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Andre Braugher and Kyle Secor as Frank Pembleton and Tim Bayliss in Homicide: Life On The Street (1993-2000)

Kyle Secor referred to Pembleton and Bayliss’s “very kind of ‘old married couple’ relationship”, describing them jokingly as “the deeply involved couple who didn’t have sex anymore”. Of the show’s ambiguous dialogue, he says that:

“It’s the writers, and Tom Fontana. He can split that dialogue both ways. Andre and I had many talks about it. And in a lot of the relationships in the show you see that, where the partners are very intimate with each other. They generally care a great deal about each other, and about their personal lives, and it feels like, you know, they know each other better than potentially their husbands or wives might know them, or boyfriends or girlfriends. So it was very intimate, what we were all going through.”

Secor says that the closeness of the relationship between Bayliss and Pembleton always raised the question of where you draw the line between platonic and romantic love. He says: “It brings up the great question of ‘What kind of love is there between men?’ It goes to the deeper questions that all writers attempt to [address]. You know: ‘What is love?’ The detective thing: ‘What is truth? What is justice?’

“And with Frank and me, it really was about that. How deeply can love go between two comrades, and not include sex in that? It’s unrequited [love on Bayliss’s part]. And it’s a marriage, and it’s all of these things, but it’s…you know, they don’t go at it.” He laughs.

He reflects on the nature of Bayliss’s feelings for Pembleton, which are never explicitly stated in the show: “[The writers are] very good about leaving a lot of stuff unspoken. And Andre’s such a powerful, masculine presence, but within the masculine presence he has a great feminine quality to him, a soft quality, and it comes through in his eyes and in his smile.

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Homicide: Life on the Street Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Tim Bayliss/Frank Pembleton Characters: Tim Bayliss Additional Tags: i genuinely dont know what to tag, Chris Rawls (mentioned), Frank Pembleton (mentioned), Kay Howard (mentioned), Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Murder, spoilers for homicide: the movie, Homicide: the movie Summary: