Follow TV Tropes

Following

YMMV / Homicide: Life on the Street

Go To

  • Alternative Character Interpretation: Every character (particularly the older ones) is looked at as this (i.e., Munch, funny Deadpan Snarker or emotionally damaged cynic; Pembleton, witty, hard-working hero or Black-and-White thinking snob?) But a vocal community has subjected Lewis to this trope. Cool, handsome, and the most stable of all the cops, or an aloof, cocky Jerkass who only looks out for number one and made a variety of serious errors?
  • Arc Fatigue:
    • The disproportionate focus on Bolander's love life in the first two seasons. Pretty much no one likes it, given how Narmy the writers' efforts to turn Ned Beatty into a Kavorka Man were and the fact that both of his main love interests are either completely out of his league (Dr. Blythe) or about 30 years younger than him (Linda). The focus on his character changed to his acceptance of being divorced and his recovery from a gunshot wound in Season 3, which were handled far better and suited Beatty's skills.
    • The aftermath of the Luther Mahoney shooting in Season 6 started with a newcomer (Falsone) having a burning interest in a police shooting of a drug dealer from the year prior, morphed into laughable dramatics from Mahoney's "long lost sister" and basically destroyed the credibility of Lewis, Kellerman, and Stivers. Made worse by the fact that the shooting wasn't a black and white issue.
    • Sheppard's arc from season seven about having her gun taken away from her by a suspect, which made her look weak, incompetent and untrustworthy. Lewis, regardless if he were justified in doing so or not, looked like an even bigger Jerkass who alienated the others against her and even the "good" female detectives turned on her for making them look bad. Even worse, this ended up being one of the seasons' main storylines.
  • Awesome Ego: Frank Pembleton. He has a truly massive ego, but the fact he can back it up and Andre Braugher's tour de force performance instantly made him a fan-favorite.
  • Awesome Music: Many examples. The soundtrack fits in the likes of Nine Inch Nails, Collective Soul, Tori Amos, Suzanne Vega and Jimi Hendrix and it is awesome.
  • Base-Breaking Character: Bolander. Either he's a great mentor figure to the detectives or an annoying sadsack who drags down every scene he's in. Most of this boils down to the large amount of focus on his personal life during the first two seasons, which most fans found boring, and he's generally regarded as the least interesting of the original cast.
  • Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The afterlife scene at the end of the movie.
  • Broken Aesop: Russert should probably quit dating Felton for a few reasons, but it's a bit weird of Kate to say neither of them should pursue the relationship because Felton's unstable wife won't find another partner.
  • Complete Monster: Crossover between Law & Order Episode & Homicide's' season 4's "For God and Country": Colonel Alexander Rausch is a former intelligence officer turned racist killer. He manipulates the recently-laid-off Brian Egan into setting off a gas bomb of silver arsenic on the New York Subway, killing 20 black people and injuring others. Several years earlier, he had Egan commit a similar attack on a Baltimore church, resulting in six fatalities, all black people. Once Egan is captured, Rausch kills Egan's wife to prevent him from talking, with Egan's teenage son surviving due to hiding. When captured, Rausch admits that his goal is to provoke a race war, claiming he wants "the mongrels to stop feeding on the hard work and good faith of the rest of us", and that when "you have a cancer, you cut it out".
  • Creator's Pet:
    • Falsone, who solved all of his cases (including one cold case), made up with his wife, and simultaneously successfully investigated every single aspect of Kellerman's Mahoney shooting without attracting any criticism outside of Kellerman. He was brought closer to Earth in Season 7.
    • Ballard was a far worse offender, at least initially. The episode in which she first appeared had Giardello and all the members of the unit who didn't get transferred talking about how great a detective she was. The same three-parter had her moaning about how Pembleton doesn't seem to respect her and has Pembleton refuse to follow a completely obvious lead (instead following one that was completely out there) just so that she could look good. Fortunately she became increasingly side-lined (unfortunately in favour of Falsone). Unfortunately she never went away.
