MetaChat - Who's your favorite Homicide cop?

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18 June 2007

Who's your favorite Homicide cop? Bolander is excluded, because, you know, anyone with any sense will always choose Ned Beatty when given the choice.→[More:]

This is harder than you might think. Pembleton is great, but do you go for pre- or post-stroke, and isn't he just a bit of an asshole?

Bayliss seems like an obvious choice, kind of the every-viewer of the show, but in that respect, maybe not quite interesting enough.

Kay Howard? Awesome, but I find watching the later seasons that I don't miss her that much.

Munch? A great choice, quirky as all hell, really funny, his ex- on the show is Carole Kane, which is so awesome...plus he's still on tv.

I would have said, prior to re-watching some stuff this weekend, that Meldrick was nowhere near the running, but I take that back. He's interesting as hell as a character (what's with that hat?) and as an actor he's pretty impressive.

Still, when all is said and done, I've got to go with that mountain of a black Sicilian, Lt. Giardello. I hope that choice isn't too safe, 'cause it's the one I've gotta make.

post by: omiewise at: 08:18 | 24 comments

Crosetti. Hands down. The Lincoln assassination.

≡ Click to see image ≡

Even better than that squealer Beatty.

posted by Hugh Janus 18 June | 08:23

What about Felton?

I was always a Meldrick man, myself, and I think he was the 'everyman,' character far more than the tortured soul Bayliss, since as a detetive (and often as a human being) Meldrick was something of a well-meaning bumbler, which many of us can relate to, I think.

And I always have a soft spot for Steve Crosetti, especially because of the scene where he half strips to show Giardello his bullet scars. It's a great reminder that sometimes heroes are short pudgy bald guys in cheap suits.

posted by jonmc 18 June | 08:24

Ah, shit, I was gonna exclude Crosetti too. One of the great tragedies of TV is that he was on the show for so short a time. I've been trying to figure out why? Why did he leave? Anyone know?

posted by omiewise 18 June | 08:24

I think we can definitely agree to exclude the latter-day additions of Falsone, Ballard and Gharty. Although God knows Ballard was easy on the eyes. Then again so was Kay Howard.

posted by jonmc 18 June | 08:30

He left because at the time he left, the show was too good for TV, and acted like it, killing off beloved characters to keep the world they created real and consistent. Once they got rid of him, the show became more like TV, keeping characters past their pull dates and leaving actors nothing to develop into (I guess you could say that's more like real life, with the thrill of a new mission being bludgeoned by the reality of the work, rendering a police a bitter and bored shell): not fair to the TV audience, though, to show Pembleton and Giardello, the most dynamic actors in the mix, boxed in by increasingly lazy writing and relatively unimaginative character development.

I should say, though even at the show's end, it was still head and shoulders above the rest of TV; however, in the beginning, it was like a great movie that promised never to end.

posted by Hugh Janus 18 June | 08:35

That last sentence sucks. Pretend someone else wrote it, someone who makes sense, someone with an inkling of where to put commas.

posted by Hugh Janus 18 June | 08:36

I was always a Bayliss woman.

posted by essexjan 18 June | 08:43

A little sleuthing would probably tell us Crosetti got big film offers from the Coen brothers around the time he left, I bet. That dude's been in some great flicks, including my favorite character ever in a Coen movie, Johnny Caspar in Miller's Crossing.

Actually, now that I look, he wasn't in much in '94, just The Hudsucker Proxy and The Crow and, damn, Jon Polito gets a lot of work!

posted by Hugh Janus 18 June | 08:44

Lewis, but it was a tough choice.

posted by rainbaby 18 June | 09:12

I first thought that he must have left because he was getting really better offers, Hugh, but when I did the math it didn't really seem like it, Miller's Crossing aside. Maybe he just thought he was going to.

Jon, you've got a really good point about Meldrick as the everyman, but he's still more of a homicide police than Bayliss, in my opinion. That's what I was talking about.

posted by omiewise 18 June | 09:16

God damn it, is there no love for Pembleton in this house?

posted by trondant 18 June | 09:22

munch. definitely munch.

