May the force be with supercop Pembleton
Andre Braugher’s passing no doubt left many fans of the police drama “Homicide: Life on the Street” thinking of the 1996 episode in which his character entered a Baltimore interrogation room.
Detective Frank Pembleton was at his best in what fellow cops called “the box,” sweating a suspect. A proud Black man with a Black boss, Al Giardello played on point by Yaphet Kotto, Pembleton saw life flash before his eyes when felled by a stroke in the final episode of the 1995-96 season on NBC.
That storyline affected the last two seasons of the gritty drama, which aired at 9 p.m. CT on Fridays. Director Barry Levinson got his name in the credits every week, and the screenwriting of Levinson and Tom Fontana rated up there with Steven Bochco’s in “NYPD Blue.”
That was a golden age of television with “ER,” Thursday nights on NBC, making a superstar of George Clooney, playing the hunky Dr. Doug Ross. Anthony Edwards, Juliana Margulies and Sherry Stringfield distinguished many an episode, though Laura Innes’ portrayal of Dr. Kerry Weaver lasts especially long in the memory. Innes’ character, something of a Nurse Ratched, braved a physical disability that, as I remember, was not explained to the viewer. Her portrayal of a lesbian character in later years revealed an inner depth that Kerry Weaver could not display on the job.
Thursday evolved around a Chicago emergency room much like Friday among cops working the mean streets of Baltimore and Tuesday with Dennis Franz as the iconic Andy Sipowicz in “NYPD Blue,” with a white hothead taking orders from a Black man, James Mcdaniel as Lt. Arthur Fancy. The final scenes of “Blue” in which Jimmy Smits’ character meets his death are enough to stir one’s soul.
Giardello kept order in his Baltimore squad room, although using different approaches with his squad. Reed Diamond as Det. Mike Kellerman was the show’s last character to enter the “box” with Pembleton (Braugher). Giardello knew that only then would the shooting of drug pusher Luther Mahoney be resolved.
After grilling Kellerman (Diamond), Pembleton begs Giardello, “Don’t make me go in there again.”
Kyle Secor played Detective Tim Bayliss, an enigmatic character whose sexual preference kept the viewers guessing. So quirky was the Secor character that Clark Johnson, as Detective Meldrick Lewis, once admonished him, “The problem with you, Bayliss, is that you draw a chalk line around yourself.”
Secor takes a bullet directed at Pembleton, who froze up under fire on the night Giardello’s crew went to war against Luther Mahoney’s surviving sister following a squad room shooting.
Pembleton visited Bayliss in the hospital for, among other reasons, to thank him for saving his life. Bayliss’ mom, beside her stricken son, strikes up a conversation with Pembleton that, for my money, is the highest moment in TV history.
“He tells me that you’re not the kind who makes friends but that he’s your friend,” Mom says.
The tenderness expressed between characters whose lives might be on the line at any second elevated “Homicide: Life on the Street” to the pantheon level in this book. Acting honors went to Andre Braugher, who can also be seen with effect opposite Richard Gere, Edward Norton and Laura Linney in “Primal Fear,” alternately set in a courtroom and inside a jail cell.
Pay cable now pushes the envelope almost to the extreme, notably Showtime’s “Fellow Travelers,” in which the lead characters portray homosexuals. But for a spell there, networks got it right with ready-for-prime-time work that left the viewer wanting more. We now make do without Don Draper or Frank Pembleton, with shows more foul-mouthed than ever, and who’s to say we are better off?