#H:lots

[thehappysorceress]

This is not ok.

[alikaheroes]

Where’s the Homicide: Life on the Street fandom? Fan since 2006 and now watching again since it’s on Peacock! The best show

Also if you like this you’re free to message me I need to fangirl over my latest hyperfixation

[willowmosby]

Seven Seasons & a Movie

I have now finished all 7 seasons and the Movie of Homicide: Life on the Streets. Well actually I finished it yesterday but I needed to process (ie Read as much fanfic as i could my hands on) but now I am ready to info dump, forcing all of you to hear my thoughts on a show that aired over 20 years ago in a similar way to my CSI Post.

The TLDR is Homicide is a really well built show that more people should watch. There are things that you don't agree with but it mostly feels like those things happen because its grounded in reality. Also i can't think of a procedural that does continuity as well as this one did.

Sorry that this is so goddam long & Spoilers incoming.

Lets talk seasons:

1 &2: they are short enough that they feel like one continuous season. the Adena Watson case starts as something for the show and the characters that, honestly, never goes away (I personally feel like the arabber did do it if your curious). I feel like these seasons are a masterclass in introducing characters and a formula. also name another show where a season one case is refenced every season including the end.

3: the 22 episodes season is were H:lots hits is real stride. Season 3 has some episodes that will live rent free in my head for ever. Crossetti, the last of the watermen, the city that bleeds arc those are the stories that I'm really going to remember.

4: The season of 2 part episodes, I think this is the season we really start to see a shift with the addition of Kellerman and the promotion of Howard and demotion of Russert the characters get to be put in new and unique postions.

5: While I would say season 3 has my individual favorite episodes I think 5 is the shows most compelling. Some people do bad things some people do good things. It was hard to watch some of those things but it never felt like the show was going to hard or jumping any sharks.

6: Don't getting me wrong their were some bangers, looking at you Subway and Finnegan's wake , but i did start feeling the weight of this show a bit more in this season. Some of the new characters don't work for me.

7: Some of the new characters still didn't work for me but some of them were a lot better. I feel like this was Bayliss season to win or lose and in a way that just makes sense for the series. I think that there are very few shows that can say they stuck the landing as well H:lots dose.

The movie: listen "avengers assemble" has nothing on the montage of the detectives getting the call that Gee's been shot. Some of this was probably because i knew this was the end of the line for the story but i genuinely was really moved by a lot of the movie. The Scene between Pembleton and Bayliss deserves every award possible.

The characters (kinda in order of how long they were on the show):

Steve Crosetti: I'm going to be honest besides his obsession with the Lincoln assassination the reason he is memorable is because Lewis remembers him. His death means something for everyone but I can't pretend like I remember a great deal about his life, which i suppose is a morbid point the show likes to make a fair amount

Rene Sheppard: At the other end of the only here for about a season, she is one of the better late season additions. I think they were trying something interesting with her to examine what it means to be a female detective in a male dominated squad. unfortunately i don't think the show had enough time to make a clear arc for her.

Michael Giardello: His relationship with his father was compelling and I never minded seeing him on my screen, but also i don't know he wasn't my favorite no real reason just didn't know him long enough.

J.H. Brodie: Fuck him, honestly. This is the clearest example of how I will forgive a character for anything except being annoying & without purpose.

Staurt Gharty: I really didn't understand the choice for him to come back after that one guest spot. I had moments were his presence meant that other character had some great development but i still don't like the guy.

Paul Falsone: Ehhh he had his moments I actually quite liked him when he was paired with Ballard and Stivers but I also i don't know i think its fair to say I have a bias for characters who are there for the long hall and he unfortunately doesn't benefit. The scene where he and Kellerman pulled their weapons on each other kinda ate though.

Laura Ballard: Kinda in the same boat as Falsone, I appreciated what they were going for and I definitely think there was a lot of good. I didn't like when they had her kinda go out with Bayliss but thats not really her fault you know. It was also interesting to hear an outside perspective of Baltimore.

Beau Felton: I love to hate this guy. I mean what a fucking mess (affectionate). He was never my favorite and he doesn't seem to be that great of a detective but you know I valued what he did on the show.

