntly telling him that the doe-eyed routine only hinders his effectiveness as a detective.
• Nice Guy: He develops into this in Season 3. He's a good-natured and moral man who goes out of his way to be a good friend to Pembleton and frequently tries to correct his own biases and bigoted views when he becomes aware of them.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In "White Lies", he screws up an interrogation and causes a clearly guilty suspect to avoid confessing and escape justice.
• No-Respect Guy: At first, none of his colleagues respect him for his lack of experience and status as the new guy, and he's subject to a lot of mockery and insults. After two seasons, he manages to gel into the unit and this mostly fades away, especially since Brodie takes his place as the new rookie.
• Noble Bigot with a Badge: While he demonstrates a lot of Innocent Bigot tendencies, Bayliss is otherwise a polite, compassionate man who genuinely strives to get justice for thr crimes he investigates and does his best to comfort victims' families.
• Not So Above It All: For the first two seasons, he frequently positions himself as inherently more moral than his colleagues, but after he mellows out after Pembleton calls him out on it, he starts getting actively involved in the squad's shenanigans. Memorable instances of this include trying to hustle everyone with a game of Hearts and buying the Waterfront with Munch and Lewis.
• The One with a Personal Life: Most of the detectives are shown to have absolute wrecks of personal lives and don't have anyone in their lives with the exception of their (often estranged) immediate family and in some cases not even that. The only exception is Bayliss, who has a fairly stable personal life and frequently mentions hanging out with friends in his off-time. Of course, he has deep-seated emotional problems and violent outbursts to make up for it.
• Only Friend: To Pembleton, who admits that Bayliss is one of the very few people he trusts and views as a friend.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: He's a brilliant detective in his own right, but he's overshadowed by his more flashy partner Pembleton. When he breaks off their partnership in Season 5, Pembleton quickly finds he's not as good as he thought without Bayliss while Bayliss flourishes on his own.
• Police Brutality: He nearly shoves Risley Tucker's face into a hot pipe in "Three Men and Adena". He's also known to occasionally throttle suspects who make him angry.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: He frequently shows signs of subtle racism, and Pembleton and Lewis both call him out repeatedly for assuming that poor black suspects are automatically guilty. He's also fairly homophobic and finds non-heteronormative communities off-putting.
• Psychological Projection: He assumes in "The True Test" that McPhee Broadman sexually abused his victims with no evidence. It's implied to be because Bayliss projects his uncle onto all the criminals who trigger his Trauma Button.
• Rabid Cop: Over the course of the Adena Watson case, Bayliss becomes increasingly convinced that Risley Tucker raped and killed the girl. When he and Pembleton finally interrogate him after getting solid evidence it could have been him, Bayliss is confrontational and repeatedly berates him over the murder, culminating in him nearly shoving Tucker's face into a hot pipe. It proves to be something of a recurring flaw with Bayliss; the more emotionally invested he is in a case, the more angry he gets, which occasionally leads to him outright attacking suspects if they piss him off enough.
• Rage Breaking Point:
  • After Emma Zoole breaks up with him, Bayliss snaps when a clerk refuses to let him buy a beer and some cookies because he's a few cents short of the bill and pulls a gun on him. Pembleton is just barely able to stop Bayliss from getting arrested for it by promising the clerk that Bayliss will work as the store's security guard for the next few weeks.
  • He gradually loses patience with Pembleton throughout Season 5 until "Betrayal", when he decides to stop being partners. Ironically, it results from Pembleton actually trying to be nice for a change and comfort Bayliss once he reveals he was molested as a child; Bayliss is enraged at being pitied and decides to cut ties with him.
• Rape as Backstory: Reveals in "Betrayal" that, starting when he was five, he was molested for several years by his uncle. To make matters worse, he told his father what was going on when he was eight, but his dad didn't believe him.
• Rude Hero, Nice Sidekick: He's much nicer than his partner Pembleton, but Frank is the one who generally takes the lead in their investigations.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Bayliss frequently tends to buck at his superiors and colleagues when he thinks they're being unreasonable, and is dedicated to seeing justice done. It's deconstructed to an extent, as he'll often make excuses for suspects he finds sympathetic and lets his biases impact the job. And in the end, he snaps and murders a serial killer once the man gets Off on a Technicality and Bayliss realizes he'll kill again.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: He's the Sensitive Guy to Pembleton's Manly Man. Bayliss is soft-spoken and polite, where Pembelton is rough and abrasive. Ironically, Bayliss has the more traditionally masculine interests of the duo, where Pembleton is a fan of art and literature.
• Servile Snarker: In the later seasons, the rare occasions when he loses patience and successfully strikes back at Frank's verbal abuse tend to have this kind of tone.
• Shrinking Violet: He's shy and reserved, which only helps make him more of a fish out of water at the squad room.
• Standard Cop Backstory: He was abused by his father and molested by his uncle, which deeply traumatized him.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Unlike Pembleton, Bayliss is frequently sympathetic to the murderers he encounters and takes their Freudian Excuse into account. Where Pembleton gives the extenuating circumstances that drove them to murder little regard, Bayliss is often empathetic and compassionate towards the more understandable murderers, albeit while never condoning what they did.
• Taking the Bullet: For Pembleton in the season six finale, leaving him comatose with serious injuries. The former's guilt and remorse about his fate drives him to quit the force shortly hereafter.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: At 6'5, he's the tallest character in the show and is boyishly handsome.
• Took a Level in Badass: Halfway through season five, he ended his partnership with Pembleton out of frustration of his partner's distant attitude and gained a new, confident and aloof personality that showed potential for growth. Unfortunately, it only lasted a couple of episodes.
• Took a Level in Cynic: Bayliss starts off as a Wide-Eyed Idealist, but becomes increasingly cynical as the nature of his job gradually breaks him down. By Season 4, he's become a Knight in Sour Armor.
• Took a Level in Kindness: For the first two seasons, Bayliss is almost unbearably self-righteous and whiny as a result of being the resident Butt-Monkey due to his status as the rookie. After he settles into the unit in Season 3, he mellows out and becomes much more pleasant to be around as a result.
• Trauma Button: Bayliss is generally soft-spoken and amiable, but children being murdered, abused, and/or sexually assaulted sends him into a rage. It's eventually revealed to be because it triggers Bayliss's trauma of having been molested by his uncle and abused by his father.
• Undying Loyalty: Bayliss is extremely loyal to Pembleton, and defends him at all times. Even when Pembleton treats him abysmally, Bayliss still loyally sticks by him.
• Unlucky Everydude: The number of cases that defeat him and/or get under his skin, plus numerous personal problems, obscure just how good an investigator he's capable of being.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: This doesn't even begin to describe his beyond rocky friendship with Pembleton. The two constantly argue and disagree on practically everything, but Bayliss is deeply loyal to Pembleton to an insane degree and thinks the world of him and Frank, for all his flaws, does view Bayliss as a friend and thinks as highly of him, even if he has trouble expressing it.
• White Bread and Black Brotha: Inverted. The white Bayliss is more jokey, laid-back, and reckless than the black, snobbish, and cultured Pembleton.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: He initially has a romanticized view of Homicide, viewing it as a haven for heroic and infallible "thinking cops", a belief which is quickly shattered. His idealism never entirely goes away even as he gets more cynical, and it actually allows him to see shades of gray much better than his more experienced and pragmatic partner Pembleton. It's also deconstructed, as Pembleton points out that a lot of Bayliss's supposed naïveté is actually just self-righteousness and a refusal to acknowledge his own dark side.
• Would Hurt a Child: He assaults the teenage McPhee Broadman while interrogating him out of anger at Broadman's Smug Snake personality and his lack of remorse for killing a younger boy, Bayliss's Trauma Button. It's otherwise averted, as Bayliss is a Friend to All Children.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: He is incredulous when he and Pembleton investigate the death of a police dog as if it as the murder of a fellow officer.
  Bayliss: Frank, we are Homicide! Homo as in Homo sapiens! We're not investigating the death of a goddamn dog!

John Munch

Detective John Munch

"He who lies to Munch gets his ass kicked."

Portrayed by: Richard Belzer

"I've been in murder police for ten years. If you're gonna lie to me, you lie to me with respect. Now, what is it? Is it my shoes? Is it my haircut? Got a problem with my haircut? Don't you ever again lie to me like I'm Montel Williams. I am not Montel Williams. I am not Montel Williams!"

A cynical, world-weary detective and a fervently left-wing conspiracy nut. Munch is plagued by relationship problems throughout the series, having had four divorces and even more bad break-ups. For tropes applying to him in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, go here.

