Series / L.A.'s Finest

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L.A.'s Finest is a Spin-Off series from the Bad Boys films, with Gabrielle Union reprising the role of Syd Burnett from Bad Boys II, with Syd having been transferred to the LAPD. Jessica Alba plays Syd's partner Nancy McKenna.

The show started in 2019, and was cancelled in 2020. It was the first series created for Spectrum Originals, a streaming service available to Spectrum Cable subscribers; months after its premiere there, it had a brief run on Fox to fill a COVID-created hole in their schedule.

Tropes associated with this series:

• Abusive Parents: Nancy and Nico's mom physically abused them both, including hitting or burning them using cigarettes.
• Action Girl: Syd and Nancy, being police detectives, are well-trained in using guns or unarmed combat. Nancy also served in the Navy prior to joining the LAPD.
• Actor Allusion: While pretending he's an exterminator once, Joseph (Ernie Hudson) quips "Who you gonna call?" referencing his famous role in Ghostbusters.
• Affectionate Nickname: Isabel is usually called Izzy by her dad, stepmom and all her friends too.
• Agonizing Stomach Wound: Ben Walker is kidnapped by a hitman, Clete Winslow, who's escaped from prison to get his daughter back. Winslow thinks he can do this and doesn't believe Walker's protests that he's unaware where Winslow's daughter even is. In order to coerce him and then his colleagues for this, Winslow cuts Walker deep on the stomach. It grows infected and Walker starts getting feverish, then hallucinates as a result.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: "Bad Company" ends with Clete Winslow surprising everyone by attacking the LAPD directly, using an automatic gun that distracts most while he goes inside their headquarters for his daughter. While he fails, being an ex-soldier Winslow still comes very close as a result of his military training.
• Always Identical Twins: Syd meets twin brothers while in a bar (whom she hits on for sex later), while both are completely identical, even with the same dress and hair style.
• Amicable Exes: Nancy and Patrick stay friendly after separating as their marriage falls apart, preparing for divorce. Izzy notes Nancy actually talks more with him since separating, in fact.
• Assassination Attempt: "Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins" has Nancy and Syd rushing to stop an attempt on the life of a city council candidate, Vivian Kim, who stands in the way of lucrative developments that would mean many people in Koreatown losing their homes.
• The Atoner: The woman who'd fatally hit Izzy's mom while drunk driving regrets what she did, trying to apologize for it. Izzy isn't ready to accept it though.
• Badass Biker: Syd is a badass detective with the LAPD who also has a motorcycle she rides around while not on the clock.
• Badass in Distress: Syd and Nancy are two skilled LAPD detectives. Both of them are put in danger multiple times, but always get out of it due to their skills.
• Badges and Dog Tags: Nancy served in the U.S. Navy before becoming a cop. It's discussed as being common for military veterans to become law enforcement officers, since they still want the "rush" of danger.
• Bank Robbery: "Con Air" has the cops looking for a crack team of thieves who've been robbing banks in the city. It turns out this is connected to a murder where a man was thrown out of a helicopter. They used this helicopter for notifying them to evade any responding cops. He wouldn't go along with this, and was killed for it.
• Best Friend:
  • Syd and Nancy, along with being police partners, definitely are this. Both call and will help each other out when off work with different things (illegal ones included), clearly caring deeply. In fact, they seem to be each others only friends most of the time.
  • Izzy's is Letti, a girl she hangs out regularly with from her school.
• Big Bad:
  • Mysterious drug trafficker Gabriel Knox is the main threat of Season 1. For a while, both Carlene and Warren used this alias, only for the former to prove herself the bigger threat.
  • Season 2 sees ruthless developer Malcolm Ward appear to take the role. However, it turns out that he's The Dragon someone to the true Big Bad Logan Kline, who's revealed later.
• Black and Nerdy: Fletcher, a tall black man with Nerd Glasses who's also a very skilled hacker and whiz with anything technical in general. He acts pretty nerdy overall, unlike any other black men in the series.
• Blackmail:
  • Patrick is blackmailed over Nancy being involved with covering up her mom's death by her brother. Carlene, the blackmailer, has dirt on prosecutors, judges and politicians to aid her drug trafficking operations.
  • Dante tries to get help from Nancy when he's arrested for murder by threatening that he'll tell the cops about them robbing stores together, or how he helped cover up her mom's death.