Stanley Bolander: What a guy, i mean he's just some dude. He and Much are hilarious. I don't know what else cause like he's just a very solid detective who is sometimes a bit annoying but in like a fun way.

Jullianna Cox: At the start there was a bit were i felt like she was only there cause they knew they needed more female characters but i do think they found a way to make her compelling. I mean she can be toxic as fuck, like she and Kellerman needed to attend AA soooooo badly, but i enjoyed having her on my screen.

Terri Stivers: Do I maybe have a weakness for Butch women? Yeah okay but shes just so cool and so good at her job and I love her okay. She's the only one that comes out of the Mahoney chaos with any sense of high ground and I love that for her.

Mike Kellerman: I mean this guy, this guy he feels like every time he tries to do something right he just diggs himself further and further away from what would actually help him. He is the example of how I should hate a character for everything they do but I just can't cause he's just so damm compelling. The scene where he tries to commit suicide, I don't know it really fucking got to me.

Megan Russert: I really love what she was able to do for the show. She was able to play equal to Giardello and she made her own path. She has also actually good a the political game, well mostly good at it. She had her own way of keeping people in line which I appreciated.

Kay Howard: You know this is my girl. You know it. I love her. I know she has her faults and her arrogance but I don't care i can forgive it all. I think she's a great detective and a great leader. I really felt the loss of her in last two seasons of the show. I wish I had something more intelligent to say or something to make it sound less like I am just a simp for her (which to be fair i kinda am but i do think there is more than that). There is a whole essay in my brain as to what Kay Howard means to me as a Queer woman, I mean I don't actually think she's a lesbian, but she's definitely got something LGBTQ+ going on.

Ed Danvers: Okay so technically he might be a reoccurring character but he deserved a mention. As an avid SVU watcher i enjoy a good ADA or in this case ASA. He really dose know when to deliver and he really urns the times when tells the detectives they don't have enough and the times he goes along with their longshots.

Frank Pembleton: There is a reason people think of him as the main character in an ensemble show and its well deserved. Get him in the box and this man shines. He isn't without his arrogance but he gets the job done every single time, even when maybe he should let sleeping dogs lie. He and Bayliss have one of those sexually charged relationships that just make TV work. also got to love a Guilty Catholic tm.

Al Giardello: Name a better leader i dare you. This guy cracks me up like he takes absolutely no shit from his detectives. I feel like there are some really shinning moments that get overshadowed by the flashier Pembleton and Bayliss. His talk with Megan about being a darked skinned black man and the episode where he kills a man are some of my personal favorites in the show. I almost cried when it was reveled he actually died in the movie.

Meldrick Lewis: He has some clear issues with women that I don't love but other than that he's really fun. He just seems like the kind of guy who just keeps going but he gets paired with partners who have some more serious issues. Again the Scene on Kellermans boat is a brilliant piece of acting. I know he was actively involved in some shady/ bad decision but I don't know I just don't blame him for it.

John Much: The reason Homicide was even on my Radar is because of his time on SVU and the man did not disappoint. I mean his conspiracies and crashouts are stuff of legend for good reason. I think the character is also really interesting as a lot of the harsher edges he has on Homicide get buffed out on SVU. I think if i actually met him in real life i would hate the guy but he's great TV. I also just have to take a moment for the scene in the sniper episode where he has an absolute crashout over the possibility of seeing Howard get shot again and Howard is just in the car going "what the fuck john". got to be a top ten moment of the show for me.

Tim Bayliss: I mean just has to be one of TV's greatest characters. He's haunted by a case he didn't solve. He had sex in a coffin. He's Bisexual, He's a Buddhist (?), He's a cop, He's a murderer, He's the new guy, He's the burn out. I could never wright fanfic for this show because there is no way I could do him right. He just so soft and kind but also so angry and harsh. I guess the implication is he commits suicide after the series but I think I want to live in the world where he just goes to jail.

Ships:

Note: I love shipping so I have to talk about it, but as the the low number of fic on Ao3 and lack of ship names implies i'm not sure if its a popular topic for this fandom so..... i guess what i'm saying is that these ships really are base off of my read of the show which i can't pretend is particularly impartial or astute.

