Homicide 1x01-1x03

[oyceter]

I finally started to Netflix this after much pimping by rachelmanija and after being sick of constantly watching shows that seemed to think that POC either didn't exist, or existed only to support white characteres.

So far, I am really impressed.

The writing is smart and dense. I still don't know most of their names except for Bayliss, Pembleton and Munch (single syllable!), but I can already tell them apart and sort of figure out their basic personalities after just three episodes. I speak as someone who can read fifteen volumes of manga, look up, and then realize she has been mistaking one of the main characters for another the entire time.

It's a show that's been taking a lot of concentration, so far; everyone speaks quickly and in slang. There's not much of an attempt to ease the viewer in. You can tell that this department/team (?) has a history and a dynamic from the get go, which is really nice. We do get Tim Bayliss, freshly come from the mayor, to ease us in, but he really isn't the main character in these three episodes by any means.

Also, I just like that everyone feels like a normal person that I would know. There have been some flashy crimes, but by and large, even though this is the homicide department, you get the sense that these are people who clock in and clock out and try to do their best, but it's not glamorous like some other legal/cop/crime shows I've seen.

And! I feel like I have seen more black people in the past three hours of TV than I have for entire seasons on other shows! Intelligent portrayals too!

I really love that you can tell that the writers have been thinking about stereotypes of all kinds and how to subvert them. I would have yelled in delight just at Bayliss mistaking an Italian-looking guy for Gi---- (Italian name that I am afraid to google in case I get spoiled), only to find that it's a black man. Except that's just one moment out of so many great ones.

The team we're with isn't quite 50-50 POC-to-white, and there's only one woman, but instead of this feeling like the usual Jossian "Lalala we will pretend all people in the world are white males," it feels like the writers are making a commentary on the usual racial and gender breakdown of a police department. This is because they don't ignore the fact that some of the people are black or are women even as they don't make it the characters' sole issue: "This is the Token Black Guy. He will have Token Black Issues."

I particularly love what they're doing with Pembleton; it would be so easy to do the stupid "we must have a white male POV character!" with Bayliss, and they keep slippig out of that. Bayliss seems to be the most privileged one there, and he is reminded of it time and time again. And so far, his relationship with the rest of the team skirts around the "we must bully the rookie" and "The new guy miraculously comes in and solves stuff" plotlines. But I was talking about Pembleton. I like the mentions that he is their best guy, I like his rant to someone whose name I forgot while looking for his car about being there and being resented. The other guy (who reads white to me) brushes it off, but that tension between being the best and the higher expectations that come from being black and being the best seem to inform everything Pembleton does without ever being the only thing about him.

I am particularly amazed by this; both the writers and the guy who plays Pembleton are doing a great job. Also, I love the little details -- how Pembleton is the one most formally dressed, probably because of aforementioned tension.

And all this in just three episodes!

There was an interesting side note on PC-ness and calling the Italian guy "salami" that I couldn't quite figure out; I wasn't sure if the writers were arguing that PC-ness was stupid or that the guy was wrong or both, as I was bitching at my short-row sock toe at that point.

And though they haven't been confronting gender issues as much, it's still there. Much like Pembleton, you sense that the female cop is completely aware of the fact that she's the only woman on the team and what that entails, even as that isn't all of her character. I'm particularly liking her relationship with her partner, who sometimes reads as skeevy but sometimes isn't, and the way a small storyline that could have been stupid "blah blah female intuition blah blah" played out.

Actually, I have been really enjoying how almost all the stories are playing out; they are intelligent and subvert tropes and expectations without rubbing the viewers' faces in it.

Anyway, now I am sad there were only 3 eps. on that disc, because I want to watch more. So far, this is very good, and I'm very impressed.

Comments

[heresluck]

I'm glad you're enjoying the show! I liked the same things about it that you do, but the show as a whole just sort of failed to ping for me, which was clearly related to genre. I still haven't had a chance to resume watching The Wire (most recent show by the same team), which I preferred for reasons I haven't entirely figured out (similar genre, but the way they handle the narratives is different in a way that worked better for me); maybe once my VividCon vids are done...