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• Always Someone Better: Bolander frequently claims that his previous partner Mitch was better than Munch in every way imaginable, which pisses Munch off to no end.
• Amazon Chaser: After Dyer punches him in the face for sleeping with her roommate, Munch becomes even more enamored with her.
• Ambiguously Jewish: We never really get to know much about Munch's religious background until the season 5 episode "Kaddish".
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Played for Laughs. When he and Bolander find packages of marijuana left behind at a crime scene, Munch is able to identify the strains by sight alone. Bolander asks Munch how he knows so much about marijuana, at which point he awkwardly tries to dodge the question.
• Bad Liar: After he misses an alcohol awareness meeting because of a case, he arrives to another meeting claiming he missed the first one because an elephant stepped on his mother.
• The Bartender: He works as one at the Waterfront on the side alongside Lewis and Bayliss.
• Beneath the Mask: While he seems to take it in stride, it's implied that Munch takes being The Friend Nobody Likes pretty hard and he seems genuinely hurt about being the unit's resident Butt-Monkey. It's also implied that he took the influx of Karma Houdinis the detectives have to deal with in Season 3 personally in spite of his apparent detachment from the job, which implicitly partially motivated his shooting of Pratt.
• Berserk Button: The subject of Mitch will instantly get him pissed off.
• Beware the Silly Ones: He's a pretty eccentric guy, but it's strongly implied he murdered Gordon Pratt for shooting Bolander.
• Breakout Character: And how! The character of Munch would completely transcend this series when he became a regular on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as well as making appearances in several other popular TV shows. He is one of the longest-running characters in American television history with more than 20 seasons of screentime under his belt, and certainly the longest-running American detective.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: He's a talented detective but barely puts in an effort much of the time, clearly seeing most murder investigations as not worth his time or energy. He grows out of this as the series goes on.
• Brutal Honesty: Much is always happy to let everyone know what he's really thinking and exactly what he thinks about them.
• Bumbling Sidekick: Munch prefers to let Bolander do most of the legwork on their cases, and he has to be actively forced into putting beyond the bare minimum of effort into his job. He's also much less on the ball than Bolander in general, and he frequently proves to be incompetent whenever he's the primary. He grows out of this over time, and by Season 3 he's become a competent detective in his own right.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Subverted at first, as Munch's eccentricities do not mask any sort of hidden competence and he's actually fairly useless without Bolander's help. It's played straight in later seasons as he grows into a competent detective in his own right.
• Butt-Monkey: Munch is pretty frequently snubbed or insulted by his colleagues, particularly Bolander who will viciously berate Munch whenever he's in a bad mood. He's also subject to a lot of personal humiliations which are generally Played for Laughs. On a more dramatic note, he also gets a ton of cases that emotionally affect him and get under his skin; the only one who has it worse than him in this regard is Bayliss.
• Character Development: Due to Bolander's influence, Munch gradually grows to be more competent at his job. Compare his inability to get basic procedure right when setting up a crime scene in Season 1 to instantly figuring out a suicide by sight alone in Season 3.
• Conspiracy Theorist: He's got quite a few conspiracy theories, almost all of which are eloquently spoken and totally nonsensical.
• The Cynic: Used to be idealistic and naive as a teen in the early '60s. The adult Munch is quite the opposite.
• Deadpan Snarker: Very possibly the biggest one in the squadroom. Pretty much every time he speaks, he lets out a snide remark.
• Defective Detective: He's plagued by relationship problems, and he's a relentlessly cynical conspiracy theorist.
• Despair Event Horizon: He crosses it in "A Model Citizen" after his efforts to get a teenager to give up his gun after he accidentally shoots his brother with it and thus set him up on the straight and narrow are rebuked. Munch rants to Howard about how it's pointless to try and control the violence on Baltimore, and it's better off never to even make the attempt. Howard replies "You still have to try."
• The Dog Bites Back: After being deeply traumatized by Pratt shooting Bolander, Howard, and Felton in front of him, which leaves him with both survivor's guilt and PTSD, it's heavily implied that Munch murders Pratt so he won't go free.
• Do Wrong, Right: His Establishing Character Moment is to tell a suspect that if he's going to blatantly lie about his alibi, he better do so with respect.
• The Eeyore: Munch has a very cynical and depressing view on the world, and has almost entirely crossed the Despair Event Horizon. He's very prone to ranting about depressing topics and generally bringing everybody's mood down. In one memorable moment, he crashes on Bolander and Howard's double date to ramble about how meaningless love is.
• Establishing Character Moment: After a suspect gives him a blatantly false alibi, Munch launches into a rant about how he deserves to be lied to with respect.
  Detective John Munch: You're saving your really good lies for some smarter cop, is that it? I'm just a donut in the on-deck circle. Wait until the real guy gets here. Wait until that big guy comes back. I'm probably just his secretary. I'm just Montel Williams. You want to talk to Larry King.
  Bernard: I'm telling you the truth.
  Munch: I've been in murder police for ten years. If you're gonna lie to me, you lie to me with respect. Now, what is it? Is it my shoes? Is it my haircut? Got a problem with my haircut? Don't you ever again lie to me like I'm Montel Williams. I am not Montel Williams. I am not Montel Williams!
  Bernard: …Who's Montel Williams?
• Fat and Skinny: The Skinny to Bolander's Fat.
• Flanderization: Initially, Crosetti was the crazed conspiracy theorist of the group. While Munch would go off on tangents about his own nonsensical conspiracy theories, he was more prone to just rambling about relationship woes or just random nonsense. After Jon Polito was fired, Munch's conspiracy theories were turned into a central aspect of his character to fill the void Crosetti left behind.
• Freudian Excuse: A combination of an unhappy childhood and homelife, multiple failed marriages and years as a homicide detective have made Munch a very pesimisstic person.
• Friend to All Children: Munch has a very big soft spot for children and takes cases where they are harmed very seriously. This doesn't mean he's necessarily nice to them, however; he once drove a child to tears after berating him.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: None of the unit outright hates Munch, but they do find him annoying because of his relentless jabbering and often try to avoid him. It's also clear that nobody really respects him and people often try to avoid him. While he does bring a lot of this on himself, it's clear that he finds this deeply hurtful.
• Functional Addict: He's heavily implied to smoke weed and on occasions hinted to be doing harder drugs, but it never impacts his job. He does get plenty of teasing from his coworkers about it, though,
• The Gadfly: His relentless negative jabbering and neurotic tendencies constantly annoy his fellow coworkers.
• Gag Penis: At least according to the other detectives in "Law & Disorder". It does go a long way to explaining how he's snagged so many beautiful women.
• Green-Eyed Monster: He's jealous of Pembleton and how he's afforded special treatment despite being quite verbally abusive to his coworkers, which leads to him lashing out at Frank after his stroke. Munch eventually realizes he was being too hard on Pembleton and starts treating him nicer.
• The Grinch: Munch absolutely despises Christmas, as the expectation for everyone to be happy when the holiday comes around paradoxically makes him feel even more miserable. He similarly doesn't get why anyone believes in Christmas spirit, and finds it totally baffling.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: It takes very little to get Munch riled up. Relationship woes, conspiracy theories, Bolander's old partner Mitch, and anything that would mildly annoy him will often set Munch into a tirade.
• Heroic BSoD: After watching Bolander, Howard, and Felton get shot in front of him in "The City That Bleeds", Munch is overcome with survivor's guilt and spends the rest of the episode in shock and barely cognizant of what's going on around him. The following episode implies he's developed PTSD from the incident.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Munch is often shown to be desperate for companionship in any form and he's always somewhat hurt whenever his colleagues walk away whenever he starts jabbering on.
• I'm a Man; I Can't Help It: After sleeping with Dyer's roommate, he uses this as an accuse when talking about it with Howard, who is rightfully disgusted with him.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Munch thinks a lot of himself and little of everyone else and isn't afraid to let them know it but he regularly shows himself as a lot more insecure and sensitive than he appears and to be genuinely hurt by their dislike, even as he knows he brings a lot of it on himself.
• It's Personal: Munch is generally very desensitized to the things he sees on the job and is pretty detached most of the time, but he tends to take a personal interest in cases where children are involved. He does genuinely try to help them when he can, but he almost always fails to do so.
• Jabba Table Manners: In "The Documentary", one of the scenes in Brodie's titular documentary shows Munch dipping a popsicle into a cup of beer and sucking on it. Everyone is disgusted except for Munch, who isn't even embarrassed.
• Jade-Colored Glasses: His preferred way of seeing the world and he's happy to let everyone know it.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Munch is not an easy man to like. He's lazy, cynical, selfish, perverted, and not particularly good at his job, but he's loyal and a surprisingly good friend when the chips are down, not to mention his soft spot for children.
• Jerkass Realization: After bullying Pembleton in the aftermath of his stroke and even kicking Brodie out of his house for calling him out on it, Munch realizes what an ass he's been when Pembleton admits he can't remember his phone number as a result of the stroke. Afterwards, Munch becomes uncharacteristically protective of Pembleton and looks after him.
• Jewish Smartass: He's a non-practicing Jew and he's very snarky, probably the biggest Deadpan Snarker out of the whole unit.
• Karma Houdini: If going by the popular theory that he killed Gordon Pratt, the White Supremacist who also shot Howard, Felton and Bolander, then he has never been so much as questioned for the crime and went on to be a part of the Special Victims Unit and retire years later with his pension (and reputation) in tact.
• Kavorka Man: He's a sarcastic, cynical grump and not exactly anyone's idea of handsome but he's been married four times to attractive women and never shows any issue in attracting the attention of women.
• Kick the Dog:
  • After Pembleton's stroke, Munch takes the opportunity to mock him and rub his newfound disability in his face at all times. Munch eventually eases up once he realizes how much the stroke has impacted Pembleton.
    Munch: You still walk on water, don't you, Frank?
  • In "White Lies", Munch relentlessly hounds a man he believes killed his wife until he drives the man to become suicidal. He shows no remorse even when Cox reveals the man is innocent, only complaining about the time he's wasted.
• Lack of Empathy: He's one of the more callous members of the cast. He's often unsympathetic to victims and murderers unless the case strikes a cord with him, and he's extraordinarily cruel to Pembleton after his stroke out of spite.
• Lazy Bum: He's prone to letting Bolander carry the load during investigations and often tends to leave other cops to handle aspects of the investigation he should really take care of himself. He grows out of this as the series goes on and he gets more dedicated to the job.
• The Load: Munch rarely contributes to investigations, preferring to let Bolander do most of the legwork. He slowly comes into his own with Bolander's influence, and by Season 3 he's skilled enough to identify a suicide on sight.
• Loose Lips: He is incapable of keeping a confidence, which meshes badly with his fascination with his colleagues' private lives.
• The Masochism Tango: His relationship with his oft-mentioned but never seen girlfriend Felicia. From what Munch says, they alternate between lovey-dovey and at each other's throats in the drop of a hat. The two even get into a screaming match in the station at one point.
• Moment Killer: In "A Many Splendored Thing", he interrupts Bolander, Linda, Howard, and Danvers's double date and goes off on a drunken tirade about how love always fades, ruining the mood and causing Howard to run off.
• Motor Mouth: He's prone to going on long rants that barely let anyone get a word in edgewise. 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. It's a bit of a Kick the Dog moment, since Munch is hurt by the snub and comes across as kind of desperate for company.
• My God, What Have I Done?: After taking advantage of Pembleton's stroke to bully him as revenge for Frank's general abrasive behavior, Munch gets a reality check when Pembleton admits he can no longer remember his own phone number as a result of the stroke. Afterwards, he becomes much more supportive of Pembleton's recovery and even tells Gee not to be so hard on him.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • His drunken tirade about how love always fades in "A Many Splendored Thing" helps with the dissolution of Howard's relationship with Danvers. Danvers lampshades it.
    Danvers: Nice going, Munch.
  • In "White Lies", he nearly drives an innocent man to suicide out of belief he killed his wife.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: In "Black and Blue", Munch adopts a tropical fish he found at a crime scene and gifts it to his girlfriend Felicia, who owns a fish tank. Unfortunately, it turns out to be a Jack Dempsey fish, which devours all of Felicia's fish. She angrily breaks up with Munch and demands he repay her for the fish she lost.
• Nominal Hero: While Munch has several moments of genuine altruism, he's mostly concerned with solving murders because it's his job. He's mostly detached in his approach to the job and has the least concern for civilians out of the original cast after Felton.
• Noodle Incident: When Brodie decides to move out of Munch's house, John asks if something in his medicine cabinet scared him off. It's never stated what it was, though it's heavily implied to be weed.
• Only Sane Man: Or so he likes to believe himself to be.
• Open Secret: He tries to keep his history as a pothead under wraps, but everyone in the unit already knows.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Munch never contradicts Bolander and always values his observations. However, when Bolander correctly deduces that Crosetti committed suicide, Munch openly doubts him and tries to talk him out of pursuing that angle.
  • In "And All Through the House", Bolander leaves Munch to tell a young boy that his father is dead while Bolander leaves to talk to child welfare services. Munch dances around the topic and bonds with the boy before finally starting to tell him. Suddenly, Bolander bursts in with the boy's father; Munch, who ordinarily tolerates all of Bolander's insults and criticisms, is absolutely pissed he hadn't let him know ahead of time after he went through all that and berates Bolander for it. He calms down after Bolander points out there was no way he could have told him and that he should be happy the kid's dad is still alive.
• Pet the Dog: Munch can be very sweet when the mood strikes him such as whenever he's around kids.
• Punch-Clock Hero: Homicide is just a job to Munch, and it's one he gives a very detached approach. He's often the most apathetic of the detectives and mostly concerned with having an easy workload.
• Serial Spouse: He's been married four times.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: It's implied he has PTSD from Bolander, Felton, and Howard's shooting, and he experiences a flashback to it when he enters the hotel where it happened.
• Small Name, Big Ego: He acts like he's a major name in conspiracy circles and that the FBI must have a file on him so big that he'd need a truck to carry it. This leads to a hysterical scene when, at New York FBI headquarters, Munch learns his entire FBI file is a single sheet of paper that notes that the majority of the radical community consider him a total crank.
• The Stoner: He smoked marijuana frequently during his youth, and he's experienced with the drug enough that he's able to recognize different strains by sight. He tries to keep his history as a pothead under wraps, but it's an Open Secret throughout the squad room. It's implied in one episode he still smokes pot; when Brodie decides to stop being Munch's roommate, Munch replies "I told you not to look in the medicine cabinet!"
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: A rare example where a pre-existing character becomes a substitute for another character. After Jon Polito left the show, Munch (who was already a jabbering conspiracy theorist) took over Crosetti's role as the resident rambling conspiracy theorist comic relief.
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: Munch is played by the 6'1 Richard Belzer and has dark hair, and his snarkiness is unparalleled.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: After his Morality Chain Bolander leaves, Munch becomes increasingly unpleasant and callous, particularly in Season 5. He never quite stops being a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, but his Kick the Dog moments are much more frequent.
• Ungrateful Bastard: After Brodie proves crucial to solving a case Munch was investigating in "Valentine's Day" despite Munch treating him quite poorly, Munch smugly refuses to thank Brodie and insults him to his face.
• Vitriolic Best Buds:
  • With Bolander. Bolander relentlessly hazes Munch, but genuinely wants him to improve as a detective and mentors him in between his insults. In turn, Munch deeply respects Bolander and views him as a friend, but won't hesitate to insult him. However, he indicates at a few points that Bolander's abuse does secretly affect him.
  • It isn't as prominent, but Munch has a similar relationship with Brodie. Munch frequently insults Brodie, but there's genuine care there and Munch even lets Brodie sleep in his apartment after he's evicted.
• What the Hell, Hero?: After Pembleton fails to get Gordon Pratt to confess, an enraged Munch screams at him for getting too cocky in dismantling Pratt's intellectual facade and pushing him into calling a lawyer. It clearly strikes a cord with Pembleton, who shoves him across the room and screams at him for it; an angry Munch storms out of the precinct. It's implied he murders Pratt later than night.

Meldrick Lewis

Detective Meldrick Lewis

"You go when you're supposed to go, and everything else is Homicide!"

Portrayed by: Clark Johnson

"I've been a cop for a long time. And drugs out there, we're never gonna win that. There's a hundred open-air drug markets in this city and fifty thousand drug fiends out there. And we are taking on human desires with lawyers, and jailhouses, and lockups, and you and I both know human desire is kicking us in the ass."

A sardonic detective and the squad jokester. While Lewis is rather goofy, he's both a serious ladies man and the unit's Only Sane Man. Initially partnered with Crosetti, he becomes partners with Kellerman and later Stivers in the later seasons.