  • Another case also involves blackmail over a compromising video.
  • Patrick is later blackmailed again after he's drugged, making him act like a wild party animal, and it's recorded.
• Bomb Disposal: Nancy was with EOD (Explosives Ordinance Disposal) while serving in the US Navy. This comes in handy at times when the LAPD are facing an explosive if the bomb squad isn't there yet. It also saves her life as her experience means she also can make some quick IEDs while being hunted by a criminal veteran that help take him down.
• Bookends: Near the start of the pilot episode Syd is in her kitchen one morning with a man, who she thanks for the previous night, but says she does not want a relationship and sends him away with some coffee in one of her "to-go cups". Towards the end of the episode it is another morning and Syd has almost the same conversation again, but this time with a woman.
• Bratty Teenage Daughter: Izzy starts increasingly acting out, doing things her dad and her stepmom don't approve of, along with getting a more rebellious appearance (shaving her head, putting on a dog collar), as a means of coping with her mom's death. Here it's played sympathetically as a result, and both try to be understanding with her despite their worry or frustration over how she acts. She later starts rebelling by doing things like ditching and then dropping out of school, which is treated as more troubling. They all grow closer though after this and Izzy mellows.
• But Not Too Gay: Syd's bisexual, but she's never shown having sex with another woman, only before or after. Conversely, she does have explicit sex with Jason Calloway.
• The Cartel: In "Pilot" the LAPD fight against the Garza Cartel, a Mexican-American syndicate ruthless enough to threaten and kidnap a kid, even targeting cops too.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: During the premiere episode's cold open in the store, Syd and Nancey have a casual conversation about Syd blowing off 'Family Book Club' to go on a date while in the middle of a gunfight after walking in on an armed robbery.
• Chekhov's Gun: Nancy's experience with Bomb Disposal helps save her life when she can quickly rig up IEDs to help stop a killer after her in "Deliver Us From Evil" toward the end.
• Christianity Is Catholic: Catholicism is the only denomination of Christianity shown in the series. The protagonists Nancy and Syd turn out to have both been affiliated with Catholicism, although they don't practice anymore, with the local Catholic priest, Father Suho, being a recurring character. Unusually, his congregation has lots of Korean-Americans (as he himself is) and it's located too in Koreatown, although there are many Latinos as well, along with some black people.
• Cliffhanger: Season 2 ends with most plot threads wrapped up, but not all. Syd is offered some unstated job with Internal Affairs that requires her to lie. She and Nancy survive a car bomb, with some unknown people being behind it. Given the series was canceled after this, it's never resolved.
• Cop Killer: Logan Kline's men kill several LAPD officers while breaking Malcolm Ward out of their custody in Season 2.
• Cowboy Cop: Syd and Nancy often go after suspects without authorization, to the point of doing illegal wiretaps or even more severe crimes. In the past, Syd was even kidnapped, tortured and almost killed after going undercover in a cartel against orders. Syd is mostly the instigator, but Nancy goes along with it easily.
• Crime of Self-Defense:
  • Nico shot his and Nancy's mom to stop her beating Nancy. While this was probably legal (defense of others), they were both scared that it wouldn't be taken that way, secretly burying their mom's body with help from a friend to cover it up. The same goes for them in present day.
  • In Season 2, Patrick is harried by a critical blogger named Nathan Baker. He learns Baker is a felon he got convicted of assaulting a man in a Bar Brawl. Baker maintains he'd been defending himself, which left him with a grudge against Patrick. Eventually, to make him back off as it's hurting his changes at getting elected District Attorney, Patrick agrees the sentence was excessive, saying he can look into getting Baker's conviction expunged.
• Culturally Religious: Syd is shown going to a Catholic church, discussing things inside with the priest, but says she isn't ready to confess just yet. Nancy also dips her hands in the holy water font and crosses herself too when going into a Catholic church in a later episode. Syd then tells her she's 'dabbled' with Catholicism, while neither seems to practice it much outside these gestures.
• Damsel out of Distress: Nancy goes undercover to catch a veteran and therapist who is recruiting other veterans for hit jobs. After he finds out and tries to kill her, Nancy takes him down (although not without her getting beat up), since she's a trained Navy veteran herself.