[oyceter]

Ooo, thank you for the link!

Also, I had no idea the same people did The Wire; I'm going to have to Netflix that too.

I am having an interesting time wrapping my brain around how H:LotS is doing narrative; it's very unstructured so far, and if I didn't read the episode summaries handily provided by the DVD menu, I would have absolutely no idea what was going on aside from the main murder case so far.

[fmanalyst.livejournal.com]

I'm delighted that you discovered this show! I watched it when it was airing on NBC and loved it. It was based on a book by David Simon documenting a year in the life of the Baltimore police department. Incidently, the lt. played by Yaphet Kotto is Al Giardello. I hope you rent the next disc soon because episode 5 is one of the best episodes of a television series I've ever seen.

[oyceter]

Yeah, Rachel mentioned the book! I am planning on looking it up now!

[ponygirl2000.livejournal.com]

I really must get the first season because my viewing was spotty when it was first on the air. But what a show! Frank Pembleton is one of the best tv characters ever (and there's no IMHO to that it should just be a fact). I'm looking forward to reading more of your thoughts as the series progresses.

[oyceter]

I love Pembleton so far! He is awesome, and so complicated already!

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm so glad you like it!

Oh, man, wait till you get to I think episode five, "Three Men and Adena." It's one of my favorite hours of TV ever.

The black-and-Sicilian guy is Al Giardello, but you can call him Gee.

Pembleton has some very interesting race-and-class issues, which come into play a fair amount. There's a terrific episode spotlighting those which involves a white supremacist played by Steve Buscemi, but I think that's not till season three. (But the first two seasons are short.)

Who everyone is

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Yeah, do not google this show. For your reference...

The woman detective is Kay Howard. Her partner, who can definitely be kind of skeevy, is Beau Felton.

The oldish, barrel-shaped white guy is Bolander aka "The Big Man." I think he's partnered with Munch at this point. (Some of the detectives switch partners at various points.)

The bald Italian guy is Crosetti. His partner, who is black and sometimes wears sharp hats, is Meldrick Lewis. Lewis grew on me slowly, but he ended up being one of my very favorite characters, so keep an eye on him.

One thing about Bayliss, in case you didn't catch it: he came from QRT, which is like the SWAT team, so he's a sharpshooter. This doesn't come up very often but it's important to know.

[oyceter]

Dude, I completely forgot to comment on all the class issues too! So complex! So awesome!

[veejane.livejournal.com]

Homicide succeeds dramatically in part because it is maniacally truthful to reality whenever possible. Like, they do come up with outlandish crimes -- especially in the middle seasons -- but the people and the demographics and the accents and the geography are absolutely right. In part because the people behind it are Baltimore all the way; in part because one of those people was a beat reporter.

I like to think of the show as a series of intimate dyads: the cops' job is to look into the ugly private details of a life (often details that turn out to be irrelevant to the crime); the cops look into each other's lives, sometimes way more than they'd rather (see Kay Howard and Beau Felton, rest of S1); the cops generate chemistry as partners (there's a reason they're called "Frankentim"); the cops generate that intimacy in the box that can be brotherly or parental or penitential or adversarial.

Also? Best guest star roster in the history of the galaxy. All the New York regulars you're used to seeing on Law & Order, but given meaty roles; plus quite a few visitors from Hollywood. I think the guest-star track record started because Barry Levinson called in favors from his friends; but as the show went along, it became clear that the scripts themselves were a huge draw, even though the show was never CSI-level exposure.

[oyceter]

I like to think of the show as a series of intimate dyads

Ooo, yes! I really liked the third episode (the heat wave and the candle) because it was just all the cops in the office talking amongst each other.

I will probably have to rely on everyone to tell me who the guest stars are, as I usually don't watch law procedurals.

Want more discs now...

[vonnie-k.livejournal.com]

H:LotS! YAAAAAAY! God, I loved that show.

Frank Pembleton is a *great* character. He's smart and complicated and difficult, and the partnership that develops betweeen Pembleton and Bayliss over the years is a thing of beauty.

As several people already mentioned, the show is based on the book written by David Simon, who spent a year in the Baltimore police department. Many of the characters are based on real detectives on the division, which is one of the many things that contributed to how authentic the characters come across. If I recall, the lieutenant Gee is based on was Italian and white, but they cast Yaphet Kotto in the role anyway because he was so good. Did you catch that rather supercilious-looking black superior officer who was giving Giardello a hard time about Pembleton being a rookie? That's Captain Barnfather. He's a recurring character you'll see, and he's smart and ambitious and more of a politician than a cop, and you get to see him and Giardello and Pembleton in the same room arguing, and it's three intelligent black men butting heads about things that do not appear to be immediately race-related, but the issue of the race is there in the background *all the time* and the show doesn't let us forget it. I love that.

The whole "salami" thing was played for laughs, with Lewis (the lighter-skinned black cop) riling Crosetti up (the bald Italian cop obsessed with the Lincoln assassination.) It came across as something that could easily happen in a real police squad -- cops making fun of one other and being non-PC, but I thought there was a difference between how Lewis treated Crosetti (with exasperated affection) and how Felton treated Pembleton (with resentment) and Felton's attitude had an ugly racist tinge to it. It's a class thing, too. Pembleton is clearly better-educated than Felton, who's not a bad cop, but he comes from a working class Irish-American family with lots of siblings and a brood of children of his own and the dude's got an inferiority complex. It's nicely complex.

Kay Howard = awesome. I love her.

I'm so happy you're enjoying the show!

[oyceter]

I saw Barnfather! I love that there are more than one POC in higher-level positions!

Rachel had mentioned the casting thing with Gee, which was nifty when she described it and even more awesome the way it played out on screen.

Howard has been very cool so far.

Also... Pembleton love!

[rilina.livejournal.com]

I really liked this show, though I didn't get more than a few episodes into S1. I'll have to pick it up again at some point!

[oyceter]

Yay!

I've been really enjoying it too and would love it if we were watching together, haha.

[kintail.livejournal.com]

I keep hearing about this and forgetting to look it up, until you reminded me just now, and woot! My local library system has it!

Now I just need to remember to request it in June, because right now I am swamped with spring cleaning in prep for a guest coming for the last week and a half of the month and I'll have no time for watching anything new till after.

[oyceter]

Yay!

It would be really cool watching this somewhat in conjunction with other people ^_^.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

IMDB has TV shows now, so might help provide spoiler-free name data. I see you've got no shortage of fandom enlightenment already, though.

Sock toe, eh?

[oyceter]

Yeah... I briefly checked, and then realized they have the dates the actors are on, and I don't even want to know if someone leaves the show or when right now.

Sock toe! I have, uh, given up on the Inside Out sock because it is a) boring and b) cables on the leg do not work with my leg. So now I've started Jaywalkers.

Sigh. I have knit about 8 or 9 toes and one heel, and I still have not completed a sock yet. But I am now fully confident that I can! The Jaywalkers are being knit toe-up, two at a time.

[minim_calibre]

Yay! I'm so glad you're watching Homicide. I love this show to pieces (I should just give up and buy it at this point, even though I can only watch it in small doses on account of how damn real it feels). Especially Pembleton.

[oyceter]

Yay! I am somewhat amazed at how many people have seen this!

Pembleton is awesome.

[minnow1212.livejournal.com]

Kay Howard!

Frank Pembleton!

(Nothing of content: I just had to say that. *g*)

[oyceter]

Yay!

(wow, there are a lot of H:LotS fans in the woodwork!)

[tripoli8.livejournal.com]

Here via vonnie_k to jump in on the YAY HOMICIDE. I grew up on this show and it's still my very favorite, especially the first few seasons. Have fun!

[oyceter]

Hi! Yay!

Rachel has warned me that post-S5 gets worse (?), but she has also promised me an episode guide.

[umbo.livejournal.com]

Here via both Rachel and Vonnie to say Yay Homicide! Also, you may be interested in homicidereruns, where we watch a new episode every week and discuss it--you can go back and check out the discussions of the old eps, and feel free to comment even though we're up to season 4 now. Homicide and The Wire are really the best shows ever, especially in the way they remain true to the reality of Baltimore.

