Blowing up the cop show model

An ode to Andre Braugher and Homicide: Life on the Streets

“You go when you're supposed to go and everything else is homicide.”

Those are the first words you hear before the theme of one of my favorite TV dramas plays: Homicide: Life on the Streets plays.

Its lead, Andre Braugher, died a few weeks ago after a brief illness.

He won a Best Actor Emmy for his portrayal of Detective Frank Pembleton.

“Finding love is like solving the perfect crime,” said Pembleton this partner Detective Tim Bayliss. “You look at every shred of evidence, you talk to every witness, follow every lead, but more often than not, what wins in the end is just pure, dumb luck. And you, my friend, you're just not lucky.”

Homicide is largely memory-holed in the streaming era due to music rights issues. It's the older sibling of another favorite of mine, the more acclaimed The Wire. Both are based in Baltimore. Both are centered on cops. Both were novel for their times. Both from the brain and experiences of David Simon, a Baltimore newspaper reporter turned television writer.

Simon's book Homicide Life on the Killing Streets was based on embedding himself in a Baltimore homicide unit for a year.

During that stint, Simon met the detective whom Braugher's character was based.

In a 2015 interview, Simon credits executive producer Tom Fontana for creating the template for the show and teaching Simon television.

Gail called me and said, do you want to try to write the pilot? And I said to her, do you take me for a fool? I mean, you know, here's a chance. There's a chance. Like I looked at the structure and like the longer the show went, the more money I got in checks. So I said, get somebody who knows what they're doing. I said, but later on, if you know, once you have a template, I'll try my hand at one. And that's how myself and David Mills started with you. And, uh, and so that was, I mean, I didn't really go full, full in. I was not in his employ until season four and the show was already an established fact. And it really was Tom's template. It was, it was, you know, Tom and Barry took a book that if you made that book into a television show, it would not have been. - David Simon

Fontana says his goal was to blow up the model of the cop show.

We weren't trying to create some phenomenon. We were just trying to go, let's just not fall into the you know, the patterns that we've seen over the decades. Because the cop show and the doctor show, and I had done St. Elsewhere, they're the two basic kinds of shows, drama series on television. And if you're going to try to do them, you really have to sort of blow them up. in order to do them, I think, for a new audience. Because with YouTube and everything, you can watch practically everything that's ever been on. So, you know, we all have to be cleverer. - Tom Fontana

No character on the show represents that more than Andre Braugher’s Frank Pembleton. A black, geeky, insular, eccentric, Latin-speaking, Jesuit-educated gentleman scholar. with a talent for solving murders that his colleagues call legendary.

Frank Pembleton: Let me get this straight. You're telling me about my wife? Is that it? Mary's gone. Livvy's gone. I'm alone here in this empty house. What am I supposed to do? Spend the rest of my life waiting for my family to come back?

Tim Bayliss: Come on, Frank. Frank?

Frank Pembleton: Who is that? Who exactly is this Frank Pembleton? I used to be so sure. I used to be your partner. That was the good old days. I used to be Mary's husband, Livvy's father. I'm still Livvy's father. But sitting here right now, I'm none of those things.

Tim Bayliss: You've got your job. Being a homicide detective, that's who you are, Frank. You take some peace in that.

Known for his interrogation skills, Pembleton simmered bubbling beneath his pressed dress shirts and suspenders until he popped in interrogation scenes.

You are a citizen of a free nation. Having lived your adult life in a land of guaranteed civil liberties, you commit a crime of violence, whereupon you are jacked up, dragged down to police headquarters, and deposited in a claustrophobic anti-room containing three chairs, a table, and cold brick walls. Have a seat, please.

And there you sit for a half hour or more until a homicide detective, a man who can in no way be mistaken for a friend, enters the room. He offers you a cigarette.

Not your brand? And begins an uninterrupted monologue which wanders back and forth for a half hour or so, eventually coming to rest in a familiar place. You have the right to remain silent. - Frank Pembleton

What made Homicide different from most cop shows is how it leaned into ambiguity. Pembleton and his colleagues weren't clean. Their redemptions were not guaranteed. Their reality was foggy and that was as much part of the job as putting guilty parties behind bars. These flawed actors did the best they could with the time they had and often lost.

“I used to believe in my instincts that as a detective I was infallible,” said Pembleton. ”I don't even believe that anymore.”

Due largely to its atypical nature in its tough 10 p.m. Friday time slot, Homicide struggled, barely surviving for seven seasons. Or as I see it, Homicide crawled so the wire could walk.

What do you think?

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