• Dark Action Girl: Nancy meets fellow female veteran Noa Cash in "Deliver Us From Evil". In the very next episode, "Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins", she reappers and buys a a sniper rifle illegally, fighting Nancy off skillfully and escaping after getting caught doing this. She's qualified as a sharpshooter, and later nearly murders someone with the rifle that she just bought before Nancy and Syd shoot her.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Both Syd and Nancy.
  • In addition to the events with her brother and partner in Miami, Syd was compromised on another undercover assignment which saw her attempt to infiltrate the organization of a major drug trafficker known as Gabriel Knox. After being found out, she was beaten, shot, left to die, and then miscarried her child with Warren. As such, the trauma from it all becomes a driving force for her during Season 1.
  • Nancy came from an abusive household where she lived with her alcoholic mother Rosa and her brother Nico. Alongside her first boyfriend Dante Sherman, Nancy resorted to theft in order to get enough money to start a new life with him. Dante eventually and willingly takes the fall for all their crimes after he gets caught. In addition, Nico fatally shot Rosa while she was beating Nancy with a belt, leading to Dante and his brother Ray hiding her corpse. In Season 2, she starts having PTSD from her time in Iraq. Nancy was nearly murdered by a suicide bomber there, who'd murdered her own little son in the attack. Before this happened, Nancy had known and gotten fond of the boy, making it even worse.
  • Jason Calloway was a school teacher before joining the LAPD, and lost two students when a shooting happened. Afterward, he had to tell their parents, describing this as the hardest thing which he ever did. It turns out he also personally took down the shooter, saving many of his students. This was what made him become a cop.
  • Ben Walker had a drug-addicted mom who eventually was imprisoned for multiple crimes. He was very affected and even disowned her for this, but they reconcile eventually. It turns out he put her in prison through an undercover operation too.
  • Jen was kidnapped, after which her kidnapper had held her prisoner for years, torturing her until she at last escaped. On going to LA, she became addicted to drugs as a means of coping, and fed this by working as a High-Class Call Girl.
• Death of a Child: Nancy's trauma from serving in Iraq was a result of her seeing a little boy she bonded with killed due to a suicide bomber (his own mother).
• Demolitions Expert: Nancy was an EOD (Explosives Ordinance Disposal) expert in the Navy. This comes in handy when she and Syd are forced to deal with a bomb.
• Dirty Cop: More than one corrupt law enforcement officer's featured, including some in bed with drug traffickers (such as Warren). Syd and Nancy break the rules or commit crimes at times too, although never for personal gain.
• Disappeared Dad: Joseph Vaughn, Sydney and Marcus’s father, was absent for most of the two's childhood after their mom had left him. It turns out he tried to be involved, with their mom making him stay away (even calling the cops). He was also estranged from their half-sister as well, who he had with another woman, until her twenties.
• Disowned Parent: Ben Walker has disowned his criminal mom, who's in prison, even telling his partner she died because she's now dead to him.
• Distressed Dude: Ben Walker is kidnapped in Season 2, then wounded and left suffering deeply as a result of his wound for a long time. He does manage to escape briefly, though not for long.
• The Dragon: Logan Kline it turns out is the boss of Malcolm Ward, the apparent Big Bad in Season 2, who's just his lieutenant. Kline has Ward murdered after he's become a liability.
• Dragon-in-Chief: Carlene proves to be this to Gabriel. In truth, both she and Warren used the alias. Carlene then proves herself to be the real Big Bad of Season 1.
• Driven to Suicide: The killer in "…My Lovely" jumps from the roof of a building after the Bens track her down, distraught over murdering her ex-fiancee, saying she'll be with her again in the afterlife soon, wearing a wedding dress.
• Erotic Asphyxiation: Syd had Jen put a bag over her head for this purpose, though it also helps with her recalling memories from her kidnapping.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • Arlo, a murderous drug dealer, is clearly fond of his parents, whom he still lives with too. They adore him in turn, completely oblivious to his actual job (believing that he's a computer programmer - Arlo really does have a computer science degree).
  • Carlene Hart is a major drug trafficker who's most definitely willing to order murders. She's also the mother of young children and very clearly loves them. For them of course, she's just their mommy.
  • In Season 2, Clete Winslow, a ruthless hitman, is revealed as having a young daughter who adores him, which is clearly mutual. He later breaks out of prison simply to see her once more after they're separated.
• Fair Cop: The two protagonists Syd and Nancy are quite beautiful female detectives.
• Fingerprinting Air: Invoked when Nancy snidely mocked a murder suspect for how he was so smart to wipe the gun clean... except "the bullets inside are riddled with fingerprints." From her attitude, it's clear that she knew this was BS, but it tricked a confession out of him anyway, as Nancy wanted.
• Flashback:
  • Nancy's show that she'd once been in a criminal duo with her boyfriend 20 years back, robbing stores, along with her abusive upbringing by her mother and other things of her past.
  • Syd's show her life with the DEA in Miami, including her getting kidnapped while investigating a cartel, tortured then nearly murdered.
• Forced Out of the Closet: Nancy didn't know Syd's dad isn't aware of her being bisexual when she inadverdently outs her by discussing how Syd saw Jen, who'd been a High-Class Call Girl. She apologizes and Syd says Nancy owes a month of lunches to her after this. Her dad is accepting, though surprised by this.
• Friends with Benefits: Syd was originally a client of Jen, a High-Class Call Girl. They grew into being friends however, while having sex together sometimes then too.
• From Camouflage to Criminal:
  • Clete Winslow is a former US Army soldier who's a veteran of the Iraq War, now turned hitman. It's revealed later he was recruited by another veteran, Duke Ingram.
  • Ingram's now a therapist supposedly helping other veterans with PTSD. However, he really recruits them to be assassins, carrying out hits in LA's Koreatown.
  • Noa Cash is another former soldier turned hitwoman from Ingram recruited who's a sharpshooter and nearly murders a city council candidate with a sniper rifle in a contract killing.
  • Malcolm Ward turns out to be a veteran as well, using the skills he learned in the military while he's hiring other veterans through Ingram in a Divide and Conquer strategy so that he can get real estate in Koreatown by driving people out with a crime wave. Ward also knows many other veterans who he served with and have taken up crime like him.
• Full-Name Ultimatum: From "Kangaroo Jack" when Syd thinks Nancy is being childish.

• Get Out!: Syd angrily orders Warren to do this after he tells her that he's Gabriel Knox.
• Good Cop/Bad Cop:
  • Syd plays the cop who threatens the suspect, and Nancy acts like she's trying to rein her in.
  • Izzy accuses her dad and stepmother of playing this with her (Nancy as the latter), saying it's tiring.
  • In "Kangaroo Jack" trainee Detective Liam Quinn tries to play bad cop opposite Ben Baines, who gets increasingly annoyed by this and banishes him from the interview room.
• Handicapped Badass: Clete Winslow is a disabled veteran turned hitman who's extremely skilled. He even beats up another inmate while in prison from his wheelchair (and that was when he'd been recovering as a result of new injuries). Winslow having a prosthetic leg never slows him down at all or makes him less of a badass (he's a former elite soldier).
• High-Class Call Girl: Jen, the young woman whom Syd slept with, turns out to be a very well-paid escort with really high end clientele, up to the mayor of LA. She wore very nice dresses when seeing some of her clients. Even so, it's revealed Jen got into prostitution due to a drug habit and has a very traumatic past.
• Hired to Hunt Yourself: Warren Hendrix is a DEA agent who is part of a task force hunting mysterious drug trafficker Gabriel Knox. It turns out he is Knox, along with his partner in crime Carlene Hunt: it's an alias shared between them.
• Hollywood Law: Nancy and Syd regularly have Fletcher, a hacker who they know, break into any electronic systems they can't get warrants for. Only once does this get anyone in trouble. Even aside from hacking-related charges however, they get evidence from this multiple times. That not only couldn't be used, but anything which resulted from the hacks also would be legally excluded ("the frust of the poisonous tree" doctrine), but this only comes up as a problem once. Given they use it to get the evidence that leads them to other things constantly however, unless it could be admissible some other way this would make the cases be thrown out.
• Homophobic Hate Crime: One case investigated, the murder of a trans woman, looks like it's possibly motivated by transphobia. This turns out to not be the case. Other trans people who the victim had known also speak of how common such hate crimes are, and some have suffered these before.
• Hospital Hottie: Izzy, while in the hospital once, comments that a good-looking doctor named Luca who treats her is "a snack", while Nancy claims not to have noticed. Nancy ends up befriending him and Izzy thinks that it means they're dating, after Nancy's separated from Izzy's dad. They were just friends, though Nancy later agrees to stop seeing Luca even as that to preserve things with Izzy.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: All the post-pilot episode titles reference movies executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer worked on, hence the episodes "Farewell..." and "...My Lovely". The Season 1 finale is titled "Bad Girls."
