The Dude’s High 5s: TV Cops
Ahh September is upon us. Fall is almost here. Speaking about the Fall, cops ensure crooks take the fall for their crimes. For example, I am guilty of the worst segue of all time. Since you are witnessing it and not reporting it, you’re all my accompliceses. If I were to go down for this, these are the fictional TV cops that I’d want to see slap the cuffs on me.
5. DCI John Luther (Luther)
I have a begrudging respect for police officers in London. I don’t like to leave my house with anything less than 9 guns. And I’m just a civilian. Bobbies have to do the job virtually naked. That being said, DCI Luther has to use his wits to track law breakers of all kinds. Of course he himself is broken is most of the ways his quarries seem to be. He’s managed to keep it together long enough to ensure that the guilty and wicked are punished.
4. Lester Freaman (The Wire)
If you haven’t watched the Wire, stop reading right now. Seriously. Stop reading, go watch The Wire. It’s far and away a better use for your time. Unless you are currently curing cancer. And if you are currently curing cancer, why are you reading a stupid column on a blog site? Anyway Lester is an old school cop. He’s all the things you want out of a detective: smart, persistent, and righteous. However when we first meet him, he’s been broken by the system. By the end of the show, he’s turned the system on its head … if you read this and you haven’t watched the Wire, Go watch the Wire!
3. Hank Schrader (Breaking Bad)
As much as I loved The Wire, Breaking Bad might be my all-time favorite show. I remember listening to an interview with Bryan Cranston and he was asked what made the show great. He responded perfectly. He said that the nature of television characters is about constancy. Most characters don’t change for the long haul. In Breaking Bad, all of the characters change irrevocably. Hank might be the exception to this. When the world goes to shit, Hank Schrader will put bad guys down. It’s all he knows.
2. Raylan Givens (Justified)
Ok, he’s not technically a cop, but he’s still pretty bad ass. Raylan has to wade through miles of red tape and hillbilly bullshit just to get out of bed. His downfall will of course be the women in his life. If Raylan were gay, I bet most of his problems would go away. But alas, its never the ones you hope … I mean think, its never the ones you think.
1. Lenny Briscoe (Law & Order)
I like the original Law and Order. None of this SUV, NTSB, CDC, BBC bullshit. Just plain ol’ Law and Order. For 12 years Jerry Orbach was a staple of the show’s presentation. A throwback to the hardnosed detectives of yesteryear. Like most character that are memorable, he had flaws. He was an alcoholic, a terrible father, and a worse husband. However when we meet him in Law and Order, he had cleaned himself up and was back to doing the job. His cynical view of life and propensity for macabre jokes endeared him to me forever.