  • Designated Villain: Darrin Russom to an extent. He's an unpleasant and somewhat inept Smug Snake, but as a defense attorney his job is to defend his clients to the best of his ability and he frequently makes some very good points.
  • Diagnosed by the Audience:
    • Beth Felton is emotionally demanding, prone to mood swings and erratic behavior, and is violently paranoid of her husband cheating in her.
    • It's fairly easy to read Pembleton as autistic. He's finicky, anti-social, and takes great delight in verbally antagonizing people. All of this makes him very effective at his job, but not so much at socializing with his colleagues.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • Luther Mahoney remains one of the most memorable criminals from the show. Even though the majority of his appearances were flashbacks, he was quite the Magnificent Bastard and Erik Dellums is still complimented on his role to this day.
    • Recurring character Dr. Scheiner is quite popular for being a humorously eccentric Grumpy Old Man.
    • Gordon Pratt is one of the more popular antagonists in a Love to Hate sense. Being played by Steve Buscemi doesn't hurt either.
    • Robert Ellison from "Bop Gun" is one of the most popular One Shot Characters, thanks to Robin Williams's genuinely heartbreaking and against type performance. He even earned an Emmy nomination for his performance.
    • John Lange from "Subway" is popular as well, thanks to being a well-written Jerkass Woobie and Vincent D'Onofrio's excellent performance.
  • Evil Is Cool: Most of the villains tend to be too pathetic to fall into this, but Luther Mahoney embodies this trope. He's certainly evil, but he's so effortlessly smooth and cunning it's hard not to admire him.
  • Fair for Its Day: The portrayal of BDSM culture in "A Many Splendored Thing" is quite inaccurate, but it’s also portrayed as being harmless, and both Bayliss and the Villain of the Week's condemnations of it are used to paint them as intolerant and close-minded.
  • Fanon Discontinuity: To the majority of fans, season 7 (and by extension, the conclusion movie) didn't happen, citing fan favorite Pembleton's departure, more convoluted and unresolved storylines and the unpopular additions of Mike Giardello and Rene Sheppard.
  • Growing the Beard:
    • While the show starts off as great, it takes a bit to settle into its groove. For the first few episodes, the writers are clearly still figuring out how to write some of the characters and some of the plots were often overly whimsical and contrasted with the show's realistic and gritty setting. The show really starts getting good with "Three Men and Adena", which is widely regarded as one of the best episodes of television ever, brings Bayliss and Pembleton together as partners and sets up one of the best dynamics in the show, and firmly establishing Homicide as a realistic, deconstructive take on the Police Procedural where the cops were flawed and criminals could easily get away if the detectives didn't play their cards right.
    • Season 3 grows the beard again. While it does suffer a serious loss from Crosetti's absence, the season benefits from ending the disliked focus on Bolander's personal life, bringing more character depth to the detectives, making Bayliss into a more likable character, and bringing the series's social commentary into sharp focus.
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • In "A Many Splendored Thing" Adrienne Shelly plays the friend of a murder victim who thanks Bayliss and says she is happy to know that if she is murdered, Bayliss will avenge her. In 2006, she was murdered in a robbery of her NYC office.
    • "Black and Blue", where a black man is (probably) shot by a cop, is not a comfortable episode. But Giardello's insistence that cops stick together and get the benefit of the doubt, born from his being a patrolman during riots in the 1960s, is harsher in the light of Ferguson and the other police killings of late 2014.
    • "Bop Gun" has Robin Williams as the husband of the murder victim assure detectives that he's not going to kill himself. Williams ended up taking his own life in 2014.
    • Pembleton is hardly ever seen without a cigarette in his hand or mouth. Andre Braugher died of lung cancer in 2023 aged only 61.
  • He Really Can Act: Robin Williams' brilliant dramatic turn as a grieving father in "Bop Gun".
  • Ho Yay: Bayliss and Pembleton.
