Brooklyn South is an American ensemble police drama television series that aired on CBS for one season from September 22, 1997, to April 27, 1998. It was aired during the 1997–98 television season. The series was co-created by Steven Bochco, Bill Clark, David Milch, and William M. Finkelstein.
The series attempted to create a setting of a gritty, realistic police station similar to NYPD Blue, but focusing on the uniformed police officers rather than the detectives. The pilot was rated TV-MA for violence, and received attention and controversy as the first broadcast television episode to receive the classification, airing the same year the rating system was introduced.
Synopsis
The focus for Brooklyn South was the 74th Precinct in Brooklyn. Francis "Frank" Donovan (Jon Tenney) was the patrol sergeant who presided every day over the morning shift assignments he gave to the uniformed officers. Donovan was an informant for the hated Internal Affairs Bureau (IAB), and secretly reported to Lt. Stan Jonas (James B. Sikking), who, early in the series, transferred from being an IAB officer to the precinct captain after the officious Captain Lou Zerola (Bradford English) transferred to precinct maintenance. It was later revealed in the season that Donovan became an undercover informant 15 years earlier for IAB to protect his father, a retired cop living in Florida, from indictment for corruption.
In the pilot episode, a psychotic gunman named Hopkins went on a shooting rampage outside the police station, killing a number of policemen and innocent bystanders. He was wounded in the shootout and disarmed and handcuffed by Officer Doyle, who later stopped the other cops from beating Hopkins to death and left his barely breathing self in the interview room alone. It was later revealed that Ann-Marie Kersey (Yancy Butler), a policewoman whose boyfriend was one of the victims of the shooting spree, slipped into the room where Hopkins was and kicked him several times in the chest, leading to Hopkins suffering a fatal heart attack. The killer's family pressured the city to launch an Internal Affairs investigation as they were convinced that he was murdered by cops in retaliation for his killing rampage. Eventually, everyone was exonerated for the suspect's death and Kersey completely got away with it, though her guilt over murdering a critically wounded criminal would haunt her off-and-on for the duration of the series. She wanted to confess at one point to protect a cop who was wrongly indicted for Hopkins' death but was persuaded to wait, and when that cop was rightly cleared by a grand jury she lost any interest in giving herself up. Kersey then had a romantic affair with Donovan, but it did not last. Kersey and Donovan later got back together. Later in the series, Kersey was designated to detective.
Also in the pilot episode, Phil Roussakoff (Michael DeLuise), a burly officer, transferred to the 74th Precinct and was partnered with Jimmy Doyle (Dylan Walsh), a well liked and respected street cop whose younger brother, Terry (Patrick McGaw), was trying to become a police officer to follow in their late father's footsteps. Terry left the police academy to take an undercover assignment to infiltrate an Irish street gang planning a bank robbery. Roussakoff briefly dated Jimmy and Terry's younger sister, Kathleen (A. J. Langer), but was awkward and uncomfortable to dating. Terry helped foil the Irish gang's robbery, and he ended up joining the police vice squad anti-crime unit.
Jack Lowery (Titus Welliver) was a tough street cop coping with personal demons which included his selfish and nagging wife, Yvonne, who died early in the season. Lowery later started an affair with his female partner, Nona Valentine (Klea Scott), which did not sit well with Clement Johnson (Richard T. Jones), Nona's former boyfriend and the station's traffic cop. Eventually Nona and Clem got back together, then broke up, and by the series end, Nona got back together again with Lowery. Hector Villaneuva (Adam Rodriguez) was a young rookie cop who was tutored by the rest of the officers how to do his job the best be could.