[oyceter]

Hi!

Oh, cool, thanks for the link! Do you know if the ep discussions have spoilers for future episodes as well?

[tatterpunk.livejournal.com]

being sick of constantly watching shows that seemed to think that POC either didn't exist, or existed only to support white characteres.

Have you seen Showtime's Dexter? I don't think it's on DVD yet (I watched mine on bootleg, yay for China!) but perhaps it's down-loadable.

It's not as good as Homicide, of course. (Very few things are.) It's much less "daily realism," which is one of the reasons I enjoy it (Police procedural shows that are A) realistically done and B) set close to home give me the full-body creeps, which is why I never finished Homicide and actually stopped watching older L&O reruns the summer I was in NYC.), but there is the sense that a foundation of truth was laid as thickly as possible to support the improbable premise. (It's about serial murderers and there is a fair amount of blood and implied gore, just to warn you.)

The result is interesting: the show is set in Miami, and the main character is on the local police force (as a blood analyst). He, his sister, and his girlfriend are white -- but the rest of the regular cast (other officers) are POC, and they make a point of having people speak Spanish (without subtitles!) fairly frequently. When you mentioned subverting stereotypes and having backgrounds and/or subplots unrelated to the main character I thought of this show.

[oyceter]

I haven't actually seen Dexter yet, though it's been recced by vonnie_k, which means I will probably watch it eventually. Such is the power of her pimpage ;).

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Mmmm, H:LotS.

The final tv movie? Did not exist, so far as I am concerned.

[oyceter]

Hee! Gotcha.

[nestra.livejournal.com]

Homicide! Tim Bayliss! Timmy! Frank! Frankentim!

The team we're with isn't quite 50-50 POC-to-white, and there's only one woman, but instead of this feeling like the usual Jossian "Lalala we will pretend all people in the world are white males," it feels like the writers are making a commentary on the usual racial and gender breakdown of a police department.

At the time that the book was written, I believe there was only one woman on the Baltimore homicide squad, so they're definitely going for a reflection of reality. And Kay's gender will definitely come into play. She's awesome.

[chicating.livejournal.com]

Kay Howard is my fucking hero. Women are still incredibly rare in homicide departments, despite TV trying to parity things up for dramatic purposes.

[cofax7]

Oh, H:LotS. Best cop show ever (that I know of). And Frank Pembleton was God's Favorite Cop. Andre Braugher can do no wrong in my book, and it's a federal crime that he isn't a household name. Also that the show rarely won any awards: the reasoning I usually heard was that it was because it was entirely produced in Baltimore, and the LA industry types couldn't be bothered with it.

It is so very Baltimore: I lived in Baltimore for season 4-6 (IIRC), and started watching it, and it was just so right. You could go to the Waterfront, and walk in front of the station (which was an old firehouse), and they shot the show in the neighborhoods, in bad locations. There's a true story that they were shooting a scene in a bad section of town, and a criminal was running from someone, and came running up and surrendered himself to two of the actors. *g*

And yeah, nobody on broadcast television has ever handled race issues the way H:LotS did. Damnit.

[oyceter]

Pembleton is awesome!

Also, that is so cool about the filming there and how real it feels! I am getting a little sick of all places looking and feeling like Vancouver ;).

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

as I was bitching at my short-row sock toe at that point.

I had to read that three times before I figured out what you were talking about. (:

Glad you're liking the show! I have occasionally wanted to see it, but I tend to avoid getting invested in super-realistic television; I prefer my TV to be escapist. Still, everyone says it's so amazing. ::on fence::

[chicating.livejournal.com]

I tell people that "A Many Splendored Thing" is my very favorite ep because it's a metaphor for my online experience, but Timmy in a leather coat doesn't hurt anything either.
Also, filled with much Wire love. Although I don't have quite the success pimping that one as people I know who are not writers tend to find it like watching grass grow, paint dry, snow melt.(I think it's fantastic when "nothing happens" but I love the whole "Simonverse" so very much.)