    • To further complicate matters, in the series finale Bayliss admits that he 'loved' Frank but it's unclear in what sense i.e. romantically or like a brother.
    • Also, Munch and his season-long obsession with Stan "The Big Man" coming back.
  • Iron Woobie: Giardello. He's been absolutely broken by both the death of his wife and the traumatic things he's seen on the job and he constantly has to deal with petty and venal superiors who have absolutely no respect for him and stalled any opportunity he had for career advancement, but he never gives up and does his damnedest to do good police work and protect his detectives.
  • Jerkass Woobie:
    • Munch. An insufferable, sarcastic jerk he may be at times but so many bad things have happened to the guy (Being dumped by various women, being bullied in school, being clearly traumatized after seeing his friends shot, and feeling guilty over his abusive father's suicide) that you can't help but feel bad for him.
    • Pembleton could be a complete jerk but only a person with heart of stone couldn't feel sorry for him after his stroke. Pembleton's best resource was his mind, so his loss of cognitive function is tragic, added to which his wife just had a baby, making his inability to go and work as well as his need to be cared for by her even more tragic.
    • Felton, again a complete prick but given the way his crazy wife treated him you couldn't help feel sorry for him when he started drinking, turning up to work late (or not at all) and losing key pieces of evidence. And while you kind of agreed (Felton was nowhere near the best detective), Gee telling him that he wasn't good enough for the unit after he'd been shot must've hurt.
    • Bolander could be a cantankerous old man, especially in the way that he treated Munch. But you felt sorry for the way his wife left him, especially since they obviously still loved each and especially since Bolander finds it so difficult to try and rebuild his life outside of work after losing her.
    • Kellerman. His wife cheated on him. His partner (and supposed friend) won't open up to him. He's accused of taking bribes even though he didn't. He has an on-off relationship with Julianna Cox which basically ends because he's such a mess he can't explicate his feelings for her. He kills a bastard drug dealer pretty much in defence of his supposed partner/friend (how was it going to look if Mahoney revealed Lewis beat him up? Plus, he lowered his gun but he didn't drop it) and what does Lewis do in response? Turn his back on him. He eventually gets kicked off of the Police force for killing a total bastard, and everyone he worked with thinks he's trash.
    • Bayliss to an extent. He's much nicer than Pembleton, but he's still a deeply unstable Rabid Cop and an Innocent Bigot. He also had a horrifically abusive childhood, and goes through a Trauma Conga Line over the course of the series, making it hard not to feel sorry for him.
    • John Lange from "Subway". The man is an asshole, but he is horrifically mangled and slowly and painfully dies over the course of several hours, with only Pembleton for company, all for no reason.
    • Robert Ellison from "Bop Gun". He's grieving the recent murder of his wife, which results in him lashing out at the detectives and desperately trying to put on a show of protecting her now that she's dead, out of guilt that he was unable to do so while she was alive.
  • Love to Hate: Gordon Pratt is one of the most despicable villains in the show, but he's also one of the most popular thanks to his dynamic with Pembleton and Steve Buscemi's excellent performance.
  • Moral Event Horizon: An interesting example of this trope involves Kellerman. His point of no return does not seem to be the execution of Luther Mahoney, but rather a smaller, quieter scene in which he laughs at a young dead drug dealer on a crime scene, arriving as far as posing for a mock picture next to his corpse. From that point on, the writers portrayed him as increasingly bitter and unlikable - no longer an Anti-Hero, but simply a Jerkass.
    Det Ballard: We speak for the dead, remember?
    Det Kellerman: Screw the dead. What have their moldering asses ever done for me?
    • The latter scene was facilitated by the former, which was such a moral event horizon that Kellerman, who previously quit, started smoking again and descended into bitterness. He made a step toward redeeming himself during his guest appearance in season 7, however.