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• Arch-Enemy: He develops a deeply personal rivalry with Luther Mahoney, who goes out of his way to antagonize Lewis.
• Ascended Extra: He started out the series as being Out of Focus, simply serving as a Plucky Comic Relief and rarely getting the kind of emotional storylines the other members of the cast got. Following Season 3, he's given much more focus and character depth to the point of being one of the main protagonists.
• Awful Wedded Life: His marriage quickly develops problems and he and his wife begin constantly arguing. Lewis bemoans the fact his marriage is basically over long before they divorce.
• Badass Boast: He's generally laid-back, but when Luther and his gang enter the Waterfront, Lewis coldly threatens them with one of these.
  Lewis: I remember when I was first comin' up as a patrolman, and my sergeant says that sometimes you gotta clear the corner. No big thing, you just invite everybody to move on. For most people that's enough, you know, the police tell you to move along, that's what you're gonna do, you're gonna move along. Except every once in a while he told me there's gonna be some knucklehead fool, that's gonna want to stand there on your corner talking trash. And then he told me, he said don't you ever...ever...let no knucklehead stand there. Because the minute you do that, the minute you let somebody shame you, you're finished as a beat cop. And what he suggested that I do is that I take my nightstick and I pop him upside the head so hard, that everybody who hears it knows who had the last word... You're on my corner.
• The Bartender: He works as one on the side at the Waterfront alongside Munch and Bayliss.
• Berserk Button: 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.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Lewis is generally calm and easygoing, but when he's mad, look out.
  • He throttles Felton when he realizes he counseled a suspect in "See No Evil".
  • In "Dead End", when he realizes Russert is assisting in Granger and Barnfather's efforts to scapegoat Gee for Bolander, Felton, and Howard's shooting, he viciously chews her out for it.
  • In the second half of the sixth season, he shows outright scary ruthlessness and cunning when, while suspended from duty after punching Georgia Raye, he sows enough dissension in the Mahoney gang for many of them to kill each other in internal feuding, and gets most of the rest arrested by sending the Homicide Unit detailed anonymous letters explaining who killed whom and how to prove it.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Lewis is a laid-back jokester who rarely takes anything seriously, but he's a very good detective and shows downright scary ruthlessness at times.
• Big Brother Instinct: He tends to be very protective of Kellerman, especially during his corruption probe when Kellerman begins behaving increasingly erratically.
• Big Brother Mentor: Lewis serves as this to Kellerman. He's a brotherly figure to Kellerman, educating him about various facets of the job or life while still wisecracking with him and treating him as an equal.
• Break the Comedian: After Crosetti's suicide, Lewis is left utterly broken and unable to crack a joke. He spends the entire time in mourning and on the verge of a mental breakdown, before ultimately being left a weeping mess once he realizes his partner really did kill himself, and that Lewis never once noticed the signs Crosetti was depressed. He eventually recovers, but it still haunts him throughout the series.
• Breakout Character: Lewis started off as the most Out of Focus member of the main cast and simply served as comic relief. He wound up getting a lot of Character Focus in the second half of the series, getting just as much episodes centered around him as Bayliss and Pembleton.
• Broken Ace: On the surface, Lewis is one of the most successful and well-adjusted detectives. He has a good clearance rate, he's charismatic, and a serious ladies man. Beneath it is mounds of repressed trauma, and all Lewis wants is a serious relationship.
• Broken Hero: Lewis is a playful jokester who seems quite carefree, but he had a deeply troubled childhood. He grew up in a housing project with a poor family and an insane brother who constantly caused trouble, making their lives even harder. Lewis frequently becomes uncharacteristically sober when he discusses his past or investigates cases that remind him of it.
• Broken Pedestal: In "Scene of the Crime", Lewis looks up to the Black Muslims guarding a housing project, viewing them as doing a service to the poverty-stricken residents by keeping crime down. He even defends their leader to Kellerman even after he calls Lewis's partner racial slurs. Lewis's faith in them is broken when they warn the murderer they were pursuing to skip town to spite the police, and Lewis refuses to shake the leader's hand in the end.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: He's playful, laid-back, and never takes anything seriously, but he's a very competent detective.
• By-the-Book Cop: Despite his easygoing nature, Lewis is very by the book and always follows the letter of the law. He doesn't take it well when his colleagues engage in morally ambiguous behavior and is outraged when his friends break the law, even if he's willing to cover it up.
• The Cameo: He shows up in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit attending Munch's retirement party.
• The Casanova: Lewis is well-known for being a ladies man in the office and frequently engages in one-night stands, though he does genuinely want to have a serious relationship.
• The Conscience: He's this to Kellerman, frequently encouraging him to be more empathetic and gently chiding him when he becomes too callous.
• Consummate Professional: He's generally the most professional of the detectives and the least likely to violate procedure. It's a sign of how deeply his run-ins with Luther Mahoney have affected him that he becomes increasingly willing to bend the law.
• Dark and Troubled Past: He grew up in subsidized housing in a one-room apartment, which was made worse by his brother having schizophrenia that made him lash out in often illegal ways, making their life even harder. His brother eventually attempted suicide by jumping out a window, and Lewis witnessed it but chose to let him jump.
• Dark Secret: He keeps his institutionalized brother secret from everyone because Lewis is haunted by how he let his brother attempt suicide in the hopes he would die and stop burdening their family.
• Deadpan Snarker: He's very sardonic, and frequently trades barbs with his fellow detectives, especially Crosetti.
• Defective Detective: Downplayed. Lewis's personal life is in shambles, but unlike the other detectives he rarely lets his issues interfere with his work and comes off as one of the most well-adjusted members of the squadron.
• Drives Like Crazy: To the point that he actually crashes into the morgue van and gives Bayliss a minor concussion while they're temporarily partnered together in "Partners". He hasn't improved in the final season, as in "Brotherly Love" it only takes one trip for Sheppard to refuse to let him drive her ever again.
• Emotional Bruiser: He's one of the most emotive and warm detectives, and at numerous points he hugs Crosetti and Kellerman to comfort them. None of it stops him from being scarily good in a physical fight.
• Et Tu, Brute?:
  • After Bayliss hooks up with Emma, who Lewis had a crush on, Lewis feels personally betrayed and nearly backs out of buying the Waterfront as a result.
  • He's very angry in "Scene of the Crime" when the leader of a Black Muslim private security force who had been protecting a housing project betrays him by helping the criminal he was chasing escape. Lewis is deeply hurt especially because he admired the man for protecting the community better than the police did.
• Fedora of Asskicking: Actually a trilby, but he's usually seen wearing it on the street.
• Genius Bruiser: He's both a good fighter on the rare occasions he has to engage a suspect, and quite cunning.
• Good Is Not Soft: He's one of the most empathetic and compassionate of the detectives, but Lewis is more than willing to use violence if the situation calls for it, and he refuses to let suspects disrespect him.
• Headbutting Heroes: After Crosetti dies, Lewis winds up without a partner because he proves almost impossible to work with because of his stubbornness, reckless driving, and his inability to accept a partner who isn't Crosetti. He eventually bonds with Kellerman and the two become close friends.
• The Heart: Lewis is the most compassionate member of the unit. Where most of the other detectives tend to be quite judgmental, Lewis is more prone to empathizing with suspects and people from marginalized groups, and points out the socioeconomic factors that led them to their current positions.
• Heartbroken Badass: He's competent and good in a fight, but Lewis's cheerful demeanor masks a lot of pain and heartbreak. For as well-adjusted as he seems to be, the later seasons make it clear his personal life is a train wreck and he grew up in a deeply dysfunctional and traumatic environment.
• Heroic BSoD: After realizing and accepting that Crosetti committed suicide, Lewis immediately breaks down into tears.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners:
  • With Crosetti. The two are practically joined at the hip, and Lewis is deeply loyal to him, going above and beyond to help Crosetti in times of crisis. When Crosetti commits suicide, Lewis begins blaming himself for it for not knowing him well enough to tell what he was planning to do.
  • He later forms this dynamic with Kellerman. The two are almost never seen apart and are always at each other's side bantering and joking around.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: Lewis and Crosetti are partners, but Lewis is clearly the more competent and on-the-ball of the two. It's best exemplified in "And the Rocket's Dead Glare"; while Crosetti is easily taken in by Gruszynski's razzle dazzle and spends the entire trip to Washington D.C. geeking out over landmarks, Lewis easily ferrets out a conspiracy involving the Chinese government, though he's unable to prove anything due to jurisdiction issues.
• I Reject Your Reality: After Crosetti commits suicide, Lewis goes into denial and insists that Crosetti had to have been murdered. He even goes so far as to try and actively sabotage Bolander's investigation into his death so that he won't prove that it's a suicide.
• Ignored Expert: After Kellerman is accused of corruption, Lewis tries to encourage him to stop being so nervous to stop him from looking guilty. Kellerman doesn't listen, and Lewis continuously tries and fails to stop him from self-destructing.
• Innocently Insensitive: He doesn't tell anyone in the unit he's getting married before the day of the wedding. Lewis doesn't mean any harm by it, but he deeply hurts Kellerman, who felt that Lewis not confiding him was a deeply insulting lack of trust.
• It's All About Me: Downplayed. He does care about his friends and fellow detectives, but his own interests and well-being come first and foremost.
• It's All My Fault: He blames himself for Crosetti's suicide, feeling that if he was a better friend and partner then he could have realized what he was planning to do and stopped it.
• It's Personal:
  • He takes murders that occur in poverty-stricken areas of Baltimore rather personally, especially ones that occurred in housing projects like the one he grew up in.
  • Anything involving his Arch-Enemy Luther Mahoney falls into this, as Lewis comes to deeply resent how Luther flaunts his power and the police's inability to stop him.
• Jerkass Realization: In "Have a Conscience", he admits he ignored Kellerman's emotional distress because it triggered his memories of Crosetti and he was afraid of being hurt again, and apologizes.
• Keeping Secrets Sucks: Lewis tends to keep his emotional baggage secret, and actively avoids telling people about the darker aspects of his past. It accomplishes nothing but alienating Kellerman, who is especially angry to discover Lewis never told him he was getting married until the day of.
• Let Off by the Detective: In "See No Evil", Lewis realizes Felton is trying to help his childhood friend Chuckie Prentiss get away with participating in his father's assisted suicide and confronts him about it. Felton is able to persuade a very reluctant Lewis into helping him get Chuckie off scot-free, and he lets Felton destroy the evidence that would have proved Chuckie's guilt. Lewis is clearly uncomfortable with what he's done, and is seen staring at himself in a mirror afterwards.
• Love Martyr: He's extremely forgiving of Barbara's behavior and makes numerous sacrifices to renew the spark in their relationship. It eventually falls apart because when she presses Lewis's Berserk Button by demanding he throw out his prized painting of Teddy Prendergrass.
• Manchild: Downplayed. Lewis isn't childish, but he clearly hasn't matured out of young adulthood and is much less mature than his colleagues.
• The Kirk: He counterbalances his emotions with his sense of rationality and pragmatic, although he's fairly quick to get emotionally compromised if pressed.
• Loving a Shadow: It's implied he married Barbara because he was in love with the idea of a long-term relationship rather than her. The marriage quickly grows sour as it becomes clear the two don't share a single common interest.
• Morality Chain: He serves as this to Kellerman, always setting him straight when he becomes too callous and trying to get him to be more empathetic.
• My Girl Is Not a Slut: When Kellerman insinuates his wife Barbara is just some stripper marrying him for the money, Lewis throws himself at him to defend her honor.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Lewis is clearly tormented after covering up Chuckie killing his father at Felton's behest in "See No Evil".
• My Greatest Failure: Lewis never forgives himself for Crosetti's suicide, and he's haunted by it throughout the series. He admits to Kellerman when he attempts suicide that he's never forgiven himself for it, and he wouldn't forgive himself if Kellerman killed himself too.
• Never Be Hurt Again: While he grows very close with Kellerman, he still distances himself at times to avoid being devastated like he was when Crosetti died. He ultimately apologizes for it when it leads to him ignoring Kellerman's distress until he becomes suicidal.
• Nice Guy: He's good-humored and wisecracking most of the time, and is never really confrontational outside of affectionate jabs at his colleagues. He also tends to be the most empathetic and compassionate of the detectives, especially towards the lower classes.
• Never My Fault: He has a nasty habit of not accepting responsibility for his failings. His marriage ends because he refused to answer whether he cared more about his painting of Teddy Prendergrass than his wife, and yet he blames Brodie for it.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In "The Hat", he and Kellerman take off Rose Halligan's handcuffs and let her eat at a diner with them. As a result, she's able to escape and murders another person before they can recapture her. Lewis is guilt-ridden afterwards, ruefully reflecting that the two of them got someone killed with their negligence.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: During interrogations, he frequently plays up his laid-back and jokey demeanor so suspects underestimate him, and thus confide in him so he can get them to incriminate themselves.
• The One Who Made It Out: Lewis was one of the few people in his housing projects to make it out and start a successful career. In "The Damage Done", a drug dealer from the same projects accuses him of having lost touch with his roots and needing a reality check, something that pisses Lewis off.
• Only Sane Man: He's the only detective with no real personal or psychological problems, unlike everyone else, and is the only one who can really be counted on to keep their shit together.
• Out of Focus: In the first two seasons, Lewis gets the least focus out of the detectives and is mostly a Satellite Character to Crosetti. He becomes much more prominent in Season 3.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Lewis starts off as the squad jokester, always cracking wise and poking fun at Crosetti. He gets much more depths after Crosetti dies.
• Sad Clown: While he's still the Plucky Comic Relief, Crosetti's death results in Lewis carrying a lot of pain and guilt under the surface. He also had a troubled upbringing filled with crime and poverty, which still impact him despite Lewis's attempts to cover it up with jokes.
• Standard Cop Backstory: He grew up in a crime-ridden housing project in a one-room apartment, and his brother had a mental illness that made him lash out around the neighborhood. Lewis is haunted by having intentionally let his brother attempt suicide, which destroyed their relationship.
• Stepford Smiler: He becomes this after Crosetti dies. He's still deeply grieving his death and blames himself for it, but he continues to be the resident jokester in spite of it. As his backstory is gradually revealed, it becomes increasingly clear Lewis has always carried deep-seated guilt from a traumatic childhood that he's buried beneath a cheerful facade.
• Stepford Snarker: Lewis is a wisecracker who loves making sarcastic quips and teasing his coworkers, but it hides a lot of pain from a traumatic upbringing. Lewis later carries the guilt of Crosetti's suicide, which haunts him throughout the series and he blames himself for.
• Straight Man and Wise Guy: He serves as the Straight Man to Crosetti, keeping his partner on track and questioning his conspiracy theories.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Lewis tends to be sympathetic to criminals or antagonistic figures from Baltimore's projects, since he grew up in the area. He's quick to lecture Kellerman whenever he makes judgements about them, pointing out they only became that way because of the poor conditions.
• Sympathetic Adulterer: He tries to start an affair with Stivers, but only because his wife had already planned to divorce him and made it clear their marriage was over.
• Talking Down the Suicidal: He spends the second half of "Have a Conscience" desperately trying to talk Kellerman out of killing himself. He's able to succeed.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: After Crosetti died, Lewis partners with different members of the unit only for him to drive them away with his argumentative and stubborn nature. It initially continues when he's partnered with Kellerman, but he has a Jerkass Realization when Kellerman calls him out on it.
• This Is Unforgivable!: It takes him the entire season to forgive Sheppard for almost getting him killed in a raid.
• Those Two Guys: He and Crosetti are almost never seen apart for the first two seasons, and serve as the comic relief together.
• To Be Lawful or Good: Being a By-the-Book Cop, Lewis is frequently faced with decisions that force him to decide between the law and the code the police abide by, or the right thing morally. Often, it's left morally ambiguous what the right choice was.
• Troll: He's prone to messing with his colleagues for fun, and frequently teases them just to fluster them.
• Uncle Tomfoolery: He averts this trope for the most part, but he'll deliberately play himself up as one around racist suspects to get them to underestimate him and slip up around him. He uses this most successfully in "The True Test" to feed McPhee Broadman's ego until he confesses.
• Undying Loyalty: To Crosetti and later Kellerman. He refuses to believe the worst about either of them until it's proven without a doubt.
• Unlucky Everydude: Compared to the strong and often eccentric personalities around him, Lewis is just an ordinary man who tends to be a bit of a wiseass, and lacks the quirks and personality defects of his peers. While he never verges into being an outright Butt-Monkey, Lewis is frequently saddled with cases that deeply shake him and suffers numerous traumas over the series.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Crosetti. The two bicker and insult each other, but it's clearly all in jest. He has a similar dynamic with Kellerman, both of them being prone to bickering, but in a lighthearted manner.

Al Giardello

Lieutenant Alphonse Michael "Gee" Giardello

"When in Rome, do as the Romans do. When in Baltimore, do as I tell you."

Portrayed by: Yaphet Kotto

"I want the paperwork on that double-suicide. I don’t care if it's in rhyming couplets. I want it finished."

The commander of the homicide unit shift. Giardello is fiercely protective of his detectives, a loyalty all of them return; however, he has no problem putting his foot down should they anger him enough. Giardello is frequently at war with his bosses, who are more concerned with high clearance rates and good publicity than they are with good police work.