(i loved the scene from one of the law & order/homicide crossovers where it's revealed that lt. briscoe slept with munch's wife...)

posted by syntax 18 June | 09:23

Well, yeah, he's more of a natural cop, but in personality, Bayliss always seemed like the tortured sensitive soul, whereas Meldrick's more the shrugging 'that's the way it is,' type.

trondant: I like Pembleton's character and Braugher as an actor, but he's the ace, the superhero, so he's by neccessity somewhat mysterious and remote, I think.

posted by jonmc 18 June | 09:24

Hmmm. I only read the [more] after I posted that. 'Pon further reflection, I offer the Pembleton/Bayliss dyad as the heart of the show - it's where big, big moral questions got wrestled with. I love Meldrick, but he's a dirty cop in my book (re: Luther Mahony, etc.)

And getting back to the [more], yeah post-stroke Pembleton. It's like watching Superman cope with kryptonite exposure.

posted by trondant 18 June | 09:30

but he's a dirty cop in my book (re: Luther Mahony, etc.)

I always found the fact that they got moralistic about Luther's shooting to be symptomatic of the downfall of the show. Legalities aside (this is television, not the real world), Luther was basically getting his comeuppance. And the whole Georgia Rae story arc was silly.

posted by jonmc 18 June | 09:34

Luther was basically getting his comeuppance.

To clarify: I'm not saying that in the real world, cops should run around shooting people indiscriminately. I'm saying that in dramatic terms the only satisfactory ending was for Luther to die. The fact that they decided to get preachy about it was disappointing.

I also wish they had done more with Stivers. I liked her character, she was nice to look at and I liked the chemistry between her and Meldrick.

posted by jonmc 18 June | 09:39

Crosseti's death borrows heavily from the book the show was based on.

Coming up, Pembleton was my hero. I'm not so sure anymore.

posted by drezdn 18 June | 09:49

Working that job and coming out as pure as the driven snow would be damned near impossible (at least as it was portrayed on the teevee. It's been a long time since I've watched it, but if you're thinking I don't hold them to IRL standards, you'd be correct.

posted by trondant 18 June | 09:50

I was watching Season Six this weekend (of course, here in Charm City, you can get them from the library), so I'm right in the heart of the Georgia Rae storyline. I hate that shitty, angry dipshit who shot Luther (I can't even remember his name, that's how much I dislike him), but I think of him as the really dirty cop. I'm not sure I would consider Meldrick or Stivers in the same light. Accomplices after the fact, sure, but there is a difference and I think the show plays it up.

I disagree with you, jon, by the way, I think that in the world of Homicide, where cops are decent even if flawed, and where people care about justice and their jobs, they had to either not shoot Luther or make a big deal of it when it came. To me one of the main points of the show is that there is no comeuppance outside of the law. (I don't agree with this personally, but I think it's at the heart of the show.)

posted by omiewise 18 June | 09:51

Maybe. But it was difficult to stomach all the handwringing over a scumbag like Luther (who was not only a drug kingpin, but a multiple murderer), which in a way is the moral issue, that even scumbags don't deserve to be shot down like dogs. But, as a TV viewer I'd be lying if I said that as a viewer I didn't feel a certain satisfaction when he was killed.

The guy who shot Luther was named Kellerman, and in other episodes I liked his character, especially in 'Kaddish' where he provided us with the 'oy, vey I'm so meshuggenah I could plotz,' soundbite. But this is one that I occasionally use in MeFi arguments.

posted by jonmc 18 June | 10:04

and I should add the show admirably shredded pities of all kinds (see this scene) which made the the story arc odd to me.

posted by jonmc 18 June | 10:14

I love Pembleton pretty much unconditionally, never mind his flaws. And I'm with trondant; for me, the heart of the show was always the Pembleton-Bayliss dynamic, and the many ways that each of them changed the other over the course of years.

posted by kat allison 18 June | 10:23

Pembleton hands-down for me. Oh, how I miss that show!

posted by smich 18 June | 12:08

Do you think Bayliss is more of a dirty cop (for Ryland) than Lewis is (for Mahoney)?

Pembleton, Meldrick, and, of course, Gee are my favorites, I think.

I had a hard time finding a decent "ringing phone" ring tone for my cell phone. I ended up finding a recording of the Homicide phone (which was always a very distinctive ring in my mind) and using that. The only downside is that I'm always reaching for my phone when I watch the show...

posted by paulus andronicus 18 June | 12:38

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