  • Narm: The scene between Lewis and Kellerman on the latter's houseboat in the "Have a Conscience" episode. Aside from failing to portray Kellerman as sympathetic and Lewis as genuinely concerned, it just looked like a poorly done version of the suicide scene from Scent of a Woman. Also, what was the point of Lewis' comment of him trying to stop it so that "no one else blames me again for my partner's suicide"? It made him look like a conceited jerkass who did it not out of concern for his partner, but for reasons involving self-preservation and narcissism.
  • Nightmare Fuel:
    • The episode "Subway." A man (portrayed by Vincent D'Onofrio) is shoved on a subway platform and is pinched at the waist between the platform and a subway train. We spend the rest of the episode with him as he's waiting around to die. He is lucid the entire time.
    • Pembleton in the season four finale "Work Related". Aside from showcasing how excellent an actor Andre Braugher is, it's very haunting, from the very realistic moment of his stroke happening to at the end of the episode, where we see the poor guy desperately screaming and pleading for help...while trapped inside of a coffin. This is made even scarier over the fact that, at the time, fans didn't know if he survived his ordeal. Even In-Universe, the suspect whom Frank was interviewing at the time of his stroke was positively freaked out by what he was witnessing (especially when Frank fell on him) and even later on was genuinely concerned about his condition.
    • Joseph Cardero walling himself off to die at the end of "Heartbeat".
  • One-Scene Wonder: The show features a lot of memorable characters played by great actors who pop up for only one or two scenes.
    • Steve Harris appears for two scenes in the pilot as a murderer who comes up with an obviously false alibi that Munch automatically sees through, and then somehow comes up with an even more blatant lie when Munch interrogates him again.
    • Gwen Verdon turns in a darkly comedic performance as an elderly woman who killed her abusive husband in "Ghost of a Chance" that netted her an Emmy nomination, which is all the more impressive since she only appears in three scenes.
    • Luis Guzman as an eccentric cabinetmaker in "Son of a Gun". He's only around for one scene and kills himself shortly thereafter, but he makes a pretty good impression in his screentime.
    • While she's The Ghost for most of her storyline, Calpurnia Church finally appears in person in "Son of a Gun" for a single scene. Mary Jefferson turns in a performance that's both vulnerable and creepy at the same time, nailing her performance as the frail old serial killer.
    • Paul Schulze turns up in the same episode as a creepily amiable and icy "agent for hitmen".
    • Dan Moran turns in a memorably eccentric performance as a fundamentalist abusive father in "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes".
    • Lloyd Goodman only turns up in two scenes in "Bop Gun" as a regretful murderer, but they're some of the biggest Tearjerkers in the entire show.
    • Both of John Waters's cameos were quite well-liked and memorable.
  • Poor Man's Substitute: The writers seemingly wanted to set-up Gharty as Bolander's poor man's substitute, even being lampshaded by Munch. However, while both are older, overweight, and conservative, Gharty doesn't have Bolander's charm or ability to stand up for himself.
  • Replacement Scrappy:
    • Ballard, Sheppard, the younger Giardello, Falsone. Any character introduced after S5.
    • Season 7's line-up is this particularly because of Pembleton's departure. While Giardello Jr is a decent character (albeit underdeveloped), he is no replacement for Frank Pembleton. Notably for the trope, he wasn’t by the fan base and regarded as the best of the S7 additions, just as no substitute for the show's Breakout Character.
  • Retroactive Recognition:
    • Andre Braugher as Frank Pembleton.
    • Reed Diamond as Mike Kellerman.
    • Michelle Forbes as Julianna Cox.
    • Callie Thorne as Laura Ballard.
    • Giancarlo Esposito as Mike Giardello.
    • Željko Ivanek had a recurring role as ASA Ed Danvers.
    • Michael Michele (Rene Sheppard) is also best known for playing Nikki Sheridan on Central Park West and Cleo Finch on ER.
    • Lee Tergesen had a recurring role as Officer Chris Thormann, a uniformed police officer and friend of Crosetti who is blinded after being shot by a suspect..
    • Edie Falco as Eva Thormann, the wife of Chris Thormann
    • Julianna Margulies as the waitress and violinist Linda, whom Bolander briefly dates in the second season.