Pembleton/ Bayliss: the best iteration of the partners in love bit can't/ won't get together. Like their are so many homoeotic moments but there are also plenty of moments where your just like these two men are so co-dependent and only one of them is aware of that. From blowing smoke in Bayliss's face, to " the sin is not your own", to "yeah i loved him" to " absolve me frank". I mean truly no one is doing it like them. 1000/10

Mary Pembleton/ Frank Pembleton: They are very lovely and I feel like i had to have a chance to mention how much I like Mary. I do feel like they work on their marriage in a way that isn't perfect but is more than most shows do. 10/10.

Russert/ Giardello: What? your saying you don't see it? It just they feel like they are so well matched and have great chemistry. not alot to say just that i think they would be good together. 9/10

Russert/ Felton: Girl you know you can do better. I feel like the sex was probably good though. 4/10.

Ballard/ Bayliss: Bad. I didn't like it for either of them. The writers were trying to work on some stuff and it didn't work. 0/10.

Cox/ Bayliss: Again not good, but at least everyone knew it wasn't good. 1/10.

Cox/ Kellerman: I mean its toxic as fuck, but i also kinda fuck with it. you know. 7/10.

Ballard/ Falsone: Okay they were just so sweet. I really thought they were fun. And i feel a bit bad saying this but i do think them being a couple made me enjoy them both a lot more then before they had a thing. 10/10.

Stivers/ Lewis: I fucked with it at the start, but then the show stopped pushing it for very good reason. Like they both had some bigger issues happening. 5/10.

Howard/ Munch: Okay this one is a little bit cause I read fanfic about them post series,and little bit cause I want my favorite characters to be happy. But Its mostly cause like i actually do see it. I genuinely think that out of all the detectives Howard worked best with Munch, they had a mutual respect and care that should be surprising but really works well and so yeah I ship it. I'm okay if others mark it down as a Brotp but I think it works romantically as well. 10/10.

Howard/ Danvers: Howard says he's great in bed and they stay friends after wards so you know can't be bad. 8/10.

Thanks you so much for reading if you made it this far. I'd love to hear other people's thoughts. I may be moving on to a new show, but I promise you tumblr i have some more H:lots content cooking cause I feel like there need to be more for such a good show!

[prairiedaun]

Got to admit, Evan Buckley coming out has had me thinking a lot about Tim Bayliss, and how it’s been 25 years.

[feuervogel]

It is very nearly officially way past my bedtime, but I have some larval thoughts I want to list here (because @bossymarmalade finally convinced me to watch Homicide: Life on the Street)

holy shit that's some textbook toxic masculinity on display

and internalized misogyny

yes of course ACAB (and like its millennial comedy nephew B99, they show bad cops and corruption, but there is far less antagonism with the lawyers)

Andre Braugher deserved so many awards and he is gone far too soon; if you only know him from "BOOOOOOONNNNNNE?????" you need to see him as Pembleton.

What I really wanted to comment on, though, and I don't have anywhere near the time or interest to do a whole real think on it, so I'm throwing it at tumblr and hoping, is this:

you can literally watch the real-time militarization of the police as the series progresses (seriously, compare the QRT in season 2 with season 5)

school shootings were extremely shocking in 1996/97 and the first 2 episodes of season 5 reflect what it was like to witness these things 30 years ago before we had one every week. Before schools did drills and there were planned responses

watch 5.01 and 5.02 and DON'T sit there like "yeah, right, no one would do that" because they don't do it now; we've become jaded; things were very different back then

on that note: everybody smoked all the time in the first 2 seasons ... until Maryland passed anti-smoking laws (I grew up in Maryland in the 80s and early 90s); enjoy all the issue of the week (tm) episodes, including the homophobia one and the Muslim Brotherhood one and the one where you learn the importance of wearing your seatbelt (not really joking)

ok and now it is officially way past my bedtime, so I will post this and see what happens

[munchkinkingdom]

Rest in peace, Richard Belzer

[inwantofamuse]

Had to reblog because this was so well said.

Truly complex characters are hard to find on TV/in movies. Homicide has many....but it could sort of be said it's Tim's story, or at least, his story as a homicide detective. I loved him from the first episode.