• I Have Your Wife:
  • In "Pilot" The Cartel kidnaps a little boy whose mother, an accountant, froze their accounts to coerce her into reversing this.
  • Carlene kidnaps Izzy in order to get leverage over Nancy.
  • Dante is coerced into not stopping Katherine's shooting when he hears that the people behind this have some gunmen in his house prepared to murder his son.
• Impersonating an Officer:
  • In "Pilot" a gangster named Cruz dresses as an LAPD officer, complete with a fake squad car (stolen off a movie set) to kidnap a little boy.
  • Clete Winslow is dressed in an LAPD vest when he's going into their headquarters for the finale of "Bad Company".
• Important Haircut: 15-year-old Isabel shaves her head and wears a dog collar as a means of rebelling to cope with her mom's death.
• Inheritance Murder: In "Kangaroo Jack" it turns out a man murdered his wife's son since otherwise he'd be the heir to her business, wanting it for himself instead (she was dying).
• Internal Affairs: Syd shooting Beverly Gamble at the end of "Deliver Us From Evil" is then routinely investigated the next episode, "Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins", by a detective from Internal Affairs, as legally required with any shooting a police officer commits to be sure it's justified.
• Internal Reveal: Sydney learns that Warren is Gabriel Knox a few episodes after the viewer.
• In the Blood: It turns out Sydney and her brother’s father is ex-LAPD. She's an LAPD detective herself, he's a detective too with the Miami-Dade Police Department.
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: In "Pilot" Syd threatens a suspect who is under a car he'd been working on with dropping it onto him if he doesn't give up information that she wants, although it's part of her Good Cop/Bad Cop routine so she'd never really do this.
• Just in Time:
  • Nancy manages to shoot an armed suspect who's attacking Syd just before he can strike her In the Back with a fire ax in "Beverly Hills Cops".
  • Syd later saves her in turn by shooting a suspect in "Bad Company".
• Last-Name Basis: Syd usually calls Nancy by her last name, McKenna.
• Like Father, Unlike Son: Marcus from the Bad Boys movies is Happily Married and is close with his children and grandchild while his father Joseph is just reconciling with Sydney. Subverted in that he is on good terms with his other daughter and his grandchildren by said daughter.
• Long-Lost Relative: Syd learns she has an adult half-sister as a result of her dad cheating with another woman on her mom. Further, she has a niece and nephew, her half-sister's kids.
• Mama Bear: Nancy is very protective about her stepdaughter Izzy (including when Izzy's annoyed by this), getting into her business often when she's concerned over something. Izzy getting kidnapped of course puts Nancy on the warpath to get her back.
• Matricide: Nico shot his and Nancy's mom dead to protect Nancy when she was beating her.
• Minority Police Officer: Syd (black) and Nancy (Latina) are the protagonists, two detectives serving in the LAPD Robbery/Homicide Division. They work closely with another black detective, Ben Baines. Syd's father Joseph is also retired from the LAPD. Black and Latino cops in the LAPD are common from what we see-their race doesn't come up that much.
• Mistaken for Cheating: Nancy gets friendly with Luca, a doctor she met, meeting him to talk. Izzy's friend Letti sees them together and takes photos, thinking that Nancy's cheating with him on Patrick. Nancy tells her they're simply friends, though Izzy at first doesn't believe it. To save her relationship with Izzy, Nancy stops even these platonic meetings.
• Ms. Fanservice: Syd and Nancy. While they aren't sexualized too much, both are beautiful women, and this gets shown off occasionally. Syd wears a dress which has a Navel-Deep Neckline, later a shirt which shows the side of her breasts and the pair both are in revealing workout clothes later. Nancy also once puts on a very nice dress with a very deep neckline, showing off her breasts at a fundraiser of her husband's.
• Must State If You're a Cop: "Kangaroo Jack" has a weed dealer maintain that as the guy who'd arrested him didn't tell him he was a cop, that's made the arrest invalid. The guy who "arrested" him actually wasn't a cop, but Syd and Nancy (who really are) just roll their eyes at his ignorance.
• The Nicknamer: Nancy very often gives Baines and Walker new nicknames, almost Once an Episode.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Arlo claims cops really are just the same as criminals like him, lying, stealing and even murdering people, but they never admit it.