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• The Ace: He's articulate, cultured, a great boss, and pretty much universally beloved by the entire unit.
• A Father to His Men: Not the easiest father to get along with - and he wasn't to his actual kids, either - but a fiercely protective one. While he berates and mocks his detectives, sometimes blowing up for no apparent reason, woe betide anyone else who targets them.
• All for Nothing: He spends "Blood Wedding" desperately searching for a way to stop Kellerman's corruption probe or to convince the department to speak out in his defense. However, Connolly makes it clear he'll testify against Kellerman, and Harris smugly reveals he's going to let Kellerman suffer out of spite for Giardello. Gee ends his storyline somberly asking Kay what good he is if he can't look after his own men.
• Anger Born of Worry: He becomes increasingly angry with Pembleton in the aftermath of his stroke as Pembleton tries to rush through his recovery, but only out of fear that it will cause Frank to have another stroke.
• Arch-Enemy: He develops a personal enmity with Gerry Uba in the "Hostage" two-parter because Gerry killed two children, Gee's personal Berserk Button. Giardello makes it a personal crusade to see Gerry convicted, though ironically he's an Unknown Rival to Uba.
• Authority Sounds Deep: He's Da Chief and has a deep, baritone voice.
• Badass Bureaucrat: His position is mostly a bureaucratic one, and he refuses to tolerate any disrespect from his superiors or underlings. He's also a skilled marksman who shot two suspects in the line of duty, one fatally, although the experience leaves him wracked with guilt.
• Badges And Dogtags: A Season 7 episode reveals he served in the Vietnam War and was a POW. A KGB interrogator attempted to talk him into defecting, but Gee turned the tables and talked his interrogator into defecting to the U.S. instead.
• Benevolent Boss: Gee is a very friendly and protective boss who deeply cares for his subordinates and genuinely gets along with them, to the point of frequently taking them out to lunch. However, he does not tolerate disrespect or laziness, and he will very much make it known if they ever make him angry.
• Berserk Button:
  • He will not tolerate his detectives slacking off. When Bayliss takes time out of the job to deal with personal matters, Giardello grabs him by his coat and in no uncertain terms tells him never to do it again.
  • Similarly, Giardello reacts with pure rage whenever his subordinates disrespect him. Pembleton defying his orders to stop investigating the police shooting of an unarmed suspect results in Giardello angrily ranting about him being a Category Traitor, and Felton yelling at him while overwhelmed by lingering trauma from being shot results in Gee giving him a vicious "The Reason You Suck" Speech even though he had instantly apologized.
  • Any case where kids are hurt will cause the usually jovial and snarky Gee to become deadly serious. When he encounters Gerry Uba, who had just killed six kids in a school shooting, Gee can barely contain the urge to beat him to death with his bare hands right then and there and instead settles for telling him to "Get well...soon" in a tone that is positively nightmare inducing.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He has a vicious temper, and he can be startlingly cruel whenever he's angered.
• Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: He is visibly upset over his daughter having a boy home for a sleepover in the episode "Night of the Dead Living", and grudgingly jokes about "justifiable homicide" when Lewis starts talking about her having a sex life. It's also implied in the same episode that he's threatened or at least scared his daughter's boyfriends with his service revolver. When Charisse gets married in "Stakeout", Giardello is enraged she's marrying a man he never met and never asked for his consent.
• Broken Ace: He's a cultured, hard-working man beloved by his detectives, but he's long since crossed the Despair Event Horizon after a lifetime of dealing with bigotry and working a soul crushingly depressing job and watching the BPD go to shit under the new, politically minded top brass.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Downplayed. He's fairly prone to snarking at his detectives and clearly loves the power his job grants him, but he's a very competent shift commander.
• But Not Too Black: Giardello has repeatedly been turned down by women out of colorism. He recalls that at one point a woman said she could never love him because of how dark-skinned he is. This has not helped Giardello's emotional state, especially since this has sabotaged all of his efforts to get back in the dating scene after his wife died.
• Character Development: Giardello starts off as extremely tolerant of what his fellow officers do, even refusing to report on corruption and police brutality, getting angry at Pembleton when he investigates Jimmy Tyron as a suspect. After realizing Tyron was guilty and that his biases nearly led to him imprisoning an innocent man, Giardello changes his tune. From that point on, he grows more willing to investigate and prosecute fellow officers when they break the law.
• Da Chief: Though he will often go out of his way to protect his men, he is not above disciplining them if necessary. While pleasant and certainly a mentor figure, he also takes a certain joy in his power. That being said, however, Giardello is frequently seen in the series as a renegade commander, and frequently battles with his own superiors, who serve as Da Chief to him.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Giardello became a cop in the late 1960s, and he had to deal with racism from his colleagues and the widespread corruption in the department. At one point, he recalls having been forced to listen to a Cop Killer being beaten to death by a gang of cops and unable to do anything about it.
• Deadpan Snarker: He has a dryly sardonic sense of humor, and frequently makes snarky but affectionate jabs at his detectives and much less affectionate jabs at his bosses.
• Despair Event Horizon: Giardello has long since crossed it thanks to his years of dealing with racism, colorism, and working a thankless, depressing job. In moments of contemplation, he admits that he's lost the idealism and joy he had in his youth, and he still deeply longs for the days when he was truly happy.
  Giardello: We reach a certain age where we realize we know less about life than we did when we were seventeen. When I was seventeen, I remember… I believed in life. I trusted life. I believed there were answers to questions. I had… hope. Right now, I'm gonna tell you: I hate myself. I don't have any friends to speak of. All I have is this… job. And it disgusts me.
• Disappointed in You: He's disappointed with how long it takes Pembleton to confess to him that Granger and Barnfather offered to give him Gee's position.
• The Dog Bites Back: After he uncovers evidence that Granger is running a massive scam against the city government, Giardello lords it over him and gleefully screws him over by leaking evidence of it to the press.
• Et Tu, Brute?: He clearly feels hurt and betrayed that Russert is assisting in Barnfather and Granger's efforts to scapegoat him for Howard, Felton, and Bolander's shooting.
• Everyone Has Standards: Giardello generally refuses to tolerate any insubordination and can be quite cruel if he feels his subordinates have disrespected him. However, in "Prison Riot", he realizes Bayliss is still investigating James Douglas's murder despite Giardello ordering him to drop the investigation as soon as possible. Gee lets him keep investigating, not feeling that Bayliss's dedication to justice is something to be punished.
• Famous for Being First: Averted. It's not until the final season that we hear from his son that Gee was the first African-American Lieutenant in Baltimore.
• Friend to All Children: Giardello loves kids, and he gets along great with them. He pretty quickly wind Felton's kids over in "The City That Bleeds", and he proves surprisingly good at taking care of the abandoned baby in "Night of the Dead Living". It probably has something to do with him being a father himself. The flip side is that when kids are victims of crime, he can absolutely terrifying.
• Frontline General: It's generally averted, as Giardello mostly stays in his office, but he'll occasionally go out into the field or assist in interrogations. He serves as the primary in "The Wedding", which ends in tragedy as he's forced to shoot a suspect who pulls a gun on him. He is also one of the responding officers to the hostage situation in the "Hostage" two-parter.
• Gentle Touch vs. Firm Hand: He's the Firm Hand to Howard's Gentle Touch. He's hard on his men and refuses to accept screw-ups or disrespect, where Howard tends to be much more gentle and accepting.
• Gratuitous Foreign Language: He'll occasionally slip into Italian when he wants to make a point.
• Good Is Not Soft: He's a friendly and fiercely protective boss, but prone to using tough love on his detectives to make them more effective at their jobs.
• Happily Married: To his late wife. He has struggled with finding love after her death.
• Hiding Your Heritage: Inverted. He is a proud African-American, but also very proud of his (invisible) Italian ancestry, often alluding to it or using Italian phrases.
• It's All About Me: Downplayed. Giardello is a generally selfless man, but he has a bad habit of expecting his colleagues to sabotage their own career advancement to satisfy his own personal hatred of the bosses.
• It's Personal: He takes cases involving children particularly personally. Notably, he makes Gerry Uba's prosecution his number one priority because the man had killed two children, and Giardello refuses to let him get even a moment's ease after what he did.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Over the course of Season 3, a Trauma Conga Line results in Giardello becoming increasingly short-tempered and bitter. He's still just as much of A Father to His Men as always, but he's much more rough around the edges and far angrier.
• Jerkass to One: He's an absolute asshole to Brodie, constantly berating him for the slightest of reasons and at one point forcibly throwing him outside of the precinct for annoying him.
• Kick the Dog: After Felton snaps at him after being overwhelmed at a crime scene due to lingering trauma from being shot, Giardello gives him a vicious "The Reason You Suck" Speech bluntly telling him that he's never been fit to be a homicide detective and that he's sick of Felton's excuses. It is somewhat justified, as Felton's behavior had become increasingly erratic as he fell into alcoholism, but it's still undeniably harsh.
  • He doesn't let up on Bayliss during the Adena Watson case, not caring that Bayliss has just joined the unit and isn't at all prepared for a case this scale. While he's correct that being a leader means Bayliss is going to need to be more decisive and a leader, he shows no sympathy for how Tim is clearly struggling nor does he provide him with any help beyond harsh words.
• Large and in Charge: He stands 6'4" and is the boss. The only character taller than him is Bayliss.
• The Last DJ: Giardello is one of the last remnants of the old guard left in the BPD, which has mostly been taken over by career-minded politicians who know nothing about good police work and frequently cut corners, which contrasts with the hard-working and thorough Giardello. It's deconstructed, as Giardello also comes from an age where cops could get away with a lot more than they do now, and is thus tolerant of corruption and police brutality to an almost criminally negligent degree.
• The Leader: He serves as this for the Homicide unit. Giardello is of the Levelheaded variety, making sure his detectives don't make mistakes and using his experience to offer advice.
• The Lost Lenore: His beloved wife, who he continues to grieve for. She's implied to have been his Living Emotional Crutch who supported him as he went through grueling work as a police officer; when she died, Giardello lost his biggest source of support.
• Love-Obstructing Parents: Downplayed. He never outright interferes with his children's love lives, but he's quite overprotective of them. He is enraged when Charisse marries a man without letting Gee meet him, and almost refuses to go to their wedding out of spite. He also once mentions having threatened one of his daughter's boyfriends with his service revolver.
• Machiavelli Was Wrong: Unlike Harris, Barnfather, Granger, and Gaffney, who are mostly concerned with politics and advancing their careers, Giardello sincerely cares about the officers below him. Where his superiors casually bully their underlings and abuse their authority, Giardello is A Father to His Men. As a result, Giardello commands the utmost loyalty and respect from his underlings, where his superiors have only allies of convenience and are easily ousted by internal politics.
• Married to the Job: He's dedicated to his job to the point his personal life has suffered greatly as a result. Charisse and Mike both call him out for being absent for most of their childhoods because of his work, and being quite controlling when he was present.
• Mean Boss: Downplayed. He's generally a Benevolent Boss, but he can verge into being quite cruel to his detectives if they need a dose of Tough Love.
• The Mentor: He serves as this for the unit as a whole, always willing to give advice and counsel to his subordinates. He's especially this to Pembleton, who he takes on as a sort of protégé; notably, Giardello is one of the few people Frank respects.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Giardello is horrified when he shoots a suspect who drew a gun on him. He's even more guilt-ridden when he learns the witness who claimed the suspect had killed the Victim of the Week had lied as a prank, meaning the man's death was All for Nothing.
• My Greatest Failure: He's haunted by guilt after shooting Raymond DeSassy. Despite the man having drawn a gun on him and Howard, Giardello believed if he had been faster he could have disarmed the man and prevented any bloodshed.
• Nice Guy: Giardello is a friendly, soft-spoken man and an astoundingly good boss. He's pleasant to work for, hard-working, protective and almost nurturing at times, and loyal. He develops into a Jerk with a Heart of Gold over the course of Season 3.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: In "The Wedding", Giardello serves as the primary for a case so the detectives can prepare for Lewis's wedding. Unfortunately, a suspect draws a gun on Giardello and he's forced to shoot the man, much to his horror. Giardello is even more guilt-ridden when he learns the man he killed was innocent of the crime he and Howard were investigating.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: When Bayliss tries to hustle him at Hearts, Giardello (who is a master at the game and had actually put one of his daughter's through college on his winnings from the game) feigns ignorance as to what the game is and agrees to play it with Bayliss. He then proceeds to utterly destroy Bayliss and take his money for all it's worth.
  Giardello: Tim, I enjoyed watching you come into my office to persuade me to play a game I was unfamiliar with and for money no less. Let me give you a little advice for the future, never try to hustle a Sicilian.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: He of all people turns into one in "See No Evil" and "Black and Blue". When Pembleton investigates a police shooting, Giardello stonewalls him whenever the evidence points to a cop having carried out the shooting and demands he pursue a civilian suspect instead. He eventually has a Heel Realization when Pembleton acquiesces to his demands and browbeats an innocent man into confessing, then unsubtly pointing out to Giardello that they essentially beat a confession out of him.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: In his backstory, he was a POW during the Vietnam War, and he was able to talk his KGB interrogator into defecting to the US.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: He's referred to as "Gee" pretty much exclusively and it's only characters who are either equal or above him in rank, like Harris and Barnfather, or have known him for years like Mitch Drummond that ever call him "Al".
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Giardello, normally a Friend to All Children, is so upset about shooting and killing a murder suspect - and that's before he even finds out the suspect couldn't have committed the murder - he yells at a kid who's watching and orders him to leave.
• Papa Wolf: He cares deeply for his detectives, and will not allow them to be endangered. When Barnfather and Granger try to cover up the presence of asbestos in the station, Giardello threatens to leak the story to the media if they don't reveal this to the detectives and pay for any medical complications it may have caused. When Barnfather angrily demands to know why Giardello is inconveniencing him, Gee coldly threatens to kill him if he ever pulls a stunt like this again.
• Passed-Over Promotion: After Russert is demoted, its rumored Giardello will take her place as captain. Instead, much to Giardello's fury, the racist and incompetent Gaffney is promoted instead.
• Parents as People: Giardello is a loving father who deeply cares about his children, but he's also very controlling and overprotective. He was also absent from much of their childhoods due to his workaholism, something Mike is still deeply bitter about.
• Quit Your Whining: When Bayliss begins complaining about the difficulties of solving the Adena Watson case when he doesn't even have his own desk, Giardello snaps and performs a Desk Sweep of Rage on a nearby desk, then angrily declares it Bayliss's and tells him to get to work.
• Rage Breaking Point:
  • After Crosetti's suicide, having to deal with Granger and Barnfather's bullshit constantly, being rejected by a woman out of colorism, and having his feelings dismissed by Russert, Giardello snaps and hurls a chair across the room before holing himself up in his office.
  • When Felton, Howard, and Bolander are all shot and rushed into surgery with no telling of whether they'll live or die, Giardello tries to be calm, but is clearly boiling with worry and anger about his own powerlessness to help them. He eventually snaps and starts punching the roof of Lewis's car in a fit of rage.
  • When Gaffney gets promoted to captain, Giardello is so furious over having to report to this bigoted, incompetent toady that he starts pounding on a set of storage lockers — with his fists at first, then a chair, and finally a baseball bat.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: Realistically averted. In "The Wedding", Giardello is uncomfortable investigating a case himself after so long behind a desk, and actually asks Howard's advice because he's worried that he might have missed something at the scene or in the autopsy report. When he ends up shooting and killing a suspect who opened fire on them, he's distraught, and it's implied that it's the first time in his entire career that he's killed in the line of duty. (He says that the previous time he shot a suspect was when he was a rookie, and he repeatedly and thankfully states that he only wounded the man.)
• Sad Clown: Giardello is bombastic and humorous, frequently cracking jokes or making witty observations. Beneath the surface, he's quite depressed and still mourning his wife's death.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: He refuses to compromise his morals for the sake of politics unlike his bosses. Giardello frequently leaks stories about his superiors' misconduct when they start interfering with investigations, and he fervently argues with them whenever they try to harm his detectives' careers.
• Supporting Leader: He's the leader of the Homicide unit, but the focus tends to be mostly on the detectives working under him.
• Team Dad: He's a fatherly mentor to all of his detectives, and looks after them as best he can. He also tends to be quite gentle with them when they're in distress and does his best to comfort them, though he won't tolerate any disrespect.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: He becomes increasingly bitter and short-tempered throughout Season 3 due to dealing with a series of personal tragedies on top of his already stressful job.
• Tough Leader Façade: Giardello is a friendly but stern and tough leader, commanding the utmost respect from his men and refusing to tolerate disrespect. However, beneath the surface he's shown to be quite sensitive and emotional. He only expresses vulnerability when he's going through extreme stress, and generally keeps his feelings under wraps.
• Tough Love: Giardello is quite nurturing to his men, but he's also blunt and more than willing to call them out on their screw-ups. He's quite comforting when they're genuinely struggling, but will angrily call them out when they don't get results, outright screw up on the job, or disrespect him.
• Tranquil Fury: Whenever he gets angry, Giardello adopts a whimsical, bubbly attitude while making barely concealed threats. When Gee is truly furious, such as dealing with people who've hurt children, he goes from bombastic to quiet and contained and the effect is chilling.
• Universally Beloved Leader: All of Giardello's subordinates love him, viewing him with the utmost respect no matter how strained their relationship gets. When he's shot in Homicide: The Movie, the entire squad comes to find the shooter in his honor.
• Unknown Rival: Gerry Uba is his Arch-Enemy and the investigation into his crimes is deeply personal for Gee. Uba only meets him once and barely interacts with him, though that doesn't stop Giardello from intimidating him.
• The Vietnam Vet: He served in the Vietnam War and was a POW.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Sam Thorne. They're friends, but Giardello gets annoyed with how anti-police Sam is and how frequently he harasses Gee's detectives.
• When You Coming Home, Dad?: Both Charisse and Mike point out that Giardello was frequently absent from their lives because of his job.

Kay Howard

Detective / Sergeant Kay Howard

"Anyone's capable of anything."

Portrayed by: Melissa Leo

A homicide detective and initially the only woman in the department. She has a 100% clearance rate, which she desperately tries to maintain. She has a close friendship with her partner Felton, and the two get along better than most of the unit. Howard has an ambitious streak and seeks to rise through the ranks, which she eventually accomplishes when she passes a promotion exam and becomes a sergeant at the beginning of Season 4.

