I need someone to take off and hide my slash-colored glasses. Seriously.

I watched episode 1x13 "Rostered Day Off" of City Homicide yesterday, and was assaulted by teh slash. Eeep. Help!

Before I start with the episode, I'd better provide a little background. Okay, Detective Senior Sergeant Wilton Sparkes and Detective Senior Constable Simon Joyner both work in Homicide in an unnamed Australian city. Joyner is in his late twenties, Sparkes is fat, old, and about a year from retirement. The extra little oomph comes from the fact that Joyner had an affair with Sparkes' wife Lorraine and ended up breaking their marriage.

When Sparkes returned to work from a prolonged stay in the hospital, they almost came to blows. Joyner (and I) both have more or less been waiting for Sparkes to get his own back in some way, although Sparkes assured Joyner that they'd be able to work together, and that he was even a bit thankful to now know for sure that his marriage had no future.

In the two episodes before the current one, Joyner and Sparkes went to work as a team; surprisingly rather successfully.

In the most recent episode, Sparkes is shot. The perps think he's already dead, and so he has the opportunity to get out his cellphone and call for help. So - who does he call? Not his boss. Nor one of his other three colleagues. No, he calls Joyner's cellphone and leaves a disjointed message before he is discovered and hurt further. Joyner is convinced Sparkes isn't just stumbling around drunk off his ass somewhere (as their colleague Duncan Freeman believes), but that he is in danger. Scared and driven, he is the most active person in the department's search for the truth and later, for Sparkes.

When one of the perps finally leads them to a scrapyard in which he swears Sparkes has been left to die, everybody is overwhelmed by the sheer amount of ground they have to cover. Joyner flips and assaults the perp, trying to get him to narrow down their search. His supervisor tells him to leave, but in that moment, Joyner more or less stumbles across the car wreck in whose trunk they discover their wounded colleague. Sparkes is barely breathing, and of course it's Joyner who drags him out of his prison and yells for an ambulance.

Slashy, right?

True.

But Sparkes is really fat, old and ugly. See for yourselves.. This is Joyner, by the way.

Why, oh why, am I always seeing slash? :::scrubs mind out with bleach:::

A few City Homicide links for all those who have no idea what I'm even talking about:
- City Homicide @ http://au.tv.yahoo.com
- CityHomicide.net
- Australian Television: City Homicide