Meldrick Lewis

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Meldrick Lewis is a fictional character on the television series Homicide: Life on the Street played by Clark Johnson. The character was in the series for its full run and had the very first and last lines of the series. Lewis was raised in the Lafayette Court housing projects in Baltimore and it is indicated he was raised Baptist, but his wedding was performed by a member of the Universal Life Church.

His first partner in the series was Steve Crosetti, who occasionally irritated him with his arcane historical interests and demeanor. The two usually got along well, so Crosetti's later suicide deeply unnerved Lewis. At first he refused to even believe it could be a suicide, reasoning that Crosetti, a devout Catholic and devoted father, would never violate his faith and abandon his child. In time he accepted Crosetti's suicide, but still felt a certain dismay that he had never known Crosetti was "in that kind of pain" and apparently felt he could not tell Lewis about his problems. Stan Bolander comforted Lewis by saying that in giving up his prized vintage yo-yo as a gift to Lewis, Crosetti was in his own way saying goodbye.

He remained without a partner for a time until partnering with Mike Kellerman, formerly of the arson squad. This partnership initially worked reasonably well, but also had its strain as Kellerman slid toward alcoholism and humiliation when he was falsely accused of taking bribes while in his previous position. As Kellerman kept his problems less secret than Crosetti, Lewis was able to stop a potential suicide attempt. Lewis and Kellerman had earlier found themselves arguing with each other over a Nation of Islam group acting as a private security force in a Baltimore City housing project. During a Homicide investigation, the Muslims bated Kellerman with racial remarks and it didn't help him when Lewis agreed with the Muslims' presence in the projects as because of them, there were fewer Homicides in the projects. Lewis nonetheless forced the Muslims' leader to answer both him and Kellerman (the leader would only speak to Black Homicide Detectives about the identity of a murder suspect) during an attempt at turning the two against each other. When Kellerman and Lewis were finally able to snare drug kingpin Luther Mahoney for drug trafficking and murder, Lewis beat up Mahoney until the criminal grabbed Lewis' gun. However, Kellerman showed up in time to prevent Mahoney from killing Lewis, and then shot and killed Mahoney during an ambiguous standoff. Although Lewis initially approved of Kellerman's actions, he later decided they couldn't be partners any more over it. Lewis was suspended during Season 6 but used his time off to start a war inside Mahoney's organization that eventually led to a bloodbath for both the police and the criminals involved. When Kellerman resigned, his deal was that Lewis (and Det. Terri Stivers) would face no punishment for the Mahoney affair. Kellerman asked his ex-partner to allow him to commit suicide with his police revolver, but Lewis said he couldn't do that. Lewis also had problems with Det. Rene Sheppard in Season 7 when she got beaten up and had her gun taken away by a suspect, who then shot at Lewis and nearly killed him (the bullet hit the brim of his trademark hat), only reconciling with her somewhat by the series finale.

Lewis had a mentally ill brother who had to be institutionalized as he was a danger to himself and others. Lewis confessed to Kellerman that he did not intervene on one of his brother's suicide attempts, and even briefly hoped it might succeed as it would end their suffering. He had a harshly realist view of the job, and was openly critical of Tim Bayliss for putting so much of his emotional energy into the unforgiving field of police work. In the fourth season, he married a woman named Barbara Shivers on extremely short notice. The couple eventually split up. Those who knew Lewis were unsurprised at the breakup; in fact, up to the moment of the wedding many of his co-workers (particularly Munch) assumed the engagement was a hoax.