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• The Ace: She's probably the only detective in the department who's truly on Pembleton's level, and has the highest clearance rate in the department. She solves all of her cases with ease and is generally competent and professional about it, which is more than even Pembleton can say. He actually respects her for it, and she's one of the few people he actually treats kindly.
• Agent Mulder: She's set up as being deeply superstitious at the beginning of the series, though it vanishes for the most part after the first two episodes.
• Always Gets His Man: She's got a 100% clearance rate, something not even Pembleton can lay claim to. She ultimately loses this status in Season 3 when she fails to solve a highly difficult case from Crosetti's caseload, which proves to be a major blow to her ego.
• Ambiguously Bi: Blink and you'll miss it, but in "Autofocus", Munch invites her to come to the Waterfront while he's bartending that night. Howard turns him down, saying she has a date, and when Munch tells her she can bring 'him' along, she simply responds with, "Who says it's a guy?" It's unclear if she's joking or not. ^note Towards the end of the episode, we find out she actually made the entire date up, but the point still stands.
• Bifauxnen: Her speech is gravelly and direct and she dresses like a slightly dandyish male most of the time.
• Broken Ace: Howard is one of the best detectives in the unit, but her time on the job has left her with deep cynicism, trust issues, and out of touch with her feminity. However, she's one of the most well-adjusted members of the unit for the most part.
• Boomerang Bigot: Doesn't like other women officers, calling them "secretaries with badges".
• Broken Pedestal: She initially has an idealized view of her affair with Jimmy Tyron, remembering it as a brief but passionate fling that Tyron only broke off because he was conflicted between his love for her and his marriage. She eventually comes to realize he only did it for the thrill, and that he probably never cared about her at all.
• Camp Straight: Distaff Counterpart, she dresses and acts in a masculine manner, even more so after she's promoted to sergeant.^note Tom Fontana alleged that an executive once asked him, in grossly derogatory terms, if she was meant to be lesbian But, apart from one possibly teasing remark (see above), she never shows any interest in women, and has been romantically paired at one time or other with at least four different male characters.
• Character Development: In the first season, Howard loudly complains about other women officers and calls them "secretaries with badges". In Season 3, she's the only cop defending Russert and she even tries to commiserate with her about being some of the only female cops in the precinct.
• Character Tic: She's prone to tilting her head in a somewhat quizzical manner.
• Characterization Marches On: Very early in Season 1, she's set up as being somewhat spiritual to the extent it occasionally interfered with her job. This very quickly vanishes, and she's shown to be a highly rational and pragmatic investigator for the rest of the series. She's also just as confrontational as Felton, when in later episodes she was the nicer one of the duo.
• Deadpan Snarker: She has a dry sense of humor and doesn't hesitate to poke fun at her colleagues, especially Felton.
• Female Misogynist: She's the squad member most bigoted against female cops, calling them "secretaries with guns". She's also unable to relate to women in general due to having suppressed her femininity for years to be one of the guys.
• Fiery Redhead: Had red hair and was certainly the most hot-blooded of all the women on the show.
• Foil: To Pembleton. They're both the most competent detectives in the unit and have high clearance rates, and they both ambitiously crave to rise through the ranks. However, whereas Howard is generally professional and well-liked, Pembleton is hated by pretty much everyone for being a total asshole.
• Gentle Touch vs. Firm Hand: Howard is the Gentle Touch to Giardello's Firm Hand once she's promoted. While she's absolutely firm with the detectives, she's also much more amicable and gentle than Giardello is, and more willing to accept their screw-ups.
• Heroic BSoD: After Crosetti's suicide and being called to the scene of the brutal murder of an elderly woman, Howard snaps, puts in her vacation days, and goes back to her family home in the Chesapeake Bay to get away from the violence of her job. After she winds up roped into catching a murderer amongst the community of oystermen she grew up in, Howard returns to work with a better understanding of herself and her relationship to the job.
• Hidden Depths: "Night of the Dead Living" reveals she's afraid of developing breast cancer, which runs in her family.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: She's noticeably sharper than her partner Felton even before a combination of drinking, divorce, and his getting shot turn him into a mess. She got a more severe bullet wound, but it hardly slowed her down. When Felton leaves, she aces the sergeant's exam and fulfills this role for Gee.
• Jabba Table Manners: When she and her boyfriend accompany Bolander on a double date at a very nice restaurant, she's seen licking her plate because the food was so good.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: One early episode shows that Howard owns a pet cat, which she's shown cuddling with while she's asleep.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Howard's line of work has left her deeply cynical and desensitized to violence, though it has by no means dampened her compassion.
• Made of Iron: In "The City That Bleeds", she gets shot in the heart by a suspect and she not only survived, but is back on the job within a quick amount of time.
• Morality Pet: She's the only person Felton seems capable of treating kindly. The same goes with Pembleton, something not even Bayliss can lay claim to.
• Nice Girl: Howard is one of the most affable members of the unit and she's frequently shown to be deeply compassionate and empathetic. She's always polite when dealing with witnesses, friendly with her colleagues, and can be surprisingly sweet at times.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Felton.
• Put on a Bus: Very unceremoniously disappears after season 5, rotating into the fugitive squad and deciding to stay there.
• Real Women Don't Wear Dresses: Deconstructed. A lifetime of having to be one of the guys has left Howard out of touch with her feminists, and unable to relate to other women.
• She's Back: Over the course of Season 3, she loses her hundred percent clearance rate due to a pair of murders she is unable to solve, and is subsequently taken out of commission by being shot in the chest by Gordon Pratt. When she recovers and returns to work, Howard initially struggles to get back into the groove, until she manages to effortlessly solve a murder case she wasn't even the primary on.
• Stranger in a Familiar Land: In "Last of the Watermen", Howard returns to the Chesapeake Bay community where she grew up, only to find that the oystermen have fallen on hard times because of regulations placed on how many oysters they can fish and that everyone she was close to are bitter about her leaving. In the end, she does reconcile with her father and her ex-boyfriend, but she returns to Baltimore with the understanding that it's now her home and that being a homicide detective is part of her life.
• Sympathy for the Devil: In "Bop Gun", Howard is shocked to see that a by all accounts sensitive and kindhearted teenager who had a relatively stable home life and a good future ahead of him had shot a woman during a mugging, and tries to prove him innocent. When she confronts him in prison, she accepts his culpability when he tearfully confesses to the murder in front of her.
• Team Mom: She serves as this to the unit, especially after being promoted to Sergeant. Where Giardello is tough and uncompromising, Howard is gentle and friendly, but firm.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: She is the Tomboy to Det. Russert's Girly Girl.
• Troll: Howard always has a sense of wry amusement about her, and doesn't hesitate to needle or tease her colleagues.
• Working-Class Hero: Howard grew up in a family of oystermen in the Chesapeake Bay, and is implied to have helped in the family business before leaving to become a police officer in Baltimore.

Beau Felton

Detective Beau Felton

"The more you deserve, the less you get."

Portrayed by: Daniel Baldwin

"You have the right to remain silent; although personally, I don't feel remaining silent's all it's cracked up to be... Smoke?"

A cynical, semi-competent detective who is much rougher and more hostile than his colleagues. He has a close friendship with his partner Howard, and the two get along better than anyone else in the unit. Felton is plagued by both his marital problems and his burgeoning alcoholism, which gradually exacerbate over the course of the series.

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• The Alcoholic: Starts drinking heavily when he is left by his wife. By the end of season 3, it's bad enough for him to lose vital evidence while out on one of his nightly benders. It is however implied that Felton had stopped drinking by the time that he's found dead at the end of season 5.
• Angry White Man: Subverted. Felton is prone to complaining about his lot in life and how much the system has screwed him over by refusing to reward his hard work. However, while he is somewhat bigoted and looks down in political correctness, he never blames his problems on minorities, instead blaming a corrupt and uncaring system.
• Awful Wedded Life: His wife Beth is a needy, unstable woman prone to mood swings and destructively lashing out, while Felton for his part is somewhat callous towards her emotional needs and frequently neglects her. It eventually drives him to have an affair with Russert, which in turn gets him kicked out of the house. By that point, it's clear he's lost all passion for the marriage and he only really cares about how his kids are doing. He eventually decides to go back to his marriage so he can continue to take care of them and not out of any real love for Beth.
• Bigot with a Badge: Pembleton repeatedly accuses him of being this. Eventually, Felton has enough and blows up at Pembleton, accusing him of using his accusations of racism to shift the blame for his own failing career.
• The Cynic: Felton is deeply cynical, to an almost nihilistic extent, and frequently philosophizes about the injustice of the world.
• Deadpan Snarker: His go-to method of dealing with his shitty life, besides booze, is bitter sarcasm.
• Defective Detective: He's a homicide detective with a shambled wreck of a personal life, and he's perpetually incapable of even attempting professionalism. A combination of divorce, his drinking problem, and getting shot results in his behavior becoming increasingly erratic and he even loses crucial evidence while on a drunken bender. At one point, Gee bluntly tells Felton that he's never been good enough for homicide.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Not exactly friends, but he and Pembleton come to understand each other in "The Last of the Watermen" when they work a case together and even manage to hold a civil conversation, when previously they couldn't even stand to be in the same room as the other.
• Freudian Excuse: He mentions that his own father was neglectful and didn't even show up to the hospital when Felton broke his collarbone.
• Good Parents: He tries his best to be a good father to his children. He eventually decides to go back to Beth rather than become an absentee dad to them.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: He espouses this to Pembleton in "Shot in the Dark".
  Felton: You think people get things because they earn it? No. The more you think you deserve, the less you get.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: As he descends into alcoholism, Felton starts wearing a leather jacket at all times. However, rather than be depicted as badass, it instead symbolizes how much his professionalism and competence have suffered as a result.
• Hidden Depths: He proves a surprisingly competent undercover detective, making excellent progress in tracking a major car theft operation before being murdered.
• Hypocrite: He constantly lambasts Pembleton for his arrogance, but his own ego is clearly raging out of control.
• The Infiltration: Felton drops out of sight after serving a 22-week suspension, leaving everyone to think he's quit the BPD. After his dead body is found in his house, it comes out that he'd been back on the job for six months and working undercover to help bust a car theft ring.
• Jerkass: He's the most openly mean-spirited, unprofessional, and callous out of the detectives. He casually insults his colleagues, is something of a bully at times, and his personal life is shown to be an absolute wreck.
• Jerkass Has a Point: As much of jerk as he can be, Felton isn't always wrong about things.
  • In "Bop Gun", he proves to be right that Howard should stop investigating the case and leave well enough alone. When she finds out that Vaughn Perkins really did kill the victim, it brings her absolutely no satisfaction and just makes her feel worse, since it turned out that it was all because he accidentally pulled the trigger of a gun while he was trying to keep a mugging from getting bloody.
  • It's hard to fault him for getting wanting to end things with Beth. While he is rather callous towards her emotional needs and she does genuinely love him, Beth is very needy, prone to mood swings and erratic behavior, and frequently lashes out at him even before he has an affair. Of course, he ignores that he wasn't the best husband as well.
  • He's not nice about it but he's right that Lewis is concocting theories about Crosetti's death to avoid accepting the painful truth that he took his own life.
  • His decision to cover up his friend Chuck's killing of his terminally ill father is questionable but he's not wrong that a quick death which the father actively wanted and initiated is vastly preferable to a slow and painful one from cancer and locking Chuck up for it wouldn't be true justice.
  • Some of his criticisms of Frank, that Frank is abrasive and often looks to start fights over anything, takes even things not about him far too personally and has a massive ego, are also dead on.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's an utter disaster of a human being most of the time but he frequently shows immense kindness and you get a sense that he wants to be better than he is.
• Kick the Dog:
  • In "Bop Gun", he cracks a joke about a woman's death right in front of her husband. In his defense, he wasn't aware the guy could hear him and politely apologized when he confronted Felton on it.
  • In "Crosetti", when Lewis comes to him to talk him into convincing Bolander that Crosetti didn't commit suicide, Felton snaps at him to accept the obvious and calls him an idiot. He ultimately attempts it anyway, but immediately gives up once he learns Bolander won't listen.
  • In "Dead End", he asks Lewis how he copes with Crosetti's death, so he'll know how to deal with Howard's^note who is currently in critical condition from being shot death if it comes to that. Lewis pours his heart out and gives Felton heartfelt advice. Felton immediately calls it stupid and insults him for it; Lewis gets pissed off and demands Felton give back the stuffed animal he had given to him as a gift.
• Lack of Empathy: While all of the detectives are desensitized by the violence of the job, Felton is the only one to never bother to try and hide this fact, and he only really shows empathy towards his immediate family and close friends. To pretty much everyone else, he can be astonishingly callous. A memorable example of this would be when he starts joking about a victim's death right in front of her husband.
• Let Off by the Detective: In "See No Evil", he ensures that his childhood friend Chuckie Prentiss is not charged for participating in his father's assisted suicide and gets a reluctant Lewis to go along with it; the two destroy the only evidence that could link Chuckie to the crime, and he gets off scot-free.
• The Millstone: After descending into alcoholism after his wife leaves him, Felton gradually becomes a liability and even loses crucial evidence at one point. It only gets worse after he's shot, an experience he never quite recovers from.
• Noble Bigot with a Badge: Felton shows mildly racist and sexist views, but while he's not exactly competent or pleasant to be around, he at least tries to be a good person and he's a good friend to Howard, frequently demonstrating immense kindness towards her.
• Nominal Hero: While most of the detectives tend to be rather desensitized, Felton is consistently callous to just about everyone. He's still sympathetic, but it's fairly obvious he doesn't really care about anyone outside Howard, Russert, and his kids.
• Parents as People: For all Beau's faults, he deeply loves his kids and Felton's main concern when Beth kicks him out of the house is that he can't see them. He eventually gets back together with Beth just so he can keep them in his life.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Kay.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: Felton demonstrates some pretty backwards views at times when it comes to race and gender, and he occasionally makes mildly racist or sexist statements. Pembleton repeatedly calls him out on it, but Felton points out to Pembleton that the reason he and the rest of the squad room is not based on race, but the fact that Pembleton is an arrogant jackass.
• Put on a Bus: He's suspended without pay for 22 weeks at the start of Season 4 after getting drunk at a police convention and stripping naked alongside a bunch of other absolutely shitfaced cops.
  • The Bus Came Back / Bus Crash: At the end of Season 5, his body is found in his house and the detectives learn that he'd been back on the job for six months, working undercover to infiltrate a car theft ring.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: He hands these out like candy to Pembleton, constantly berating him whenever they're partnered together and reading him the riot act on his faults.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: He suffers from PTSD after being shot, and unlike Howard and Munch he never really recovers from it.
• Shipper on Deck: For Howard and Danvers. He endlessly encourages Howard to go on a date with him, and is ecstatic when she finally does.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: During his time away from homicide, his life improves considerably as he cleans up his act. He stops drinking, leaves Beth and finds work as an undercover cop which he proves very skilled at. Then he's murdered.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: As Felton descends into alcoholism over the course of Season 3, he stops wearing the suit and tie typical of the detectives and starts dressing in casual clothes and a leather jacket, showing off his increased lack of professionalism and how much his job performance is suffering.
• Snobs Vs Slobs:
  • His mutual hatred with Pembleton stems from this. Pembleton hates Felton's crudeness and mild but casual racism, while Felton is equally enraged by Pembleton's judgemental and snobby attitude. They are able to settle things and come to an understanding in Season 3 after working on a particularly horrific case together.
  • Felton also seems to enjoy bullying Bayliss, who is implied to come from an upper middle-class background. However, this mainly seems to stem from Felton being a Jerkass in general, especially since Bayliss never starts a confrontation with him or does anything to incite Felton's anger outside of defending himself from his insults.
• Survivor's Guilt: He, Howard and Bolander were all shot in "The City That Bleeds". Although he was shot multiple times, he ended up being the least injured of the trio and dealt with some residual guilt from this.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: As comes with being played by a Baldwin.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Whenever he partners with Pembleton, the two are just barely able to contain their loathing for the other man and constantly snipe at each other. In "The Last of the Watermen", Pembleton and Felton manage to come to an understanding and even bond to an extent.
• Working-Class Hero: Felton grew up in a poor neighborhood with a neglectful father. He strives to provide a better life for his children, which becomes increasingly difficult thanks to both Felton's own issues and his mentally unstable wife Beth.

Stanley Bolander

Detective Stanley "The Big Man" Bolander

"The depth of your stupidity sometimes frightens me."

Portrayed by: Ned Beatty

A veteran homicide detective and the oldest member of the unit. Bolander is gruff and taciturn, but frequently shows off a softer side. Coming off of a nasty divorce at the start of the series, Bolander is deeply lonely and extremely insecure as a result. However, he eventually proves to be something of a chick magnet, against all odds. He is respected and somewhat feared by his fellow detectives as a result of his experience, and he backs up that reputation with a no-nonsense attitude and extreme competence.

