Homicide Retrospective: Zeljko Ivanek as Ed Danvers
Before Becoming The Great Villain of Peak TV, He Was The Most Realistic Prosecutor We’ve Seen On TV Before Or Since
This piece requires a little more introduction then usual, so I’ll hope you’ll indulge me.
One of the great gifts of Peak TV has been something we may not appreciate until a series has ended: the recurring character. They are played by actors in roles that we don’t see in the first wave of credits but in the second wave, the characters who aren’t regulars but who in many ways can do much in their few minutes onscreen. One of the best examples of this in the past decade has been the Salamanca clan, who we saw get killed off one by one in Breaking Bad and then see again in Better Call Saul. Think of Mark Margolis, who was able to do so much in his scenes in a wheelchair only able to communicate by ringing a bell and you know what I’m talking about.
Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul did this perfectly and there have been many other great shows in this century that mastered the craft: Oz, The Wire, Battlestar Galactica and Orange is the New Black are among the most prominent examples of this. Yet for whatever reason during this period, I’ve noticed that network television has a tendency to do this somewhat better than cable and streaming. The West Wing was a master class in this, particularly with the secretarial staff and so many of the minor political figures we would see for a few episodes each season; Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel both demonstrated a level of commitment to this as well as continuity between the backstories of all of them; 24 was extremely skilled at doing so, often in unexpected ways over the years and The Good Wife did so superbly, particularly when it came to its recurring use of judges, rival attorneys and almost everyone else. (It didn’t shock me when Carrie Preston got her own series; I’ve long since thought they could do entire series based on any number of the recurring characters the show did.) And Lost had a minor gift with this with so many of its characters during its run; few of us who saw Mira Furlan’s stint as Danielle Rousseau will ever forget the impression she could give in just a few scenes.
One of the kings of character acting during this period is Zeljko Ivanek. You might not know (or even be able to pronounce) his name but you’ve seen a lot of him during the era of Peak TV and if you have you loathe him. I don’t know what it is about Ivanek but he has a gift to emote villainy, smarminess or contempt (depending on the character) with every word. It has nothing to do with his appearance: Ivanek looks more ordinary than any actor. But ever since the era of Peak TV began, he has been playing the villains more effectively than almost other character actor alive.
Few of us who saw OZ can forget his work as Governor Devlin the Governor of the unnamed state the series took place who every time you met him seems more horrible then the rapists, murderers and gangstas in Oswald put together. He disappeared from OZ in its fifth season to play Andre Drazen in the first season of 24, the primary villain at the center of the first horrible day Jack Bauer would ever have. He had a one-episode stint on Lost as Edmund Burke (Juliet’s ex-husband) and when he died from being hit by a bus, you were rooting for the bus. (One of his lines before he died on the phone: “Because you’re insufferable and you’re mean. Well you asked for the truth, Mom.”).
I don’t know about the role he had on the third season of Heroes but while that was going on, he played JJ, a former husband of Chloe Sevigny’s character on Big Love who among other things had bullied his wife and had held Sevigny’s daughter from her without knowing her mother. On Banshee he played a mortally ill government official who arrived in town after the first season’s horrors played out and died soon after. It wasn’t until Madame Secretary debuted in 2014 that Ivanek was finally granted to play a recurring actor for the first time in his life: he was one the show for all six seasons.
If you’ve noticed a trend through these roles and figure Ivanek’s characters get killed a lot: gold star. This happened on almost every series he was a part of as even a guest star — True Blood, Revolution. And even the historical characters he plays are kind of douchey: on John Adams, he played John Dickinson, the Pennsylvania delegate to the Continental Congress who is Adams’s biggest foe towards united the 13 colonies towards independence. That is true even for the one role that got him his most recognition.
If you’ve read my blog you know what a fan of the series Damages I am. One of my greatest pleasures watching the Emmys in history came on Emmy night 2008. On that night Zeljko Ivanek won the Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Emmy over such more respected competition as Michael Emerson for Lost, William Shatner and Christian Clemenson for Boston Legal and his own co-star Ted Danson, who was the heavy favorite in that category for his work as Arthur Frobisher. Some consider this one of the Emmys most shocking choices but while I have never been the Emmys biggest fan, Ivanek’s victory was one of the ones that gave me the greatest pleasure. (For the record, that’s also true of many of those other ‘surprises’, including Edie Falco and Merritt Weyer for Nurse Jackie, Ben Mendelsohn for Bloodline and Toni Collette for United States of Tara.)