• Not Staying for Breakfast: Nancy politely but firmly shows her sexual partners to the door the next morning, rejecting offers for breakfast. She even has "to go cups" for them. This happens twice just in "Pilot": first with a man, then a woman.
• Not What It Looks Like: Finding her daughter working for a website that also involves what appears to be sex toys, Nancy and Syd charge to the company ready to arrest the boss for underage pornography. Then Izzie reveals she's just doing ASMR videos to help folks (like her) handle anxiety and the "sex toys" are for sound effects.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: Warren is given an offer from his DEA boss-kill Carlene Hart, or she turns state's evidence to testify that he's Gabriel Knox, which would mean he'll end up doing life in a federal prison.
• Offing the Offspring:
  • After learning Warren is the one who shot her after she'd been captured and tortured, Syd realizes this made her miscarry their baby. She throws this in his face later, saying he'd killed their son (even if it wasn't knowing or intentional).
  • A female suicide bomber Nancy shot in Iraq forced her little son to go with her when she did it, and he was killed by her bomb.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted - Syd and Nancy's rivals are a pair of detectives called "The Bens".
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Izzy's full name is Isabel, but her nickname gets used far more often.
• Outlaw Couple: Nancy was once in a criminal duo with her boyfriend Dante, robbing stores in LA. He went and did stickups, she was the getaway driver.
• Papa Wolf:
  • Clete Winslow goes on the warpath to get his daughter back when he's separated from her in prison.
  • Patrick and Baines naturally go all out to get back their kids when both are kidnapped.
• Parental Abandonment:
  • Isabel McKenna's biological mother was killed in a car crash by a drunk driver. It was only three years before the series starts, and Izzy is still very affected by it (she was in the car at the time); she's angry about it and acts out as a result. Later on, her father is murdered too.
  • Nancy says she never knew her dad. Her brother Nico is younger, so presumably they're half-siblings, though there's no sign his was around either. Nancy mentions how as a kid she'd often wonder about her father, hoping he'd appear. Their mother meanwhile was killed by Nico while protecting Nancy from her abuse.
• Parental Substitute: Nancy is a good surrogate mom to her stepdaughter Izzy, who lost her birth mother to a drunk driver years ago. They have the expected spats of a teenage daughter and mom, though Nancy is sometimes more supportive of her than Izzy's dad is. It's likely she's so determined to be a good parent as a result of also having an abusive mother growing up herself. Even after her marriage with Izzy's father Patrick breaks down, Nancy's reluctant to end it as she doesn't want to leave Izzy.
• Plea Bargain: Nico takes one over his mom's death, so it can't get used against Nancy or Patrick.
• Pool Scene: "Defiance" has Izzy and two friends all lounging in or near her backyard pool while they're in revealing swimsuits.
• Pretty Little Headshots: When someone's killed by a headshot, it leaves just a small hole with minimal blood behind, and certainly no brain matter.
• Private Military Contractors: Logan Kline hires a team of mercenaries to guard his mansion, which makes his arrest difficult in the series finale.
• Professional Killer: Several veterans are recruited to be assassins by a corrupt fellow veteran turned therapist.
• Psycho Psychologist: Duke Ingram is a military veteran and therapist who has a therapy retreat to help fellow veterans with PTSD. He's actually using it to recruit many as assassins.
• Punk in the Trunk: Syd and Nancy put one loudmouthed, annoying suspect into their trunk at the start of "Defiance" so they can have Izzy sit in the backseat instead. Izzy is thrilled on realizing they did this and agrees not to tell her dad.
• Queer Establishing Moment: Syd is shown after having had casual sex with a man in the pilot episode early on. Toward the end of the pilot, she's shown to be bisexual when the same thing happens with a woman.
• Real Award, Fictional Character: Nancy served in the US Navy, earning several actual awards including the Purple Heart and Navy Star.
• Really Gets Around: Though it isn't focused on, Syd seems to have casual sex pretty often. She's shown having had a man and a women over for sex in the pilot (separately), another woman in one episode, Warren (her ex-boyfriend) and Jason, who she began sleeping with in Season 2 as well, while she's not in relationships with any of them but Warren (sort of). Later Syd hits on two twin guys she meets in a bar, giving her card to the pair so they'll call her and they can have sex sometime. When talking with Ben Bailey, she casually talks about having gotten oral sex from a man the night before too. Syd also runs into a hot Latina at a restaurant who flirts before she says "maybe later" to her overture.