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• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: After getting drunk during the grand opening of the Waterfront, Bolander gets drunk off his ass and starts dancing for all to see. He later gets suspended after getting drunk at a policeman's convention and stripping naked in public.
• Affectionate Nickname; Everyone in the unit calls him "Big Man," but not because of his weight. Munch describes him as "in all senses a man of magnitude - enormously fair, tremendously honest, and a whale of a detective."
• Awful Wedded Life: Zig-Zagged. By all accounts, Bolander and his wife Margie were Happily Married for decades, but she eventually sprung a divorce on him out of nowhere, implicitly because their marital stability had gotten boring.
• Boom, Headshot!: He's shot in the head by Gordon Pratt in "The City That Bleeds". He survives, but gets a nasty scar from it.
• Broken Ace: Bolander is a competent, wizened detective respected by all his colleagues, and he's great at his job. However, he lives alone in a crappy apartment in a bad neighborhood, and his divorce pretty much destroyed him emotionally. As a result, Bolander is deeply insecure, has a low opinion of his own self-worth, and is filled with regrets over his life. He's also hopeless with women.
• Cool Old Guy: He can be when he isn't in a bad mood. Pretty much the entire squad room looks up to him, and he often serves as something of a mentor to the other detectives, particularly Munch, at times.
• Deadpan Snarker: Being a crotchety old man, Bolander isn't afraid to break out the snark.
• Despair Event Horizon: Years on the job and a nasty divorce have left Bolander emotionally shattered. He crosses even further into nihilism after getting shot.
• Drowning His Sorrows: Whenever Bolander gets deeply affected by a case, he often deals with it by drowning his sorrows at whatever bar he can find. It's implied in the movie that this has developed into full-blown alcoholism.
• Easy Amnesia: While recovering from getting shot in the head, Bolander temporarily loses his memory of years of his life and forgets who Munch is. He does recover quickly, but still suffers from some memory loss even after it return for the most part.
• Endearingly Dorky: His efforts to woo Dr. Blythe are undeniably dorky, but she clearly reciprocates. It's then deconstructed, since Bolander's awkwardness and tendency to dance around topics he's uncomfortable about gradually stop being cute and become irritating.
• Fat and Skinny: The rotund Bolander is the fat to Munch's skinny.
• Friend to All Children: He loves kids and gets along well with them. The rare times he ever takes a murder personally is when a child is the victim. At times, he's implied to regret never having kids of his own.
• Gibberish of Love: Has a case of this when he first meets and falls for the new female coroner Dr. Blythe in season one.
• Good Is Not Nice: Bolander is a good man, but he's also a grouchy, easily irritated curmudgeon who frequently mistreats the people in his personal life despite caring deeply about them. Munch is comforted by Giardello and Mitch at separate points, who commiserate about Stan being hard to deal with at times.
• Grumpy Old Man: Stan is one of the oldest detectives still active in the Homicide unit, and has his fair share of grouchy moments.
  Munch: Name one miracle that's happened in your lifetime.
  Bolander: How 'bout the fact that I haven't killed you yet?
• He's Back!: After recovering from being shot in the head and returning to work, Bolander struggles to reacclimatize back to his job and with lingering memory loss. He eventually manages to bounce back when he effortlessly tricks a perp into confessing to murder during an interrogation.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Bolander is extremely insecure and has a low sense of self-worth, leaving him paranoid that anyone he lets get close to him will leave him, which results in him pushing people away.
• Hidden Depths: He loves classical music and plays the cello, but says he struggles with more complicated pieces.
• Hypocrite: When he calls out Munch for venting about his relationship problems, Munch points out he's been doing that the entire day, having behaved like an ass after a date with Dr. Blythe didn't go well.
• It's Personal: He takes cases where children are killed very personally, though he's experienced enough to rein in his emotions and prevent them from interfering with his investigation.
• Jerkass Ball: He starts behaving like a major asshole in "A Shot in the Dark" and repeatedly berates Munch for minor mistakes. It's eventually revealed he's venting after he didn't perform as well as he's hoped when he had sex for the first time with Blythe.
• Jerkass to One: While generally one of the nicest detectives, he can be an absolute asshole to Munch.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Bolander is a cantankerous old man who can be downright cruel at times, but he's deeply compassionate and surprisingly gentle at times, especially around children.
• Kavorka Man: He's an overweight, insecure old divorcee who lives in a rundown apartment, but he somehow manages to snag quite a few ladies over the course of the series.
• Mentor in Sour Armor: To Munch. Somewhere in between all the insults, Bolander genuinely seems to be trying to instill a sense of work ethic in his partner and help him improve at police work. It's just buried underneath a lot of grouchiness.
• Morality Chain: Bolander's influence encourages Munch's better instincts and gradually makes him less of a Jerkass. Once Bolander retires, Munch becomes increasingly abrasive and apathetic.
• Morality Pet: Bolander seems to be the one who encourages Munch's work ethic and morality the most, and occasionally guilt-trips him whenever he lets his desire for a good clearance rate get in the way of solving murders.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Bolander is horrified to realize he accidentally sent an innocent man to prison in "In Search of Crimes Past" simply because he hadn't asked a bartender the right question.
• Oblivious to Love: He's unaware that his attraction to Blythe is mutual in spite of her obvious flirting with him until Munch screams it in his face.
• Pet the Dog: After Lewis accepts Crosetti committed suicide, Bolander takes him out to the docks and comforts him about it.
• Psychological Projection: He argues that a woman who had left her abusive husband to die of a heart attack had not actually committed murder; it's clear he was only defending her because he's projecting his own miserable marriage unto her.
• Put on a Bus: Ned Beatty left the show after Season 3, and Bolander's absence is explained as being suspended for 22 weeks after exhibiting grossly inappropriate behavior at a police conference in New York. He decided to retire after the suspension was up.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Bolander's crippling fear of Dr. Blythe leaving him results in him inadvertently sabotaging the relationship and driving her away.
• Straw Nihilist: Bolander slips into nihilism after getting shot; he starts rambling philosophically about the meaninglessness of existence and questions what he's actually accomplished over the course of his career as a homicide detective.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Munch. Bolander relentlessly hazes Munch, but genuinely wants him to improve as a detective and mentors him in between his insults. In turn, Munch deeply respects Bolander and views him as a friend, but won't hesitate to insult him.
• Working-Class Hero: Bolander mentions his father was a stevedore who frequently took him out to see the boats he unloaded.

Steve Crosetti

Detective Steve Crosetti

"That's the problem with this job. It ain't got nothing to do with life."

Portrayed by: Jon Polito

"Life is a mystery. Just accept it."

A religious and somewhat eccentric homicide detective. Crosetti is prone to rambling tangents and is obsessed with the Lincoln assassination, frequently coming up with ludicrous conspiracy theories about it.

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• Abandoned Catchphrase: "You're gonna regret that." It sticks around for all of the pilot, and is promptly dropped.
• Analogy Backfire: He gives a long-winded analogy comparing Pembleton to Gary Cooper's character in High Noon on the grounds that both are lone wolves and have a New York attitude. Lewis quickly points out that Cooper didn't have help because no one would give him any while Pembleton prefers to work alone, and then questions what the hell High Noon has to do to with New York.
• Bus Crash: A few episodes after going on a Long Bus Trip, Crosetti commits suicide by drowning himself, which is revealed when his body is found floating down Chesapeake Bay.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Crosetti is out there. He's prone to rambling at length about outlandish conspiracy theories and pseudo-philosophical nonsense.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Oooh boy. Even though this role would be somewhat overtaken by Munch in later seasons, Crosetti was the original conspiracy nut among the detectives, with the Lincoln assassination as his biggest obsession.
• Dark and Troubled Past: During "Son of a Gun", he tells Lewis he had been shot in the line of duty and nearly died from his wounds. He only barely recovered due to multiple operations.
• Defective Detective: He suffers from deep-seated insecurities and depression, which eventually drives him to suicide.
• The Dog Bites Back: He files a memo against Lewis at the end of the pilot after he called Crosetti racial slurs (albeit in jest) and called him out for claiming to have read a book when he had merely read an excerpt that accuses him of racism.
• Driven to Suicide: He takes his own life at the start of Season 3. He had been on antidepressants and alcohol, and chose to drown himself. Frank acted as his solo honor guard during the funeral procession when it was seen as dishonorable to have one if a cop killed themself.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: After Jon Polito was fired and subsequently verbally attacked the producers, he was killed off by suicide, the one way he had asked not to be written out by. His death was played dramatically and an entire episode was dedicated to the unit's grief over it, so it wasn't as bad as it could be, and he got to come back in the movie as an afterlife spirit.
• Foreshadowing: In "Gone for Goode", Crosetti rambles about the meaninglessness of life. It's uncharacteristically nihilistic, but it hints at the depression that ultimately causes him to end his own life.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Lewis. The two occasionally bicker, but stick with each other through thick and thin and are generally joined at the hip.
• In-Series Nickname: Lewis affectionately calls him "salami brain" and "the little guy".
• Insane Troll Logic: His theories on the Lincoln assassination are built on this. Which isn't even getting into his other ridiculous theories, like how the crime in Baltimore is caused by crabs affecting people's brain chemistry.
• It's Personal: After Thormann is shot, Crosetti strong arms Giardello into letting him serve as the secondary on the case, and he's transparently motivated by his own grief and rage. It's deconstructed, as Crosetti nearly gets the wrong man convicted because he's so hyper-focused on making the shooter pay.
• Kill the Cutie: While not exactly a traditional Cutie, he was the nicest and most compassionate of the original cast, as well as being a lovable Cloudcuckoolander. He's killed off early in Season 3 via suicide.
• Long Bus Trip: Due to Jon Polito's firing, Crosetti is written out by going on an extended vacation to Atlantic City. It's eventually revealed that he had actually committed suicide after it ended, much to the unit's grief.
• Motor Mouth: He talks a mile a minute whenever he really starts rambling.
• Nice Guy: For as annoying as he can be, Crosetti is a good friend and surprisingly caring and sensitive. The best example of this is him taking care of Thormann after he's blinded; he stays at his hospital bed, helps him and his wife out when he's released from the hospital, and helps Thormann deal with his self-loathing and self-pity. After he dies, no one has anything bad to say about him.
• Out of Focus: A justified case in Season 2, considering the severely shortened episode count. He only gets lines in "A Many Splendored Thing" and "Bop Gun", and barely appears throughout the season, which is noticeable as otherwise the rest of the detectives each get focused on in one of the episodes. There was a planned subplot about him moving into the suburbs, but it was ultimately cut.
• Parental Substitute: Implicitly this for Thormann. Thormann looks up to and admires Crosetti, who in turn mentors the young officer and does his best to teach him the tools of the trade in an almost fatherly manner.
• Plucky Comic Relief: His eccentricities and ramblings about the Lincoln assassination mean he's the most frequent source of comic relief among the detectives.
• Stepford Smiler: He's upbeat, but frequently shows signs of deep-seated depression and insecurities beneath the surface. It reaches the extent that he ultimately takes his own life.
• Straight Man and Wise Guy: He serves as the Wise Guy to Lewis's Straight Man, with his ramblings and conspiracy theories on the Lincoln assassination.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Lewis. The two frequently bicker and insult each other, but it's clearly all in jest.

Megan Russert

Lieutenant/Captain/Detective Megan Russert

Portrayed by: Isabella Hofmann

An accomplished police officer and former member of the Naval Intelligence Service who takes command of the second shift after the previous commander retires. Russert occasionally gets into conflicts with Giardello and his detectives due to her "softer" approach to her job. She is promoted to Captain after Granger's firing, only to be demoted back to Detective during one of Barnfather's fits of pettiness.

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• Action Girl: While she doesn't get many opportunities to show it, Russert very much misses the action of being a homicide detective and accompanies Lewis on his rounds at one point to experience it again.
• Broken Pedestal: She's disgusted to learn that her former partner Doug Jones is a domestic abuser, and that he's repeatedly hospitalized his wife.
• Da Chief: After being promoted to Captain, she takes Barnfather's place as the one generally pressuring Giardello for results. Due to their prior friendship, they have a much better working relationship and she frequently goes to bat for him with Barnfather.
• Experienced Protagonist: She's a former member of the Naval Intelligence Service and earned her position when she brought down a drug trafficking ring by going undercover and infiltrating the operation.
• Fish out of Water: While Russert is extraordinarily competent and experienced, she doesn't quite gel with her colleagues, who are a bunch of masculine tough guys, in contrast to Russert, who is very much the quintessential soccer mom.
• Hypocrite: Russert refuses to let Matt Rhodes do an exposé on the White Glove Murders on the grounds that it may cause a panic, only to do the exact opposite and try to raise public awareness about the sniper, which Barnfather is vehemently against on the same grounds. In Russert's defense, her main gripe against Rhodes is the fact he's going to expose crucial evidence more than anything else.
• Innocently Insensitive: When Giardello confesses how hurt he is that Russert's friend turned him down out of colorism, Russert tries to comfort him but instead dismisses his feelings and insists that he's wrong in thinking this.
  Giardello: I wouldn't expect you to understand, being a woman. And white.
• It's All About Me: Downplayed. Russert has a tendency not to think beyond her own problems and she often doesn't think about how her actions will affect others. However, Russert is a generally kind and compassionate person who can be extremely selfless as well, and she'll do her best to make up for it when she notices she's being selfish.
• Kick the Dog: When Howard tries to talk to her and compliments her handling of the Catherine Goodrich case, Russert quite rudely tells her off and accuses her of being a brown noser. It's all the more notable since Howard had been defending her against Higby's accusations she got to her position by sleeping her way to the top.
• The Lost Lenore: Her late husband Mike's death continues to deeply affect her, and she still misses him.
• Nice Girl: Russert is a kind, amiable woman who is deeply compassionate and easy to get along with.
• No-Respect Guy: None of her detectives respect her because she's a woman. Higby openly speculates she only got to her position by sleeping with the bosses and Gaffney occasionally disregards her authority. The bosses similarly have no respect for her, and force her to work with Giardello during the Catherine Goodrich case because they don't trust a rookie lieutenant to handle a red ball alone in spite of her previous experience.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: After being promoted to Captain, Russert continues to prioritize public safety and good police work over her ambitions. This results in her being demoted by Barnfather when she refuses to go along with his attempts to cover up a sniper going on a random killing spree throughout Baltimore.
• To Be Lawful or Good: In "Dead End", Barnfather and Granger order her to investigate if Giardello was responsible for Felton, Howard, and Bolander's shooting. She realizes that they’d trying to make him into a scapegoat, but she goes along with it anyway because it's a direct order. After she discovers Giardello had signed off on the arrest warrant without seeing a clerical error that may have caused the shooting, she covers it up for him and lies to Barnfather about it. Of course, an angry Giardello barges in to read them the riot act for trying to pin responsibility for the whole incident on him, but Russert still defends him.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Receiving a three-rank demotion from captain to detective seems to kill her interest in the job, and she takes a permanent vacation soon afterwards.

Mike Kellerman

Detective Mike Kellerman Jr.

"Well, to quote one of the great thinkers of our time: What, me worry?"

Portrayed by: Reed Diamond

"When you die, all you have left is how you lived and your name."

Initially part of Arson Squad, Kellerman transfers to Homicide at the beginning of the fourth season after impressing Giardello with his work on a joint case. Kellerman is idealistic, jovial, and intelligent, but is also immature and irresponsible.