It was not just Ivanek’s brilliant work as Ray Fiske that made me think he deserved it — although it absolutely did. In his work as Ray Fiske, the troubled corporate attorney whose duel with Patty Hewes ends with him killing himself in front of her, Ivanek played one of the great tragic character in the series run. But by that time, Ivanek had impressed as the kind of actor who should have been getting nominations from the Emmys over the years yet somehow this was his first one. (It was also the only nomination he ever got.) But the biggest thrill during his speech came when among the people he thanked was Tom Fontana.
This is one of those moments I’m pretty sure all but the most devoted television fan would have missed. Because Ivanek did owe Fontana for launching him. Ivanek had worked constantly before he became known to public for his work as the Governor in Oz. He’d been working constantly through the 1990s, in such varied series as The X-Files, Murder She Wrote, Law and Order, Chicago Hope and Frasier. But Fontana had trumped all of them by giving him the first steady work he had in his life on Homicide.
Now before I explain that I have to give a definition of the kind of recurring roles that were on Homicide because they tended to fall into four major categories, all of which had to do with their association with the Baltimore police department. The first were the bosses who I’ve mentioned in a previous article on the show. There were also the patrol officers, who we saw three or four of multiple times over the seven year run of the series. (Two of the actors who played them Kristin Rohde and Granville Adams, ended up getting more significant supporting roles on OZ.) There were the medical examiners, who had their own roster over the years and who managed to make their own impressions. (I should mention some of them got their jobs through family connections. Herb Levenson was Barry Levinson’s cousin and Harlee McBride was Mrs. Richard Belzer.)
The last group were the prosecutors or states attorneys (as they’re known in Baltimore) There were two or three of them who appeared throughout the series but the one who had the largest role was that of Ed Danvers, who Ivanek played over seven seasons. Ivanek’s recurring role was the largest of any guest actor: he appeared in 37 of Homicide’s 123 episodes, which is in fact more than several actors who were series regulars played over the years. And what’s particularly remarkable about Danvers’s character was that he was different than almost any prosecutor we’ve seen on TV over the last thirty years, even in series that have them front and center particularly Law & Order.
There’s an argument that, just as TV had never seen cops like those on Homicide, it had never seen a prosecutor like Ed Danvers. By the time Homicide debuted in 1993, Law & Order was entering the public consciousness though it wasn’t yet the phenomena it became. But by looking at characters like Ben Stone (and later Jack McCoy) TV was getting its first look at prosecutors who were willing to take on the powerful in courtrooms, vigorously cross examine the defendants and give thundering closing arguments.
Ed Danvers, by contrast, always looked exhausted and put-upon every time he went to the squad room. He seemed perpetually miserable and always seemed determined to rain on the detective’s parades about the cases they were bringing him as being fundamentally weak. And he never wanted to set foot in a courtroom if he could help it, always convincing the detectives to have the newly arrested murderers take pleas so he could put them in Jessup and move on to the next case. In short, Danvers almost certainly was a more realistic DA then any of the ones we’ve seen in Law & Order — or really any courtroom drama since.
The writers actually made this clear in Danvers’s very first appearance which was in the second episode “Ghost of a Chance.’ We’re at the start of the Adena Watson investigation that will be the backbone of the first season (and the soul of the series). Under normal circumstances if a DA came to the squad room, it would be to discuss a search warrant for the case involved. Danvers shows up to talk to Kay Howard about a case that’s already closed and is about to go to trial. And he’s not happy about how it looks. In one of his first lines of dialogue Danvers tells Kay Howard what he believes his duties are: “My job as an assistant state’s attorney is to maintain a better-than-average conviction rate so that when I retire and go into private practice I can land at a better than average law firm…Preferably an L.A. firm.” (An in-joke to L.A. Law which was still on the air in 1993 and still the gold standard for legal dramas.) Like the cops in the squad, such things as justice are secondary concerns to a day’s work, and like the cops, Danvers wishes he were anywhere else but here.
During the first half of Homicide’s run Ed Danvers appeared on the show only a dozen times, though he was mentioned sporadically throughout that period. His biggest role in the first two seasons was not so much as a states attorney but rather as a love interest for Kay Howard (Melissa Leo). In keeping with how the show worked, most of the relationship took place off-screen and like almost every romantic relationship in the series ended for reasons we never learned. While he made far more appearance in the second half of the series, his role never changed fundamentally.