• Rejected Apology: Izzy doesn't accept the apology of her mom's remorseful killer, because she's still haunted by her death.
• Reformed Criminal: Nancy was once a criminal, robbing stores around the city with her boyfriend at the time about 20 years ago. He took the fall after getting caught and Nancy turned things over, becoming a cop as her crimes weren't uncovered. Nancy increasingly finds herself slipping back into crime however, partly to cover up her crimes in the past.
• Relationship Revolving Door: Syd once was involved with Warren during their days at the DEA. When he comes to LA, they get back together again briefly. Once she learns he shot her and caused her miscarriage inadvertently, it's over for good between them.
• Reminiscing About Your Victims: Patrick's murderer, Roman Bloom, tells Nancy her widow that he had died a coward while she confronts him with obvious smug satisfaction. Nancy promptly kills him in an impromptu gun duel.
• Revenge: Syd is driven with a strong urge to bring down the mysterious drug trafficker Gabriel Knox for kidnapping, torturing and nearly killing her, causing her miscarriage while this happened (she is especially vengeful over the last).
• The Reveal: Warren Hendrix is corrupt, working with Knox's organization even while he's supposedly investigating them. It's later revealed further that he and Hart actually share the Know identity, who doesn't really exist. They both run the organization. Later it's revealed the organization was set up by the DEA then got out of control, with them wanting it to get shut down quietly.
• Sadist: Wayland James, the man who kidnapped and held Jen along with other women, tortured them for pleasure.
• Second Love: Nancy and Patrick were this for each other. After her destructive youthful romance with Dante, Nancy met Patrick years later, who was divorced from his first wife, Izzy's mother. The two were married after his first wife died.
• Serial Killer: "Defiance" has the cops going for a suspect who's set to become one. He's murdered one young woman and is looking to get more like her. Thankfully, he's caught before any more die.
• Sexless Marriage: Nancy and Patrick's marriage appears to have become this. It's never once shown or implied they had or are about to have sex. Syd is aware of this, and comments it's not normal. It's a sign of their marital difficulties, largely born from both being very busy with work.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Izzy is pretty but doesn't really wear clothes that show her looks off until Season 2 with "Rafferty and Gold Dust Twins", when she puts on a low-cut black strapless dress. Nancy, her stepmom, tells her that it's stunning.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran:
  • Syd still has lingering trauma due to being shot, kidnapped and tortured, which caused her miscarriage.
  • In one episode, an Army soldier with PTSD (who's gone AWOL from his unit and is now a homeless drug addict) is a murder witness. Nancy, who'd served in the Navy, uses her military past and difficulty adjusting to help him open up by empathizing with him. It later turns out she has lingering PTSD from her service in Iraq, which is triggered during Season 2. She goes to a therapeutic retreat for veterans later whose head (also a veteran) is a therapist treating PTSD. Unfortunately it turns out that he's grooming veterans to be assassins.
• Shout-Out: Syd and Nancy share the names of the characters in the same-named film, although they aren't a couple.
• Sleeping with the Boss: In her previous Miami job as a DEA agent, Syd had a relationship with her boss, Special Agent Warren Hendrix. This was also serious, unlike a lot of Syd's liaisons. Syd is shown to be sleeping with her LAPD boss in Season 2, Lt. Jason Calloway, which gets increasingly serious, with him even leaving clothes over at her apartment (as Nancy notices when she's there).
• Slipping a Mickey: Patrick's drink is drugged so he acts inappropriately and gets filmed as blackmail.
• Slut-Shaming: Jen/Mallory's sister Emma is distraught to learn she worked as a High-Class Call Girl, assailing Syd over not telling her. Syd responds by saying that isn't all Jen was, and she never judged her for it.
• Social Media Is Bad: The killer in "Defiance" commits a murder on livestream, before seeking to do the same thing again. It gets widely shared around.
• Spear Counterpart: Sydney is essentially Mike Lowry's female counterpart.
• Storming the Castle: The series finale has the LAPD storm the very well-guarded mansion of Logan Kline, the season's Big Bad, and finally arrest him for good.
• Suicide Attack: Nancy is traumatized by having survived a suicide bombing while in Iraq.
• Taking the Heat:
  • Nancy's boyfriend Dante, after being caught for robbing a store, took all the blame, while let her get off scot free and reform though they were in it together.
