Prime Suspect (US series)



The US version of Prime Suspect, starting in 2011. It stars Maria Bello as Detective Jane Timoney (Tennison in the UK version). The series shares some of the same themes are the original (including the sexism Jane faces in the workplace), but manages to put its own spin on things so far.

Detective Jane Timoney is a homicide detective. There's bad blood with her fellow detectives, since they think she was able to get a promotion by sleeping with her boss. Thus, whenever a case should go to her, it always seems to get picked up by a different squad. When the detective in charge of the squad suffers from a heart attack and dies, however, she gets her chance to show how she does things.

"Friend: What happened to your arm and your face? Jane: Good day at work."
 * Action Girl: Jane Timoney. For bonus points, Maria Bello is an actual Muay Thai practitioner.
 * Actor Allusion: Jane Timoney has been known to tend bar.
 * Addiction Displacement: Jane's father had a lung cancer scare, so they both stopped smoking and started chewing nicotine gum.
 * Artistic License Gun Safety: Completely averted. Jane leaves her handgun locked in her desk drawer. She does have several rifles and shotguns, but she keeps them securely locked and then moves them to her father's house when she knows a child will be coming over.
 * Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Very averted, in the first episode Jane takes several punches from a suspect, nearly gets strangled by him and has blood and bruises all over her in the aftermath, and they stay around for the rest of the episode.
 * Cassandra Truth: In the second episode, Jane warns the other investigators that they could potentially ruin the life of a known child molester who they suspect of kidnapping a little girl if they're wrong..
 * Da Chief: Aidan Quinn as Lt. Kevin Sweeney (which itself could be a shout-out).
 * Deadpan Snarker: Jane, very much so. This gem from episode 2 exemplifies it. Keep in mind that at the time she's sporting bruises and cuts all over her

"Jane: Okay, average Augie, let's see something completely mediocre!"
 * Fair Cop: She's Maria freakin' Bello.
 * Also somewhat Averted. She doesn't show much more cleavage at work than the buttoned down shirt seen above, and her wrinkles are not hidden, particularly on her neck (except of course by her Scarf of Asskicking). She's still Maria freakin' Bello, just not photoshopped into a standard Fair Cop like other cop shows *coughCSIcough*.
 * Freeze-Frame Bonus: All over the place, and the main form of world-building for the homicide squad.
 * Happily Married: Well, not married, but Jane is happily living with her boyfriend, even trying to get his son to stay over.
 * Hey, It's That Voice!: Hey, it's Jake Long! ...I mean Dante Basco.
 * Hollywood Heart Attack: Somewhat averted. The detective manages to choke out a sound and the others think he's still joking before he collapses.
 * Insistent Terminology: Jane is a homicide detective, thank you very much. One reason she does this is that the men she works with sometimes intentionally call her something else to try to diminish her.
 * Jurisdiction Friction: An SVU detective refuses to give information to Jane because they don't want Homicide taking credit for solving a case they were working on for months.
 * Jerkass: Duffy, who is the most openly antagonistic against Jane, but is otherwise a pretty nice guy.
 * Karma Houdini: In the second episode, Duffy doesn't suffer any (on screen) consequences for and when confronted about it, says that he still considers the outcome favorable. See Jerkass, above.
 * Ladette: Jane, though unlike the usual uses of this trope, at least at the start of the series she is not One of the Boys and has to work to earn the respect of the other (male) detectives, and as the series progresses they seem to be warming up to her.
 * Married to the Job: Completely averted. Many of the detectives seem to be fairly happily married, and at least Calderon and Keating have children. Jane herself is happily living with her boyfriend, Matt, and is even willing to endure the company of his ex-wife so he can spend time with his son.
 * Magical Database: Averted. The police have the killer's semen, so they can get a DNA test. Instead of it taking a day, however, it takes considerably longer and so is almost of no use.
 * My Beloved Smother: Her boyfriend's ex-wife spends almost all of her screentime in the first two episodes fussing about whether their son will be safe at Jane's house, which leads to a Crowning Moment of Awesome in the second episode where Jane puts her in her place by reminding her of the various things she and her new husband have done wrong, having looked at their records.
 * Nice Hat: Jane's often seen wearing one (it's a porkpie).
 * No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: The killer at the end of the pilot charges at Jane and manages to knock away her gun. Jane manages to get some punches in, but she's on the receiving end of a lot more and it looks like it hurts.
 * Old Shame: Jane had an affair with a higher ranking police official several years into the past. She regrets it immensely, but her fellow detectives might not let her live it down.
 * Paedo Hunt: In the second episode, the investigators go after a known child molester who lives in the area where a little girl was abducted after her mother was killed, and was seen at a distance by the girl's nanny..
 * Replacement Scrappy: Jane is this to the guys in homicide, especially Duffy, since she gets put on the case in the first episode after the detective in charge of it dies of a heart attack.
 * Rule of Three: In episode 3, Jane and two of the other detectives are trying to figure out if their suspect could have run from the bar to the dumpster when the body was dumped in a certain amount of time. Jane starts running, and can barely get a block because of the aforementioned hit to her endurance because she's been trying to quit smoking. So then Calderon starts running, but he's too fast, and in fact has run the New York Marathon. So then they have Blando do it.


 * Running Gag: Literally. Jane, as already mentioned, is trying to quit smoking. Her endurance when sprinting is about what you expect.
 * Scarf of Asskicking: Jane almost always has one when on the job. Unlike the usual version of this trope, however, it's usually tucked into her shirt rather than flowing (see page image), probably because she doesn't want to give the perps anything to grab.
 * Shown Their Work: Coupled with Reality Is Unrealistic. In Episode 4, Jane walks into a Loehmann's to question a person of interest, and ends up trying on shirts in a communal dressing room. Loehmann's actually has communal dressing rooms, although most people not from New York would think that odd.
 * Trans-Atlantic Equivalent: Obviously, to the long-running and tremendously successful Prime Suspect. Despite initial jeers, and though it's early days yet, this program is starting to look like it'll be one of the standout examples of this trope done right.
 * You! Get Me Coffee!: Duffy does this repeatedly to Jane in the second episode, mostly to get her out of his hair. This backfires when she actually gets useful information,.