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• Accentuate the Negative: Kellerman is enraged when the newspaper that splashed his arraignment on the front page doesn't bother to mention his acquittal, and somewhat unjustly blames the ASA for it.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Downplayed. Kellerman has the stereotypical trappings of a "bad boy" - he's irresponsible, fun-loving, and parties frequently - but he's generally a nice guy. Many women find him incredibly attractive and several women hit on him over the course of the series.
• Ate His Gun: He attempts suicide this way, but Lewis is fortunately able to talk him down.
• Audience Surrogate: After Bayliss became too adjusted to Homicide to serve as this anymore, Kellerman was introduced to serve as the new rookie and everyman.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: He starts off as a Nice Guy who is genuinely disgusted by corrupt cops even if he's reluctant to sell out another officer, and one of the more idealistic and altruistic detectives. By the end of his tenure on the show, he's a bitter, pessimistic morally compromised Dirty Cop himself.
• Being Good Sucks: He strives to do the right thing, but it frequently tends to backfire on him. Most notably, his refusal to take bribes from Mitch Roland while also keeping quiet for his friends results in his reputation being ruined.
• Beneath the Mask: It's shown that Kellerman is fairly lonely beneath his carefree and jovial exterior. He acknowledges at one point that most of his family and friends are estranged, dead, or have moved away, and he's shown to deeply miss his ex-girlfriend.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He's a generally nice and easygoing guy, but Kellerman has a nasty temper and is prone to lashing out violently. It grows even worse as he undergoes Sanity Slippage in Season 5, eventually to the point he ceases to be "nice" altogether.
• Berserk Button: Prior to Taking a Level in Jerkass, Kellerman is a rather easy-going and jokey fellow. However, he takes offense when Howard claims he "comes from money" while critiquing him. Since Kellerman's father is a working class factory worker too poor to retire, it strikes a nerve with him and he loses his temper.
• Break the Comedian: In Season 4, he's introduced as a snarky, amusing guy, and his and Lewis's cases are often more light-hearted or at least less depressing than the other characters'. During Season 5, being falsely accused of corruption and distrusted by many of his colleagues, and his repeated inability to pin anything on Luther Mahoney, send him permanently into a very dark place.
• Break the Cutie: He starts off as one of the nicest and most affable of the detectives. He's certainly a flawed figure, but he's laid-back and generally kind to everyone. Being accused of corruption gradually breaks him and changes him for the worse.
• Chick Magnet: Numerous women hit on him over the course of the series, and Kellerman's implied to have numerous flings outside the job.
• Clear My Name: He spends Season 5 trying to clear his name of corruption once Mitch Roland tries to frame him. Kellerman is declared not guilty, but the blow to his reputation and self-esteem sends him to a permanently dark place.
• The Confidant: He encourages Lewis to confide in him about his troubles, and Lewis eventually gives in. He'll frequently tell Kellerman his secrets or the problems he's dealing with that he keeps under wraps from everyone, and Kellerman comforts him while keeping it a secret.
• Contrasting Replacement Character:
  • Kellerman replaces Crosetti as Lewis's partner, but the two are very different characters. Crosetti is an overweight, scatterbrained father who isn't particularly competent and doesn't take being a detective all that seriously. Kellerman is a much younger, attractive detective who is extremely competent and is very dedicated to his job.
  • He also takes over Bayliss's spot as the resident new guy, but the two are massively different in personality and temperament. Bayliss is soft-spoken, uptight, and an inexperienced rookie from an upper-middle-class background. Kellerman is a working-class, jovial party animal who was already an experienced detective before he joined the squad.
• Convicted by Public Opinion: He's accused of corruption alongside his colleagues from Arson, and it winds up becoming a major scandal. He's never charged and declared not guilty, but his reputation is permanently soured and a good chunk of the public are convinced he was guilty.
• Cowardly Lion: Kellerman is a good man, but he refuses to take risks and is terrified of ruining his reputation. This ultimately is his Fatal Flaw; his refusal to testify against his colleagues makes him look increasingly guilty, and he refuses to get therapy because he fears it will ruin his career, leading to his mental health growing increasingly poor.
• Cowboy Cop: He's the most willing of the squad to get physical with suspects and plays loose with procedure at times, although never to an illegal extent.
• Deadpan Snarker: Kellerman is quite possibly the snarkiest character in the series. He's almost always making sarcastic quips and cracking jokes, though it's always in good fun.
• Death Seeker: After increasingly spiraling into depression during Season 5, Kellerman becomes suicidal and nearly shoots himself. Lewis is fortunately able to talk him down, but Kellerman's refusal to get therapy afterwards leads to him becoming increasingly unstable.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the fashionable, stereotypically "cool" Cowboy Cop seen on most Cop Shows. Kellerman's wisecracking and love of partying makes him come off as quite immature, and his tendency to fly off the handle gets worse over time and increasingly makes him unreliable. Eventually, his conduct only helps destroy his reputation when he's accused of being a Dirty Cop, and he keeps making himself look guilty.
• The Defroster: After Crosetti's death, Lewis becomes increasingly surly and hard to work with. After being partnered with him, Kellerman is able to defrost him enough to the point they bond and become close friends.
• Despair Event Horizon: Being accused of corruption sends Kellerman spiraling into depression, but what ultimately drives him over the edge is when Luther murders a store owner for standing up to him. Kellerman, already fed up with the injustice of the world, snaps and decides to commit suicide.
• Despair Speech: While contemplating suicide in "Have a Conscience", Kellerman goes into a nihilistic speech about his feelings of betrayal following his trial and his general disillusionment with the Crapsack World he lives in.
• Desperately Craves Affection: All Kellerman wants is the respect of his peers and the love of his friends and family. His corruption charges drive him so over the edge because it causes his father to genuinely think he's guilty, which helps push him over the Despair Event Horizon.
• Didn't Think This Through: He's prone to making rash decisions without thinking things through. He attacks Mitch Roland as revenge for framing him in public and while he's on the phone with ASA Ingram, making him look guilty, and his increased nervousness and hostility during the corruption probe only makes him look more guilty.
• Dirty Cop: Played with then unfortunately played straight. Initially believed to be dirty due to being framed for corruption, after the Luther Mahoney saga his name and his outlook on the job and life became much darker.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: ASA Ingram allows him to only testify to his own innocence during the Arson unit's corruption trial so he won't ruin his reputation, but afterwards asks him why it's so difficult for a good cop like himself to rat out a bad one. Kellerman doesn't understand what she means.
• Driven to Suicide: Even after he gets off on his corruption charges, Kellerman falls into a deep depression and becomes convinced his colleagues hate him. After Luther Mahoney getting away with murder again pushes him over the Despair Event Horizon, Kellerman decides to commit suicide and nearly shoots himself before Lewis talks him down.
• Drowning My Sorrows: After being accused of corruption, Kellerman starts binge-drinking to cope, eventually leading him to spiral into alcoholism.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: During his introductory two-partner, he becomes increasingly angry over how Pembleton treats him with barely-concealed contempt and frequently neglects to give him important information. He also complains about being treated as simply "the new guy" even after proving his chops, though he gets much more respect than either Bayliss or Brodie did.
• Emotion Suppression: Kellerman tends to repress his negative emotions and feelings of depression beneath a jovial, wisecracking front. The corruption charge and his encounters with Luther Mahoney slowly drive him over the edge until all his repressed anger and depression come boiling to the surface.
• Et Tu, Brute?: He feels betrayed by the other detectives when they don't stand up for him during his trial, though it's more a result of his paranoia than anything else. He later reveals to Lewis that even his own father became convinced he was a Dirty Cop, which helped drive him past the Despair Event Horizon.
• Fair Cop: He's a pretty good-looking cop with blonde hair and blue eyes.
• Fatal Flaw: His refusal to take risks ultimately helps destroy him when his refusal to risk his reputation by ratting on his corrupt colleagues results in him being framed as a Dirty Cop.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Kellerman is a mostly respected homicide detective, while his brothers are impulsive con men.
• Freak Out: "Have a Conscience" centers on Kellerman gradually undergoing one, becoming increasingly violent and irritable until he attempts suicide. Lewis is able to talk him down, but Kellerman's refusal to get therapy afterwards only leads to his mental health getting even worse afterwards.
• Fun Personified: Kellerman is the most jovial and fun-loving of the detectives, almost always looking for a good time and partying at nightclubs in his spare time. It's deconstructed, as it's used to demonstrate Kellerman's immaturity and refusal to grow.
• The Gadfly: He's prone to poking fun at his colleagues, although not as much as Lewis.
• Genius Bruiser: Kellerman is the most willing of the detectives to use physical force, and he's quite an intelligent detective.
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: He's unable to understand how the villain of "Fire" shrugs off murdering two teenagers, but still helps an old homeless woman out of the way of the fire he set and is horrified at the possibility he could have killed a dog.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: He's got blonde hair and is a kind, well-meaning person, at least at first.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: He was already Hot-Blooded and reckless, but his Sanity Slippage during his corruption trial makes him increasingly prone to lashing out at even minor slights.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: In Season 5, he's accused of being a Dirty Cop in a highly publicized case. Both this and Kellerman's obvious nervousness gradually convince many of his colleagues that he actually is guilty, driving Kellerman further towards the brink.
• He Who Fights Monsters: His war with Luther Mahoney gradually turns him into a worse person.
• His Own Worst Enemy: Kellerman's hot-headedness and refusal to take risks is one of his most crippling flaws, and causes him to do a lot of damage to himself. Both of these traits result in him making himself look increasingly guilty after he's accused of being a Dirty Cop.
• Holier Than Thou: It's subtler than Pembleton, but Kellerman can be quite self-righteous. He's also quite judgmental of certain witnesses and suspects - such as the illegal immigrants in "Full Moon" and a drug dealer in "The Damage Done" - while Lewis is more sympathetic to the socioeconomic factors that led them to their predicaments.
• Honor Before Reason: He firmly believes "cops don't rat on cops", and refuses to testify against his corrupt fellow members of Arson.
• Hot-Blooded: Kellerman is one of the easiest detectives to provoke and is frequently sent into fits of anger whenever he feels insulted. He also tends to take cases the most personally, especially ones involving Luther Mahoney.
• Houseboat Hero: He lives on a houseboat in the bay, reflecting his status as one of the most stereotypically "cool" of the detectives. It's actually cited as possible evidence of his corruption.
• Hypocrite: He becomes increasingly angry when he's investigated for corruption at the mere gall people would accuse him, when he's investigated people for crimes with just as much evidence and shown no regret.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: For all his bravado and cockiness, Kellerman is deeply insecure and has a fragile sense of self-esteem.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: He has blue eyes, and he's one of the most idealistic and friendly of the detectives... at first. And even after he becomes a much more unlikable character, he still has moments of sympathy.
• Manchild: Kellerman is in a state of arrested development and frequently still behaves like a teenager. His ex-wife admits she cheated on him because he just wasn't mature enough for her. It's most evident in "The Hat", where he derails his and Lewis's assignment so they can visit a crappy amusement park from his childhood he's genuinely excited about seeing.
• Nerves of Steel: He tends to be very calm even in highly dangerous situations. He's clearly panicked when Drak has him at gunpoint in "The Damage Done", but Kellerman keeps a cool head and never even so much as begs.
• Nice Guy: Kellerman is a friendly, charming, and jovial man who is at worst prone to delivering some good-natured snark. However, the effects of Season 5 leave him with little of his previous kindness.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In "The Hat", his and Lewis's negligence results in Rose Halligan escaping and murdering another person.
• No-Respect Guy: Downplayed. Unlike his fellow rookies Bayliss and Brodie, Kellerman is fairly respected by his colleagues with the exception of Pembleton, likely due to him proving his worth early on and being far more experienced than either of them. He's still teased, but is much more well-liked.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • In "The Wedding", Kellerman, angry that Lewis didn't tell him about his new relationship until the day of the wedding, makes a genuinely angry and insulting jibe about the circumstances in which he probably met her, which leads to Lewis launching himself at him, and the partners having to be physically separated.
  • After being accused of corruption, Kellerman becomes increasingly irritable and paranoid, which contrasts his usual easy-going and amicable demeanor. Unfortunately, the trauma of it makes this shift in attitude permanent.
  • In "Have a Conscience", when Lewis gently teases him while suspecting Kellerman is going to kill himself, an angry Kellerman screams at Lewis that he's not in the mood to joke around. It's this that makes it clear to Lewis and the audience that Kellerman is not okay and mentally spiraling, and that he almost certainly is going to kill himself.
• The Paranoiac: During and after his trial, Kellerman becomes convinced his colleagues now secretly hate him and suspect him of being a Dirty Cop with no evidence.
• Pop-Cultured Badass: He's the most prone of the detectives to make pop culture references.
• Reckless Sidekick: He's much more hotheaded than Lewis is, making it easier for him to be provoked. It becomes particularly evident in Season 5, where he becomes increasingly reckless after being accused of corruption and even tries to beat up Mitch Roland.
• Red Is Violent: He's frequently seen wearing red clothing, and he's one of the more hot-tempered and violent detectives.
• Sanity Slippage: He grows increasingly unstable following his corruption charges as he descends into alcoholism, and even attempts suicide.
• Sarcasm Failure: Whenever he's stressed or insulted, Kellerman shifts from light-hearted teasing to genuinely insulting people. In Season 5, when he's accused of corruption, Kellerman becomes increasingly humorless and starts picking fights with people out of paranoia they believe him to be guilty.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: His two brothers are hustlers with little interest in earning an honest living while he's a homicide detective.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: When he becomes a much darker and less likable character in Season Six, he crops his previously tousled hair much closer to his head and starts dressing in much darker colors.
• Sixth Ranger: For the homicide unit. After impressing Giardello with his handling of an arson case in the "Fire" two-parter and with the homicide unit currently three men down, Gee convinces Kellerman to transfer to Homicide.
• Start of Darkness: His corruption charges send Kellerman into an increasingly dark place until he becomes a Dirty Cop for real.
• Stepford Smiler: Kellerman acts carefree and jovial, but in reality he's deeply lonely and is very insecure.
• Strange Cop in a Strange Land: Arson allowed Kellerman to be somewhat looser in his conduct, like keeping an informant and dressing in casual clothes, which causes him to have some trouble adjusting to the tighter shift Giardello runs.
• Superior Successor: Lewis admits while trying to talk Kellerman down from suicide that he's a much better detective than his predecessor Crosetti was.
• Suspicious Spending: He lives well above his means thanks to taking side jobs, such as using his fishing boat to take tourists out to fish in the bay. He frequently eats at upscale restaurants, owns a houseboat, and he takes a VCR from evidence and sells it to Munch. This all contributes to making him look suspicious in the eyes of his colleagues once he's accused of corruption.
• Tantrum Throwing: After Gaffney smugly accuses him of being corrupt, an angry Kellerman shoves a filing cabinet to the floor in a fit of rage.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: Mike is falsely accused of taking bribes and while he's eventually cleared, he still has people suspect he really is dirty and even his own father asks if he did it. It all leads to Kellerman executing Luther Mahoney in cold blood, reasoning that if people think he's dirty, he may as well be dirty.
• Therapy Is for the Weak: After Kellerman's suicide attempt, Lewis tries to talk him into getting therapy. Kellerman refuses on the grounds it will only worsen his already destroyed reputation, which winds up leading to him growing increasingly unstable.
• Token Good Teammate: He was the only honest cop in Arson, and was the only member to refuse to take bribes from Mitch Roland. However, he never reported his colleagues out of fear of ruining his reputation.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: He joins the homicide squad with an idealistic desire to do good, but the combination of being set up for corruption and repeated run-ins with Luther Mahoney, whom he ultimately executes, leave him bitter and nasty. He seems to have improved some by the time of the TV movie.
• Ungrateful Bastard: His colleagues are nothing but supportive of him while Kellerman is investigated for corruption, but he becomes convinced they believe he's guilty and lashes out at them. Giardello is clearly hurt by it, while the rest of the unit is mostly worried about Kellerman's well-being because of his increasingly erratic behavior.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: He starts off as one of the most idealistic and eager detectives. Season 5 breaks him until he loses all his previous enthusiasm.
• Working-Class Hero: Kellerman comes from a working-class background, being the son of a poor factory worker. He loves his father deeply and is still close with him, frequently visiting him at his workplace.

J.H. Brodie

J.H. Brodie

"When you're after the truth, privacy goes out the window."

Portrayed by: Max Perlich

Pembleton: I underestimated you.
Brodie: Most people do.

Initially a trainee cameraman for a local news station, Brodie was fired after handing over evidence to Giardello and Russert to solve a time-critical crime rather than wait for it to be shown on the evening news. Giardello gave him a job as a crime scene photographer as compensation, though Brodie frequently finds himself trampled on by the detectives.

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• Amateur Sleuth: He's quite a competent investigator despite not being an actual detective, and helps solve a murder investigation in "Valentine's Day".
• Amazon Chaser: He develops a crush on the tomboyish Howard, which she gently turns down and assumes to have been a prank by Lewis and Kellerman.
• Ascended Extra: He started off as a recurring character before being promoted to the main cast.
• Author Avatar: He's partially based on David Simon, whose book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets was the basis of the show, which he also wrote for.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: He's able to figure out Pembleton isn't taking his stroke medication because he remembers his mother did the same thing after her stroke, and even figures out Pembleton's motivation for it. Pembleton admits he underestimated Brodie as a result.
• Butt-Monkey: Brodie is treated like shit by the detectives, and is constantly being either mocked or yelled at to stay out of the way. He also goes through quite a bit of misfortune that's played for comedy, such as being covered in ink by an exploding dye pack or being evicted.
• Camera Fiend: He's constantly filming things even beyond the confines of his job, albeit to film his documentary. it proves useful in "Valentine's Day" where he records the Villain of the Week selling drugs and pretends the footage was shot by Narcotics, causing him to confess to murder in the hopes of a plea bargain.
• Dork Knight: He's a stammering, shy mess, but he's quite on the ball when it comes to his job.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After being a massive Butt-Monkey throughout his tenure on the show, Brodie gets one of the happiest endings for any of the main cast. His documentary becomes a success and he moves to Hollywood to pursue his dream of being a filmmaker.
• Extreme Doormat: Brodie tolerates a lot of verbal abuse from the detectives without standing up for himself, which doesn't help their lack of respect for him.
• Heroic Sacrifice: In "Autofocus", he gives Lewis and Kellerman a tape containing evidence crucial to solving a time-sensitive case knowing he could risk being fired by his boss, who wanted it shown on the evening news regardless of the cost. Sure enough, Brodie is fired and becomes a freelance cameraman barely making ends meet as a result; predictably, Kellerman and Lewis show him no respect for this.
• Homeless Hero: He's evicted from his apartment in Season 5. After a few weeks of sleeping in the squad room, he bounces around staying at each of the detectives' homes before finding his own place.
• Intrepid Reporter: Downplayed. He's not an official journalist and mostly sticks to the background, but he's an amateur documentarian dedicated to getting to the truth.
• Mutually Unequal Relationship: He idolizes the detectives and aspires to be just as good an investigator as they are, and frequently demonstrates he has the chops to accomplish this. While it varies between the detectives (Howard in particular seems to have a soft spot for him), the detectives tend to treat him poorly and never acknowledge his accomplishments.
• Nice Guy: He's a shy, gentle man with a firm code of ethics.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In one episode, his insistence on showing a tape of a crime scene in court despite said tape not featuring a crucial piece of evidence results in the culprit being let Off on a Technicality. Munch lampshades it, having warned Brodie what would happen ahead of time.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Many of Brodie's plot lines involve him trying to do the right thing, and having it blow up in his face.
  • In "Autofocus", he gives Lewis and Kellerman a tape containing crucial evidence despite knowing he could be fired for it by his boss. He's predictably fired and his new job as a crime scene photographer barely pays the bills, to the point he's eventually evicted.
  • In one episode, Brodie reviews a tape he made of a crime scene and discovers evidence missing. When he and Munch realize a rookie officer moved the evidence, Munch wants to destroy the tape so the defense attorney won't be able to argue the police are framing his defendant. Brodie shows the tape anyway because he feels it's the right thing to do, and the criminal is declared innocent because of his actions.
  • When he moves in with Kellerman, Brodie tries to cheer his new roommate up in the wake of his corruption charges. Kellerman responds by kicking him out for being too cheerful.
  • When Lewis confides in Brodie about his marital troubles, Brodie offers to cook a romantic dinner for him and his wife to help them make up. Through no fault of Brodie's own, the two have a vicious argument and Barbara decides to divorce Lewis, which he blames Brodie for.
  • In "Valentine's Day", he realizes Alan Schack is the murderer of the Victim of the Week despite Munch's abrasive skepticism. His help to the investigation results in Schack beating him up with a pipe to scare him off, and after Brodie helps Alan confess Munch smugly refuses to thank him.
• No-Respect Guy: As a gentle Shrinking Violet and a (former) member of the press, the detectives all treat him like crap and view him as a joke at best. Even after he sacrifices his job for the sake of an investigation and he helps them solve two separate murders, he's bluntly told by Giardello that he still needs to earn their respect.
• Not Now, Kiddo: The detectives tend to ignore his observations and as Brodie puts it "treat him like a little kid".
• Plucky Comic Relief: Brodie mostly plays the role of comic relief, being a Butt-Monkey who often gets comedic subplots to distract from the otherwise dramatic storylines around him.
• Put on a Bus: He leaves for Hollywood prior to Season 6 to pursue his filmmaking career after his documentary is successful. In real life, Max Perlich was fired after engaging in a standoff with police.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: He delivers one to Munch for bullying Pembleton after he suffers a stroke, calling him out for kicking a man while he's down and taking advantage of Frank when he's at his lowest.
• Shrinking Violet: He's shy and bashful and is prone to stammering over himself, which doesn't exactly earn him respect amongst the detectives.
• Socially Awkward Hero: He's a shy, stammering mess, which only contributes to his status as the No-Respect Guy.
• Supreme Chef: He cooks an excellent chili and even won a cooking contest with it. The only thing Lewis and Barbara can agree on is how much they love Brodie's cooking.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: After being evicted in Season 5 and subsequently kicked out by every detective he tried to bunk with, Brodie manages to stay with a beautiful woman, much to his happiness.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Munch. Munch frequently insults him, but there's genuine care between them and Munch even lets Brodie live in his apartment after he's evicted.
• Wake Up, Go to School & Save the World: A rare mundane example. Brodie took the job as a crime scene photographer so he could pay his way through college, and juggles it with his job. It only really comes up in "Valentine's Day", where he suspects a fellow student killed the Victim of the Week.
• Warts and All: He portrays the Homicide detectives in a decidedly honest light in his documentary, including their various flaws and dark sense of humor. They take objection because they feel it portrays them in a negative light, while Brodie argues he was only telling the truth.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • He calls out Munch for exploiting Pembleton's stroke to bully him and bluntly tells him what he's doing is unacceptable.
  • The detectives call him out for portraying them in a negative (albeit honest) light in his documentary, and accuse him of sensationalizing their lives and jobs. Brodie responds that he simply portrayed them warts and all, and that he was simply getting to the truth like they do.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: He's very naive and idealistic, which makes him ill-suited for the realities of Homicide.

Julianna Cox

Chief Medical Examiner Julianna Cox

Portrayed by: Michelle Forbes

The chief medical examiner. An extremely cynical woman who ends up having a dysfunctional on-off relationship with Kellerman.

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• The Alcoholic: Out of work, she is almost always seen with a drink in her hand, and she and Kellerman get blackout drunk the first time they sleep together.
• Amateur Sleuth: Downplayed. She's not a member of the Homicide unit and she mostly serves as an advisor, but she does occasionally help with detective work.
• Benevolent Boss: While Scheiner notes she can be something of a Mean Boss, she's generally nice to workers who don't screw up and work hard. "Diener" shows she treats her medical assistants quite well for the most part.
• Blatant Lies: When Higby tries to brush off the murder of the prostitute that he put down as an overdose, saying no one cares about a prostitute, Dr. Cox claims she used to be one. When Bayliss tracks her down afterwards, she admits she lied, but did so because she was pissed off by Higby's moralistic attitude.
• Broken Ace: She's extremely competent at her job, but she also has a deeply dysfunctional personal life and her relationships aren't much better.
• Broken Bird: A few days after her arrival in Baltimore, her father dies of injuries sustained in a hit-and-run car accident. She admits that this and the generally grim nature of her job causes her to act out via drinking, reckless driving and casual sex.
• The Coroner: She serves as the main coroner for the fifth and sixth seasons that the detectives consult.
• Deadpan Snarker: She's quite snide and sarcastic.
• Dr. Jerk: She's generally kind to the families of the victims she autopsies, but she's also deeply cynical and dysfunctional. She's generally affable enough, but harshly punishes failure and can be quite callous towards her various flings.
• Drives Like Crazy: Her very first scene has her getting pulled over by a traffic cop as she arrives in Baltimore.
• Ethical Slut: She attempts to be this, but sometimes lapses, such as when she hurt Bayliss by having a fling with him because she didn't want to be alone over Christmas and dumping him as soon as the festive season was over.
• Functional Addict: Her drinking never seems to affect her work.
• Good Bad Girl: She's generally one of the nicer members of the main cast, and has a very active sex life, complete with frequent one-night stands.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: She's frequently seen wearing a leather jacket whenever she's not dressed in medical attire, fitting her characterization as one of the more edgy and hard-living detectives.
• Honor Before Reason: Despite being one of the most cynical members of the cast, Cox alway strives to do the right thing even if it's inconvenient. One of her defining moments in her first appearance is claiming to Higby that she's a prostitute after getting fed up with his moralizing about covering up a prostitute's murder with no regard for her reputation.
• Honorary True Companion: She's not a member of the unit, but she's a fixture around the office anyway and frequently hangs out with the detectives even when it isn't required by her job.
• Hospital Hottie: Technically speaking, as she was the Medical Examiner. Scheiner notes that she's a hardass, but "easy on the eyes".
• Innocently Insensitive: She isn't interested in a serious relationship, which leaves Kellerman cold before they decide to try a full-time relationship, and hurts Bayliss when she dumps him after a brief fling.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She's quite cold, cynical, and sarcastic, but she's also one of the most moral members of the main cast and always sticks to her principles. It's downplayed in comparison to the other regulars, however; she's generally one of the more amiable and empathetic members of the cast, just prone to being insensitive to people's feelings a lot of the time.
• Knight in Sour Armor: She's quite cynical, but always does the right thing.
• The McCoy: She has a firm moral compass, and she'll generally pursue what she feels is the right thing with no regard to the consequences. Where most of the cast tends to be focused on doing the job, she's one of the most compassionate - and therefore, most outspoken.
• Mean Boss: After taking over as Chief Medical Examiner, she proves to be quite strict on her employees, but not unfair. Scheiner accurately describes her as a "hardass", and when one of her employees deliberately lies about a prostitute's death, she fires him.
• Ms. Fanservice: She's frequently seen in skimpy and revealing outfits. It's justified as it fits her character; she's a promiscuous Ethical Slut who frequently sleeps around, so of course she wouldn't be shy about being this.
• Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: She has a somewhat pale complexion and dark black hair.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: In Season 6, she does an autopsy on two men killed in a road-rage vehicular accident perpetrated by one of them, a city employee. Her bosses put pressure on her to falsely claim that the other victim had been legally drunk so that the city can't be sued. She refuses to do so and leaks the story to the press, getting herself fired but allowing the widow to file a $45 million lawsuit.
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: She's quite tall and one of the most sarcastic members of the main cast.
• What the Hell, Hero?: She calls out Munch for badgering an innocent man into a confession in "White Lies".

Paul Falsone

Detective Paul Falsone

Portrayed by: Jon Seda

A longtime member of the Auto Squad transferred into Homicide by the new rotation program.

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• The Ace: He became one throughout the squad room, even rivaling Pembleton.
• Dine and Dash: There is a minor running gag about how, whenever he is out with other people at a bar or restaurant, he is never around when it's time to pay the bill.
• Divorce Is Temporary: In a sense: his ex-wife and he resolve their differences and he is granted more access to their young son.
• Good Parents: Through all his faults, he genuinely loves his son, Daniel.

Laura Ballard

Detective Laura Ballard

Portrayed by: Callie Thorne

• Fair Cop: She is very, very pretty.
• Runaway Bride: In "A Case of Do or Die", she reveals that she was engaged to be married but took off two weeks before the wedding without saying anything to the groom.
• Sweater Girl: She very often wears tight sweaters or wool cardigans.

Stuart Gharty

Officer/Detective/Lieutenant Stuart Gharty

Portrayed by: Peter Gerety

Introduced as a patrolman, Gharty is promoted to Internal Affairs and later transferred into Homicide in spite of his reputation for cowardice, bigotry, and incompetence.

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• Ascended Extra: He started off as a minor recurring character, before becoming part of the main cast.
• Badges And Dogtags: He served in the Vietnam War prior to becoming a cop. He's still haunted by his service during the war and the war crimes he witnessed.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Munch's curiosity about his "other than honorable" military discharge prompts Gharty to reveal this. While serving in the Vietnam War, he saw American troops killing the residents of a village for no reason. He tried to stop them, but his superior officer ordered him to leave the area; he then threatened the officer with a weapon, leading to his discharge.
• Dead Sparks: In "La Famiglia", he and his wife are seen at the police lodge party boredly exchanging desultory comments. A couple of episodes later he announces that he's left his wife and her main apparent emotion was relief.
• Dirty Coward: In his introductory appearance, Gharty refuses to enter a housing project after being called to stop a firefight out of fear. He waits long after the shooting has stopped, resulting in one of the shooters - a teenager - bleeding to death.
• Everyone Has Standards: Gharty is a massive racist, but he admits he was horrified when he witnessed a Vietnamese village being massacred by American troops for no other reason than their ethnicity.
• Face Your Fears: In one of his early episodes, after Pembleton expresses distrust about whether he'll back him up in a crisis, he says that while he was in IID he was ambushed and severely beaten by a group of criminals, and the experience made him realise that actually getting beaten up wasn't as bad as his earlier fears had been.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: When first introduced as a uniformed patrol officer, he lets his cowardice get the better of him, waiting to respond to a call of gunfire in a housing project. By the time the shooting stops and he finally goes in, two drug dealers have killed each other. This and his subsequent period in internal affairs cause many of the unit to mistrust and dislike him when he first gets transferred to Homicide, the only person who initially has any time for him is his partner Ballard, who is new to the city and didn't experience the preceding.
• Hazy-Feel Turn: He starts off as an antagonist before joining the main cast, but he still remains a racist and homophobic Jerkass.
• Jabba Table Manners: His ability to spill food and drink on himself is a Running Gag.
• Jerkass: The biggest in the main cast. He's the most abrasive of the unit, and a racist coward to boot.
• Never My Fault: Despite getting a teenager killed out of his cowardice and waiting long after the shooting stopped, Gharty never accepts the blame. Instead, he shifts it to anything imaginable, from the optics of a white cop shooting a black teenager to needing to provide for his family.
• Noble Bigot with a Badge: While in the homicide unit, he sometimes makes casually prejudiced remarks in conversation, but doesn't behave unprofessionally in the actual job.
• Officer O'Hara: He talks a lot about being Irish.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: For Bolander.
• This Is Unforgivable!: In "Kellerman, P.I.", while the characters have varying degrees of reaction to a returning Mike Kellerman, when Sheppard tries to get more information about the squadroom shooting and subsequent fallout they all had with him, Gharty angrily shows off his surgical scars to her and subsequently ignores the former detective for the duration of the two-parter episode.
• Token Evil Teammate: Gharty isn't evil, but he's the most unsympathetic and unlikable member of the main cast. He’s an unrepentant bigot and Jerkass as well as a Dirty Coward. He does have some sympathetic moments but he's mostly portrayed in a negative light.
• The Vietnam Vet: Gharty served in the Vietnam War, and was dishonorably discharged for trying to stop American troops from massacring a Vietnamese village.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Downplayed. Gharty isn't evil, just cowardly and selfish, but he's quite popular amongst his original unit despite his more negative attributes and getting a teenager killed. He's less popular in Homicide, thanks to the unit being well-aware of his cowardice.

Terri Stivers

Detective Terri Stivers

"You know how it is, Luther. Sometimes the magic's there, sometimes it ain't."

Portrayed by: Toni Lewis

A detective working in Narcotics investigating Luther Mahoney.

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• Deadpan Snarker: She's quite sarcastic and prone to Snark-to-Snark Combat with Lewis.
• Fair Cop: She's quite beautiful, to the point even Luther Mahoney hits on her.
• Friendly Enemy: With Luther Mahoney, to the point he even accepts phone calls from her.
• The Lad-ette: She's quite tomboyish and has a rather masculine appearance, and is one of the most coarse detectives.
• Satellite Character: Aside from the Luther Mahoney saga and a one-time date with Lewis, she has little else in the way of personality or backstory.

Mike Giardello

FBI Agent/Officer Mike Giardello

Portrayed by: Giancarlo Esposito

An FBI agent and Giardello's estranged son who serves as the liaison to the Homicide unit.

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• Jade-Colored Glasses: His upbringing, the death of his beloved mother and his draining work in the FBI left his sporting a pair of these.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: During the course of trying to solve cases, he was directly or indirectly responsible for at least three deaths. Curiously, he was never brought up on charges in any of them. The information he gives to his FBI superiors results in two murder prosecutions being completely derailed by the federal government, leading him to Resign in Protest.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: His relationship with his father is strained to say the least (and it's implied that he was especially hard on him since he was the only boy). Part of his reason for getting himself transferred from Phoenix to Baltimore is so he can work on fixing that relationship. After he quits the FBI, he joins the BPD as a patrolman in the hope of making detective and working with Gee again.

Rene Sheppard

Detective Rene Sheppard

Portrayed by: Michael Michele

• So Beautiful, It's a Curse: One of her main issues is the fear that she won't be taken seriously because of her supermodel looks and pageant contestant background.