And that role was to perennially tell the squad just how weak their cases are and that he didn’t want to go anywhere near a courtroom with them. This actually fits in with how Homicide worked as opposed to Law & Order (yes, I’ll get to that). As far as the series was concerned, once they slapped the cuffs on the suspect and/or got them to confess, their job was over. The names would go from red to black. They might have to testify in court later on (Danvers sporadically would show up to prep them for trial) but after that they were on to new business.
That’s why we almost never saw the inside of a courtroom on Homicide. Ed Danvers job was to make deals and plea the bastards out to the best plea he could get. The detectives knew from the start how this would play out, it was the sewer they had to navigate.
That’s why, like everything else, Homicide had a better way of seeing how the criminal justice system worked that Law & Order ever did. It’s also why Danvers always seemed so exhausted: in addition to his visits the squad room, he was also buried in motions from other lawyers, meeting with other clients, working out plea bargains, talking to other DAs about other cases, going from courtroom to courtroom to deal with motions and every so often, giving an argument in a trial.
So when Homicide would crossover with Law & Order as it would do three times when the two series were both on the air while the show did put the focus on Danvers more than it would in regular series, it also seemed slightly unrealistic whenever Danvers got involved. In the first crossover Ivanek wasn’t even in the Law and Order segment and when the action moved to Baltimore he was only in a courtroom to make an argument against Claire Kincaid over whether the suspect should be extradited to New York. That may have been the most realistic use of Danvers in a sense, mainly because Maryland isn’t as rich a state as New York and probably can’t afford for its prosecutors to go on trips across the Hudson the way so many ADAs seemed to do throughout the series.
Ivanek had a more significant role in ‘Baby, It’s You’ a case that parallel the Jon Benet Ramsey killings (the episodes aired in 1997). Brittany Janaway, a teenage model, is found dead of toxic shock. The parents have joint residence in Baltimore and New York and eventually it becomes possible that the killing might have had its origin in Baltimore. Danvers sends Munch and Paul Falsone to New York in order to stake his claim on the prosecution.
Eventually it becomes clear the crime did take place in Baltimore and jurisdiction is ceded jointly. Jack McCoy and Ed Danvers end up co-prosecuting the case. It is a measure how skilled an actor Ivanek is that he was able to hold his own along side the force of nature that is Sam Waterston. Then again, when you’re sharing the screen with such powerhouses as Melissa Leo, Andre Braugher and Kyle Secor on a regular basis you learn not to be awed.
But Ivanek’s biggest role came in the final crossover: ‘Sideshow’. Janine McBride, a federal employee who worked in Baltimore is found dead in New York. As the detectives work together they learn McBride was a closeted lesbian (in 1999, this was a big deal then it is today) who believed she was transferred from DC to Baltimore because of a government coverup.
Danvers ends up working with Jack McCoy as the investigation progresses and they quickly make the enmity of the independent council William Dell (George Hearn). While this was clearly modeled after Kenneth Starr, Hearn clearly plays Dell as if he were Roy Cohn, arrogantly demanding the names of witnesses in the murder and refusing to give any details as to why he wants to see them. He subpoenas Jack McCoy before the grand jury, rakes him over the coals and eventually has him jailed for contempt when McCoy refuses to give the name of the witness. McCoy’s efforts prove futile as Dell eventually learns all the details because of an information leak — which Mike Giardello, in his capacity as FBI liaison inadvertently caused.
In the second part, Danvers tells McCoy that he is about to be named to a federal judgeship as he continues his prosecution. Danvers is told that he has to step carefully as they continue to prosecute the murder — and begin to target Dell. But Dell has his own cards to play and in the final act he reveals what it is.
Ivanek manages to get some put much-deserved screen-time as he reveals that, in his own way, he is as ruthless a prosecutor as McCoy can be. They go after Dell directly early on, and he becomes more engaged the longer the investigation becomes. Even when they find themselves in the White House for a murder investigation — something that seems to rattle the ever belligerent McCoy — he remains calm. And it costs him. He’s still willing to try and put himself on the line — when Sheppard and Munch tell him that, in order to try and pursue the case, he’s going to have to confront a federal magistrate on what could be a quid pro quo, he does so. But after he indicts the man behind the murder, the independent counsel comes after him, and it torpedoes him. As a juvenile Danvers was part of a street gang that was involved in a racially motivated assault. When the record comes into play, he confesses to Al about this, and Gee rallies the troops to stand by him. This, however, costs him any chance of him being confirmed by the Maryland legislature..