  • Syd takes the blame when Emma kills Beverly in a fit of rage, not wanting to see her prosecuted for murder after all she's been through. Afterward, she tries to make it seem like a justified shooting she'd done.
• The Tell: Syd tells Nancy she always knows when she's lying by her biting her lip.
• Tomboyish Name: Sydney, a tomboyish bisexual woman, usually goes by "Syd".
• Too Much Information:
  • Ben Baines shows Ben Walker a video of his wife while giving birth to their son. Walker is not happy at seeing this, and Baine's wife isn't either when she hears. Baines also brings topics up generally Walker would prefer not to discuss, like sex during pregnancy or what an a stomach wound can look like. Later he says it's too much information after Baines reveals that he frequently donated sperm in the past, and is happy to talk about other things.
  • Ben Baines tells Syd that she can talk to him about anything she'd have done with Nancy when the latter is away. Syd promptly tells him about how much she enjoyed being eaten out the night prior by a guy, to his discomfort.
• Tracking Device:
  • Nancy has an app on her stepdaughter Izzy's phone to keep track of her, which is how they find out when she's visiting her mom's killer in a nearby prison without permission.
  • In "Enemy of the State" Walker drops a smartwatch in the back of a suspect's pickup as an impromptu tracking device, revealing his criminal accomplices when he drives over and meets with them.
• Tragic Stillbirth:
  • Sydney was kidnapped by drug dealers she'd been investigating with the DEA. They tortured her, resulting in her having a miscarriage. She nurses a desire for revenge on them for this and is distraught when telling her ex-boyfriend Warren, the father, about what happened.
  • Syd also regularly visits the local hospital NICU where she volunteers to help the babies. Ben Walker reveals that his wife had two previous miscarriages. They bond over the fact, and he becomes a volunteer too.
• Trans Tribulations: One case involves the murder of a trans woman, which detectives investigating feel may have been motivated by transphobia. It turns out to be different though. Trans people who the victim knew in a support group mention just how common this is, and some have suffered lesser hate crimes.
• Trauma Button: Nancy dealing with a bomb while in the LAPD provokes traumatic flashbacks of her Navy service, when she faced an Iraqi suicide bomber, especially since a little boy she bonded with died during the attack.
• Turn in Your Badge: Syd and Nancy are suspended after Lt. Calloway learns they both had run an illegal operation near the end of Season 1. They're reinstated later as part of a deal with the DEA.
• Twofer Token Minority: In Season 2, it turns out that Syd has just slept with Ryan, another queer black woman-the two are shown together afterward. Later too she runs into a queer Latina who flirts briefly with her. Both only appear in a single scene. Syd is the sole black woman who's a main character. Additionally, she's the only queer main character.
• Wham Line:
  • Sydney is baffled as to why a woman named Kat, who she's never met before, seems to know her and why a gangster is gloating "you thought I'd never find her" before he has Kat shot. The reason becomes clear when Joseph bursts into the hospital and, with a stunned Sydney watching, yells "Where is my daughter?"
  • Sydney is thrown for a loop by Warren being upset at her for getting close to nailing Gabriel Knox... until he tells her "I am Gabriel Knox."
• White Bread and Black Brotha: Detectives Ben Baines and Ben Walker. Baines, who's black, is more of a jokester and uninhibited. Walker is white, more reserved and rule-abiding. This isn't very extreme, but Nancy calls them "salt and pepper" sarcastically sometimes, an alternate term for such a pairing.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Ben Baines has strong phobias of clowns and rats. Whenever he's faced with them, Baines is very unhappy.
• Working with the Ex: To investigate Gabriel Knox, Sydney’s division works with the DEA, which includes Sydney’s ex-boyfriend Warren Hendrix. If that wasn't awkward enough, Warren turns out to be one of two people using the Gabriel alias.
• Workout Fanservice: Syd and Nancy are shown working out wearing tight-fitting spandex workout clothes, showing off their athletic, beautiful bodies in the first season.
• You Killed My Father:
  • Dante murders Arlo, who murdered his brother.
  • "Maverick" deals with a woman who's murdering people who were involved with the murders of her daughter and husband. Her son is her accomplice.
  • Emma also kills Beverly Gamble for murdering Jen/Mallory, her sister.
  • Nancy kills Patrick's murderer Roman Woods in an impromptu gun duel to avenge him.