    • Mekhi Phifer also had a recurring role as Junior Bunk.
    • Matt Reeves directed an episode.
    • In addition to his work on Homicide: Life on the Street, Paul Attanasio is best known as co-creator and co-executive producer of Bull.
    • David Simon wrote the book this series was based on and served as producer.
    • Tom Fontana wrote 67 episodes and served as executive producer.
    • Henry Bromell wrote 25 episodes and served as consulting producer, co-executive producer, and executive producer. Bromell is best known as co-creator and co-executive producer of Falling Water.
    • Eric Overmyer wrote 11 episodes and served as consulting producer, producer, and supervising producer. Overmyer is best known as developer and executive producer of Bosch and for co-creating Treme.
    • Kevin Arkadie wrote an episode. Arkadie is best known as co-creator and producer of New York Undercover.
    • Steve Harris plays a suspect in "Gone for Goode" who spins a blatantly false alibi that sets Munch off on his Montel Williams rant.
    • Lawrence Gilliard Jr. as a suspect in "A Dog and Pony Show".
    • Bai Ling as a Chinese student (who might be a Chinese government assassin) in "And the Rockets' Dead Glare".
    • A young Jake Gyllenhaal plays Robert Ellison's son in "Bop Gun".
    • Isaiah Washington as an (innocent) murder suspect in "Black and Blue".
    • Lauren Tom as Emma Zoole, Bayliss's death-obsessed girlfriend (briefly) in the third season.
    • Dean Winters as killer Tom Morans, who appears in "Nothing Personal", "Hate Crimes" and "Prison Riot".
    • Stephanie Romanov, later better known as recurring villain Lilah Morgan in Angel, appears in "Fire" as Mike Kellerman's ex-wife Anne Kennedy, a police forensic scientist.
    • Kate Walsh and Jim True-Frost as the married couple whose home the squad take over to surveille a suspect's house in "Stakeout".
    • Elijah Wood as an upper-class teenage psychopath in "The True Test".
    • A young Rhea Seehorn plays an eyewitness in "All is Bright". The episode was also directed by a young Matt Reeves.
    • Michael Peña as a Guatemalan murder suspect in "Something Sacred".
    • Steve Burns is the perp in "Full Court Press", aired just a few years into his stint on Blue's Clues.
    • Christopher Meloni as bounty hunter Dennis Knoll in "Wanted: Dead or Alive".
    • Jena Malone as the killer in "Kellerman, PI".
    • Amy Ryan as the sister of a possible murder victim in "A Case of Do or Die".
  • The Scrappy:
    • Falsone was so loathed by some fans that one of the first television hatedom websites was created in his honour. When his actor, Jon Seda, returned to the Law & Order franchise years later, he played a completely different character, no doubt to avoid any connections.
    • Ballard as well for being painted as irritatingly perfect, receiving too much screentime and allowing several other characters to be marginalized in favor of her, and directly replacing the much more popular and more "realistic" female character Howard.
    • The fact that Sheppard was almost universally referred to by fans as "Sheepdog" shows that she qualifies for this too — without being competent enough to be a Creator's Pet.
    • Gharty wasn't liked in-universe by virtually anyone due to his cowardice and implied racism and to fans was best remembered as a bland version of Bolander.
  • Seasonal Rot: The series took a dive in season six, which saw Howard and Brodie be Put on a Bus and began focusing on the newly introduced Falsone and Ballard in favor of the other, pre-established and already beloved characters, even the show's Breakout Character Pembleton. Season 7 suffered again from the loss of Pembleton; the show tried to replace him with both Falsone and the newly introduced Mike Giardello; Falsone had become widely despised by fans, while Mike Giardello was not particularly hated but regarded as an inferior replacement. Season seven also saw the show turning into a Law & Order clone, and while it had a few good episodes, couldn't recapture the quality of previous seasons.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Crosetti is one of the show's most interesting and beloved characters; he was a great Plucky Comic Relief who added levity to whatever scene he was in, but still had a lot of depth and pathos to his character and his character arc in Season 1 is regarded as a series highlight. However, he was Out of Focus in Season 2 due to the extremely shortened episode count, and written out via suicide in Season 3 due to Jon Polito's firing.