But for all the efforts of their investigations, the police and legal work come to nothing. Just as they arrest the man behind the murder, Dell’s representatives move in, and take him into custody. When Danvers and McCoy furiously confront Dell, he makes it very clear that he considers their murder meaningless compared to his investigation into the White House. The final scene of the two men comes as Dell gives his press conference announcing his ‘triumph’
“One hundred million dollars’ worth of misinformation,” McCoy says sadly.
“And we helped him dig up the dirt,” Danvers adds.”
(By the way if you’re wondering if Ivanek appeared on Law & Order before this crossover, yes he did — and after it. He appeared in a Season 4 episode ‘American Dream’ where he played a yuppie trader who represents himself in order to get out of a murder conviction Ben Stone laid on him ten years earlier and he appeared in an episode in Season 15 as a wealthy businessman who commits a murder to hide the fact that he’s having a homosexual relationship. There were Law & Order co-stars in both episodes that were in the Homicide crossovers but somehow, neither of them mistook him for Danvers.
But for all of the fire of these episodes Ivanek’s finest hour on Homicide came in one of the highpoints of the series. During Season 5 we learned that Danvers was engaged to be married to Meryl Hansen, a public defender. For the first half of the series Danvers is involved as much in the possibility of the matrimonial bliss as telling the detectives how messy their cases are. Then in the teaser of Blood Wedding he goes with his fiancée to a bridal shop for her to get fitting for her dress.
While they are there an armed robber comes into the store with a gun. Somehow, Meryl ends up dead at the end of a .38 and Ed Danvers spends much of the episode with his clothes splashed with the blood of his intended.
The case ends up being Pembleton’s first as a primary detective since his stroke nearly six months ago and when Danvers learns this he doesn’t think Frank’s up to the task. However, even though Frank is still a little rocky as an investigator, Ed is in no shape to be making judgments of sense. Danvers is constantly challenging Frank, interfering with witnesses statements and coming up with different angles for the detectives to investigate. Pembleton is understandably pissed at having to deal with this, especially when Giardello backs Danvers on this.
Eventually Frank and Tim track down a suspect in the robbery homicide. They find some evidence linking him to the robbery — ammo, ski masks, threads — — but nothing that conclusively links the suspect to the murder. In the interrogation they go after the robber hard, especially saying that since the victim was a public defender, every prosecutor in the city will want to convict him and no lawyer in the city will want to defend him. This shakes the suspect up but not enough to make him confess. The stoic prosecutor voices his demand very simply — he wants the suspect to die. So much so that he goes down to see him and lock-up and tells him that he will make it his life’s work to see the man dead.
But neither Danvers nor anyone else will get any kind of closure with this case, because at the end of the episode the suspect hangs himself in his cell. In typical Homicide fashion, we never learn whether this is out of guilt or because of the fear that the detectives and Danvers rammed into him.
Ivanek gives the most emotional and intense performance that he will ever deliver as Ed Danvers finds himself at the hands of the callous investigative process and the indifference of the legal system, an indifference he himself fostered. In a powerful scene near the end of the episode, he berates himself for all the years of cutting corners and closing files, of forgetting the victim’s names and the heinousness of the crimes. This is a strong scene made even stronger by the fact that when Danvers returns to work later this season, he will be obeying the same rules and sticking with the same indifference; the criminal justice system cannot survive any other way.
The actors and actresses that we have the hardest time appreciating are almost always character actors, particularly the ones who underplay their roles to the point one almost doesn’t notice how good they are. We have seen our share of them during the era of Peak TV from Richard Jenkins to Lance Reddick to Julianne Nicholson and Alison Wright and in recent years we’ve become aware of such talents as Carrie Coon and Shea Whigham. Ivanek has been known for playing villains more frequently over the years but he was always just as gifted at playing the Everyman, someone we all knew and related too. In Homicide he got a chance to play that role in one of the most famous archetypes of recent TV history and gave a more realistic portrayal of that kind of character because it was everything we didn’t — and still don’t — expect of the kind of attorneys we see on TV these days.
Many people may go to law school because they want to become Jack Mcoy but it is far more likely they become Ed Danvers and that’s actually better for our justice system. As messy and imperfect as it is — and Danvers himself knew how flawed it was — people like him make it function and are more vital to that system. I’m guessing when Jack McCoy became DA in his own right, he had more than his share of Danvers’s on staff and he was more grateful for them then he might have wanted to admit.