Even though Breaking Bad is long over, its legacy still lives on. Both my boss and my best friend are currently binging it, giving me daily reaction reports such as "Ugh Skyler" and "Marie wears so much purple." Us other fans, though, have moved onto the future — Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan's two new series: spin-off Better Call Saul and CBS' Battle Creek , which premieres Sunday night and exists so far outside of the Walter White universe that it takes place in Michigan. The series centers around two very different detectives in the town of Battle Creek to clean up those mean streets. So is Battle Creek based on a true story? It actually comes from a script Gilligan wrote way back in 2002, but that doesn't mean you won't recognize the story.
The very handsome Josh Duhamel plays the charismatic Special Agent Milt Chamberlain, who joins forces with Dean Winters' jaded cynic Det. Russ Agnew. Chamberlain loves using technology to solve cases, but Agnew still embraces his old school methods. Think of them as the new odd couple of police dramas. "It's like a buddy cop show where the two characters aren't buddies and probably won't be," Winters told Entertainment Tonight. "It's like if Starsky and Hutch didn't like each other."
I think this dynamic is what make the premise sound super familiar — mismatched bad cop, good cop partners who do good for the city/town/country/universe despite their very obvious differences. Of course, it's more than just the mix of personalities that create buddy cop perfection — it's also chemistry.
Will Duhamel and Winters be a dynamic duo? We shall see. But in the meantime, here are three modern cop partners who I think they'll have to live up to.
True Detective's Rust Cohle & Marty Hart
Last year at this time, audiences were enthralled by the mysteries and personalities of these two cops played by Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. HBO viewers followed these detectives through several time periods, an affair or two, and all the way to Carcosa — whatever it was.
Following the first season, rumors of who and where Season 2 would involve and my head's still spinning regarding all of that news.
Law & Order: SVU's Olivia Benson & Elliot Stabler
Talk about the modern golden days of the NYPD. When I used to watch L&O: SVU, it was hard to take my eyes off these two. Benson (played by Mariska Hargitay) and Stabler (Christopher Meloni) just complemented each other so well. She was filled with compassion and empathy with a dash of fearlessness, and Stabler was all outrage — you knew it was a good episode when he gets to punch someone's lights out.
It's too bad their bond broke up when Meloni exited the show in 2011.
The Wire's Bunk Moreland & Jimmy McNulty
Who could ever forget these two, running around the streets of Baltimore? Never before have two detectives examined a crime scene using one expletive over and over again (thanks, HBO!), not to mention get very wasted together and accept each other for their mistakes — along with those of the Baltimore Police Department. Bunk and McNulty were truly the heart of The Wire.
Images: Monty Brinton/CBS; Giphy (3)