  • Unintentional Period Piece: The show was produced when smoking was still widely acceptable and indoor smoking bans were exceedingly rare. It is very noticable nowadays how many of the regular and guest characters are seen smoking. In fact, Gee rails about how unfair it would be to the smokers on the squad when Bayliss and Howard (who are trying to quit) ask him to ban smoking in the squad room.
    • The reliance on landlines and payphone can throw younger generations off.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
    • Bayliss' character switch towards the end of season five when he ended his partnership with Pembleton and became an Iron Woobie and a Determinator and stopped allowing the other detectives, especially his former partner, to walk all over him. The writers, for some reason or another, didn't like this and turned him back into the regular woobie that the audiences saw earlier.
    • Ned Beatty's leaving meant they couldn't do more with his adjusting to being back at work after being shot. The best they could do was imply that it changed him, as Bolander would never have previously done what he did to get himself suspended.
    • "In Search of Crimes Past" initially revolves around a woman taking Barnfather hostage in an attempt to stop her father's execution. The plot has a lot of potential to be extremely tense and suspenseful, but it's resolved halfway through the episode when her father is found innocent.
  • Values Resonance:
    • The frequent focus on police brutality and corruption throughout the series has become much more relevant as instances of this have become more publicized in the 2010s and 2020s.
    • Tim Bayliss' Coming-Out Story as bisexual was rare when the series first began, and the sensitive and realistic way his discovery was portrayed was unheard of at the time. And its significance is even greater in current times, when more and more people in Real Life are coming out.
  • The Woobie:
    • Bayliss. After surviving an abusive childhood, he becomes a cop and joins homicide, only for everyone to treat him like shit because of his lack of experience from investigation. Then his first case is a murdered eleven-year-old girl which becomes high profile very quickly. The case is fucked from the get go with the scene contaminated, the lack of evidence and the superior detectives moving the body too soon, all of which he is blamed for. The case remains open and Bayliss is forever haunted. His partner Pembleton, whom he seems to idolise, is an arrogant, abrasive and harshly moralistic man who sees offering or needing emotional support or compassion as a weakness. He has a series of brief and unhappy relationships with women who were just looking for casual sex, and coming out as bisexual doesn't seem to improve his love life either. After Pembleton has a stroke, he starts treating Bayliss slightly better, until Bayliss is shot which convinces Pembleton to retire. While recovering from being shot, he embraces Buddhism, but his new faith is rapidly broken down by a series of unpleasant cases, including one in which his main Buddhist teacher was murdered, and turned out to have been sexually exploiting female devotees; Bayliss was forced to shoot and kill the man's killer in self-defence, which left him traumatised and doubting his own morality. In the finale, a vicious killer from an earlier episode walks free due to a prosecutorial error, and taunts Bayliss with his intention to kill again. Bayliss murders the man and is driven insane by guilt, the ending of the reunion movie implies that he may commit suicide.
    • Lewis was left traumatized by his partners suicide.
    • Felton's unstable wife took his kids.
    • Bolander is divorced with no children and is starting to realize just how much He regrets His path in life,
    • Kellerman was forced to endure the humiliation of a corruption accusation with no one believing His innocence or willing to help Him which nearly drove him to suicide
    • Munch has three ex-wives, no luck in work or relationships, a partner who openly hates him and ignores him after he leaves and having to watch three of his fellow detectives get shot. He was miserable in high school, loved a girl who didn't love him and who later turned up murdered, and his father killed himself.
    • While never specified, Crosetti was so unhappy he was Driven to Suicide.
  • WTH, Costuming Department?: Gee's very bad, very obvious toupee seen in season three. This could double as Narm.

Top