Oh Boyd of Season 1 of Waking the Dead, how I love you so.

a) No scruffy looking weird-ass beard.
b) He actually used to ask Grace for her psychological insight into the case and the people involved.
c) He used to be calm and polite and was either empathetic or at least made an effort to appear so.
d) No annoying yelling and flipping out during an interview; no attempts to "break" the suspect.
e) In the end, the killer didn't fall victim to vigilante justice by a bereaved family member/lover who'd been pointed towards the guilty party by Boyd.

Mel Silver really was Boyd's golden girl. One might go so far and say that her death brought with it a change of character in her mentor, but that would ignore Seasons 2 and 3 and Boyd's slide into psychosis. Or whatever problems he had later in the series that turned him into an unmitigated asshole. An asshole whose only means of communication with his team became incoherent screaming and interrupting them mid-sentence with cutting remarks aimed at silencing any detractor.

Why they have remained loyal to him remains a mystery to me.

Plus, you know, Frankie. And Mel. Yay.

On the other hand, Spence used to be an ass early in the show. Well, since time only turned him from an ass horribly protective of Boyd into a non-entity without a spine, I still don't know which extreme is worse.

As for "spine", if I were Grace I'd have quit - and remained gone! - in Season 6 instead of creeping back with her tail between her legs even though Boyd never apologized or begged her to return.

The thing I'm still confused about is Boyd's marital status. In the pilot, we saw his wife and toddler-age son - did she ask for divorce later on and I missed it? Because he's clearly single later in the show. Which is totally understandable. Living with that man 24/7 can only lead to suicide. Or homicide. His anger management course? Evidently for the birds.

As for Mel, though, I loved episode 6x11 & 6x12 "Yahrzeit". The flashbacks to one short shot of her face were badly done, but the whole idea behind the case was a worthy tribute to her character. The whole going "splat" on Boyd's windshield thing still tops even the back of Kate's head exploding in NCIS episode 2x23 "Twilight". What a way to kill off a character.

As for Frankie, I've stopped trying to get the name of the current Frankie clone in the lab. They all look alike and apparently now change with each season. Who cares.