Kyle Secor mostly had to stand in Andre Braugher's shadow, much like Tim stood in Frank's. Kyle does not get enough credit. Such an underrated actor. Very good at opening up a character and showing the good, and bad, underneath, and making you root for, and love the whole person, flaws and all.

That quote is referencing his father...I think I have a thing for damaged characters with daddy issues lol. And my heart broke for him in that scene. What he revealed to Frank..and he had to get drunk to do it. *UGH*

Worth watching the series just for his character, honestly. No disrespect to all the rest of them, most of whom I also love.

Bayliss: For him, whatever was happening, it was like an inconvenience, see, I wasn’t real Frank, I wasn’t a real person. And he never saw me. He never really looked at me, ever.

.

TV Show Meme

5 Male Characters (1/5)

Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor) - Homicide: Life on the Street

.

Tim Bayliss, still the most rounded, complete character I’ve ever seen. Though he lopes into that squadroom full of fresh-faced rookie naivete, all that precious idealism is shaken out of him by the end of the first episode, and it is quickly evident that young Bayliss is carrying a hefty amount of emotional baggage around with him. This is not your standard-issue stoic manpain, to be revealed a few episodes in for easy sympathy points and an obvious story arc. It is instead - as with anything on this show - more devastatingly real, repressed, internalised, remaining unconfronted beneath the surface and infecting everything. Bayliss isn’t ready to drag that baggage into the light and start rummaging around, and even when he is, there’s nothing simple or painless about that process. He is a character who grows and changes in slow, organic, yet wholly unexpected ways. Each revelation comes as a surprise, while simultaneously we realise that the signs were there all along; we should have seen this coming. It’s all been there since the beginning, if only we were willing to recognise it. There is a tragic inevitability to it all, a harsh reality and a guilty sense of society’s collective failure.

That is not to suggest that Bayliss is nothing but six feet and five inches of dark secrets. He may be burdened by – and constantly reminded of – the past, but he is resolutely trying not to live in it; to strike forward, to hone his craft and live up to the standards of his fellow detectives, to be all he can be. The extent to which he is still a mystery to himself makes him in some ways his own worst enemy, and the hopes he clings to so tenaciously are chimerical concepts at best, a misguided American dream that life refuses to bear out. Bayliss is not a fool. He’s just trying to make sense out of chaos.

[nowherelaney]

I want to fold him up and carry him around in my pocket

[thehappysorceress]

10 Characters, 10 Fandoms

Aw, a floofy bat (adorable name!) tagged me, and well, I love doing stuff like this. Thanks!

And I agree that the tagging thing can feel/be weird, so I'll just leave this open to anyone else who wants to play.

Zatanna - DC Comics

Wynonna Earp - Wynonna Earp (duh)

Miss Marple - Agatha Christie (though I love Poirot)

Pamela Swynford De Beaufort - Southern Vampire Mysteries

Phryne Fisher - Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries

Frank Pembleton - Homicide: Life on the Street

Sophie Devereaux - Leverage

Batman - Batman: The Animated Series

Dutch - Killjoys

Captain Marvel -Marvel Comics

[inwantofamuse]

And the money stayed up on the pic for the rest of the series.

[alikaheroes]

H:LOTS ask: of the characters who left the show in the first five seasons, who would you have most liked to stay on?

Bolander. He was a good connection between the old generation and the current one and to see him change.

Beau would be second because I love the chaos he brought (and he was pretty to look at)

[willowmosby]

Nooooo not Steve from blues clues!

[allthingslawandorder]

Saddened to hear of the passing of #AndreBraugher. He was wonderful in everything he did, including H:LOTS and of course #SVU

[flags-planes-and-fire]

hi yeah the h:lots brainrot got to me

right so you know how Stanley is refered to as '(The) Big Man'

Big fellow/Big Fella was a nickname for....well the Big Fella.

Anyway, Devs' nickname was 'Long Fella'

John is often refered to as a 'Skinny bastard'

He's also taller than Stanley - as Dev was Mick.

Something something there's a joke in here somewhere something something im drunk and losing the plot

[rising-lights]

well I guess the old AU I was writing for H:LOTS back in the day has a soundtrack now in case any of y’all were wondering how I spent my day 😂