By Marilyn Ferdinand
As soon as the opening theme of electronica and crackling police radio intones and a kinetic roll of street scenes, abstract streaks, and cast member faces appearing and disappearing like fortunes in a magic eight ball hit the screen, it’s clear that Homicide: Life on the Street is no ordinary cop show.
Homicide defied expectations. A police drama with very little action and an unabashedly majority African-American cast, it was always a ratings trailer perpetually in danger of cancellation. However, by eschewing convention and dealing in a mature way with such issues as suicide, faith, homosexual awakening, friendship, and corruption, it became a critical darling and a multiple award winner, including three Emmys, three Peabodies, and six Television Critics Association awards. It was a prestige-builder for its network, NBC, and it attracted some major stars for guest shots, including Steve Buscemi, Edie Falco, Paul Giamatti, James Earl Jones, Lily Tomlin, and Alfre Woodard.
The landmark series was based on the nonfiction book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon, who spent a year following the Baltimore Police Department homicide unit. Its creator was Paul Attanasio, a gifted screenwriter (Quiz Show, Donnie Brasco) and producer (Gideon’s Crossing, House, both TV series). Its intensity and soulfulness, however, belonged to its writers and its actors.
The core group at the start of the show comprised the squad leader, Lt. Al “Gee” Giardello (Yaphet Kotto), a very black half-Italian man with a gusto for life, lone female Det. Kay Howard (Melissa Leo) and her footloose partner Det. Beau Felton (Daniel Baldwin), commonsense Det. Meldrick Lewis (Clark Johnson) and his slightly sad partner Det. Steve Crosetti (Jon Polito), and vulnerable, newly divorced Det. Stanley Bolander (Ned Beatty) and hardline conspiracy theorist Det. John Munch (Richard Belzer), a character so good that Belzer only just retired him last year after his long run on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.
At the heart of the show were two characters who performed a duet with each other and the suspects they interrogated that gave Homicide the nail-biting edge that guns and chase scenes provide (rather poorly, in my opinion) to other shows. Det. Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher) was a cop version of a buppie—well-dressed in his button-down shirts, Catholic and married, cocksure, with the highest clear rate in the squad and the higher-ups looking to move him into their world. After the first few episodes, he partners with Det. Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor), the rookie homicide cop with an academy textbook always at the ready who is so low on the totem pole that he doesn’t even rate a desk when he transfers to his dream job in the homicide unit. Something magical happens when they get a suspect in the piss-yellow-tile interrogation room (“the box”) and start to probe, looking for the soft spot they can plunge their thumb into and dig around for the truth.
The first time we get to see them work the box is when Bayliss catches his first case as the primary investigator—the murder of young Adena Watson. The partners begin a memorable interrogation of the “arabber,” a produce vendor whose horse Adena liked to tend. The cat-and-mouse, exhausting questioning goes all night, with the superb Moses Gunn finally breaking down and admitting that he was in love with Adena. But still, no confession. Her name remains in red under Bayliss’ name on the dry-erase board staring down at him like an accusation. The unsolved case will haunt him for the rest of the series.
In a series full of memorable stories and character arcs, I’ll focus on just a couple. Perhaps the most famous episode, “The Subway,” from season 6, won a Peabody and changed the habits of many of the subway commuters who saw it. Written by ace teleplay writer James Yoshimura after he saw an episode of “Taxicab Confessions” on HBO that talked about a similar murder, it shows guest star Vincent D’Onofrio, in his first television appearance, as a commuter who is pushed onto the tracks and caught between a train and the platform of a Baltimore MTA station. D’Onofrio’s character, John Lange, will die once he is freed—his body has been twisted like a towel, a graphic visual we are not spared—but Bayliss and Pembleton have the rare and rather unpleasant opportunity to question a murder victim and solve the case. This episode formed the basis for Homicide: Life on the Street, The Documentary (1997), a penetrating look at the making of this episode by Academy Award-winning documentarian Barbara Kopple.
Another memorable episode, from season 3, was “Crosetti,” penned by Yoshimura and Tom Fontana. Jon Polito had been let go from the series—a shame, but also an opportunity to examine the issue of police suicide. Crosetti’s drowned body is found by the Coast Guard. Bolander and Munch are called in, but Lewis doesn’t believe Munch’s pronouncement of suicide. He is allowed to investigate on his own time as the whole squad processes this sudden death. Johnson is superb as he registers quietly the shame and guilt he feels because he hadn’t realized Crosetti was in such pain.
Over the course of the series, some characters left and others took their place. Isabella Hoffman, Callie Thorne, Toni Lewis, and Michelle Forbes came in at various points in the series to ensure there was always a female presence on the unit; in fact, Hoffman as Megan Russert was not only a shift commander, but also carrying on an affair with the married Felton. Jon Seda was a welcome addition to the regulars as Det. Paul Falsone, a Latino who was both a compassionate family man and a dogged investigator. The show also was enlivened by the recurring appearance of Zeljko Ivanek as Assistant State’s Attorney Ed Danvers, who was, for a time, Kay Howard’s boyfriend.
Homicide finally lost its battle to stay on the air, but it lives on DVD and in the hearts of those of us who think it was the best show on TV.
