A Quokka Dreeds its Weird

I am just finishing up season five, and was disturbed by the introduction of the loathesome Falsone. I had thought he didn't appear till season seven. I hate him and every other character who appears for the first time in seasons six and seven, except for Giancarlo Esposito, who I don't hate but who I don't think was written very well. Are there any episodes in season six that I should skip because they focus on characters I despise, don't have great moments for characters I love (that would be everyone who was introduced earlier), and aren't essential to the storyline?

And with season seven, which I remember mostly detesting, which episodes are essential and which are skippable? I don't want to miss the lead-up to the series finale (which I loved), but I also don't want to be tortured by horrid episodes that are all about Falsone and the two women that I hate but whose names I don't recall.

Finally, let me just put in my vote regarding the Great Luther Mahoney [spoiler] Controversy: Dirty. The gun was down. And by the way, what a shocker Lewis's behavior was, which I'd forgotten all about.

I have been watching Homicide: Life on the Streets, the best cop show ever, the entire series from beginning to end via Netflix. I watched about half to a third of each season when it aired, but never the whole thing from beginning to end. Also, I have not seen the movie, so please do not spoil me for that. I am now watching season four.

Homicide is based on a book by a writer who followed the Baltimore Homicide division for a year, and is generally considered to be the most realistic cop show ever. Not the faux gritty realism of NYPD Blue, where ass shots and swearing and glorification of police brutality pass for truth, but real realism: cases aren't always solved, bad guys aren't always caught, lots of time is devoted to the detectives kicking back and waiting around and bantering with each other, and half the time it's perfectly obvious from the get-go who did it, and the issue at stake is how or why or catching the person. It is quite realistic about racial politics and has more black people in the show than any other show I've seen that wasn't specifically directed at a black audience. And it's well-written, incredibly well-acted, often very funny and even more often heartbreaking, and has one of the best character arcs I've ever seen on TV.

In the very first episode, Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor, most recently seen as Jake Kane on Veronica Mars) shows up, a rookie Homicide detective lately of the SWAT team, if I recall correctly, lugging a box of his stuff because no one's given him a desk yet. He's young, he's idealistic, he gets paired with Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher, who had earlier been brilliant as the freed man in Glory) who is the squad's resident genius, especially good at getting confessions from suspects in "The Box," and who probably needs a partner because he's so abrasive that no one else can stand to work with him.

When the phone rings with a homicide report, whoever picks it up becomes the primary detective on that case. The name of the victim is written in red on a board below the detective's name, and if they solve the case it's rewritten in black. Bayliss' first case as the primary is the murder of a little girl, Adena Watson, and that case haunts him for the entire rest of the show-- seven years-- and is pivotal in the series finale, which also involves Bayliss, Adena Watson, and a box of Bayliss' stuff. In an episode in season one, "Three Men and Adena," Bayliss and Pembleton spend the entire episode in the Box trying to wring a confession from the man who Bayliss thinks killed her and Pembleton doesn't. It's one of the best single hours of TV I've ever seen.

If Pembleton is the brains of Homicide, Bayliss is its heart; and I won't say what happens to Bayliss over the course of the show except that he's got the character arc I referred to earlier. If Pembleton's scenes crackle with energy, Bayliss' quietly seethe; and the relationship between the two of them never stops being fascinating and complex and funny and very very sad.

There are other detectives, of course, and it's more of an ensemble show than I've made it sound like. Kay Howard starts out as the only female homicide detective in Baltimore; she's one of the guys, she takes no crap, she has the best record of any of them (even better than Pembleton, though that's mostly a matter of Kay having a lucky tendency to get easier cases), she has incredible hair, and she is one of the few people in the department who I could imagine having a happily ever after. Giardello (Gee), played by Yaphet Kotto, is the enormous black Sicilian lieutenant, who is a very decent human being who's not above looming over and intimidating people. I love Gee.

Meldrick Lewis didn't make much of an impression on me when I first watched the show, but watching it now I'm impressed by how consistently good and subtle his acting is; John Munch is kind of annoying but also funny. Bolander and Crosetti never made much of an impression on me and still don't, and while I liked the relationship between Felton and Howard I was never that into Felton himself.

In season four Mike Kellerman, a pretty strawberry blonde arson detective, joins the team. I didn't much like him when I first saw the show, but he's grown on me on second viewing. Also, he has a really great extended storyline that runs through seasons five and six.

Later I will ask for recommendations on what episodes I need to watch in the generally disastrous season seven in order to catch Bayliss' storyline, and avoid the many dreadful episodes featuring new characters I hate. Because as I said, the series finale makes up for the awfulness of the final season, and is a mustn't-miss. Also, I want to see the movie, though I will probably cry all the way through it.