Good Cop, Dead Cop

Logline: A group of lost souls must band together to uphold the only law that matters: Anything that can go wrong will.

Genre: buddy cop, dark comedy, fantasy

Premise: What happens when we die? The good are “promoted”, or sent to the afterlife; the bad are “canned”, or sent down to the underworld. The rest go into law enforcement. Murphy’s Law enforcement. Best described as “The Good Place” meets “Car 54, Where Are You?”, Good Cop, Dead Cop is a dark subversion of the buddy cop genre. The series follows a racially and historically diverse group of ghosts-turned-cops in an alternate version of New York City. Together they make up the New York Murphy’s Law Department, one of many Murphy’s Law enforcement units throughout the world. Shenanigans ensue as they navigate a broken world in their quest to uphold the law: Anything that can go wrong does.

Characters

Main:

Sidney "Sid" Banks (died 1872, age 41) - NYMLD police officer. A world-weary cynic with alcoholic tendencies and a secret heart of gold. Reluctant father figure to the group (except Andrew & Janet). Normally detached and snarky but becomes irrationally angry when asked about his past. In life, he was a Wisconsin sawmill foreman. He lost his entire family in a fire and drank himself into an early grave a year later. Stuck in the same dead-end job for 150 years, he’s been bounced around to various Murphy’s Law Departments all over the country. The NYMLD is his last chance to avoid being canned.

Katalina "Kat" Alvarez (died present day, age 35) - NYMLD’s newest recruit, police officer and Sid’s partner. Driven, no-nonsense, and tough as nails outside; compassionate, idealistic, and a little insecure inside. Strives to better the world by upholding the law. A high-powered Manhattan attorney assigned to the NYMLD after dying in a freak accident.

Andrew Petersen/Antonio Perotta (died 1983, age 57) - NYMLD police captain & the series’s main antagonist. The group boss. A fast-talking, cliche-spouting man with big hair and an even bigger ego. Self-righteous, demanding, and ruthless. In life, he was a mafia boss turned televangelist who died of a heart attack on live tv. He justifies using Murphy’s Law to ruin people’s lives as “preparing them for the afterlife”, but his true plan is to break as many spirits as possible, sending them to an underworld crime syndicate run by his former mentor. Hides his true identity and intentions under a facade of charm.

Robert “Bobby” Cohen (died 1969, age 28) - NYMLD police officer, sometimes tags along with Sid and Kat. A laid-back, philosophical slacker with a prankster streak, more than a little scatterbrained. Amateur conspiracy theorist. A former hippy and beat poet who died in a prank gone wrong, he retained his mischievous spirit after death.

Janet Holley (died 1957, age 44) - NYMLD Record Specialist. Sweet, bubbly, sometimes nosy, and perpetually optimistic. An annoyingly overprotective motherly figure to the group. Decorates her desk with photos of her family, living and dead; always baking treats for the group despite being a terrible cook. She has a crush on Andrew and is a devoted follower of his ideology: “Suffering makes them stronger”. A small town housewife and mother of 5 in life, her world was perfect until she died in a plane crash en route to her oldest son’s college graduation. Originally part of another department, she transferred to NYMLD to be closer to her youngest child, now a professor at Columbia University.

Lindsay Tran (died 2005, age 19) - NYMLD Equipment Manager. A wheelchair bound emo/goth girl. Intelligent, creative, and curious, but naive due to her early death and sheltered upbringing. Don’t underestimate or talk down to her! Talented with technology and robotics, she designed her own high-tech wheelchair and now designs the NYMLD’s equipment. In life, she was a childhood cancer patient diagnosed with a rare form of spinal cancer which put her in a wheelchair. She fought the disease as long as she could, dying as a college student pursuing an engineering degree.

Recurring/One-off Characters:

Damon Walker (died 1918, age 25) - A former NYMLD officer and Sid’s longtime partner; promoted to the afterlife in the pilot episode. A Brooklyn thief turned war hero, killed in action in WW1. Dedicated, hard-working, by-the-book type; somewhat rigid and uptight.

The Chief - a godlike entity in charge of the NYMLD; part of a larger network of Chiefs who run Murphy’s Law departments all over the world. The Chief decides how to apply Murphy’s Law to the living world and who it should affect. Often referenced, appears rarely as an offscreen voice. Not shown onscreen until the later seasons.

Renato “Red” Rossi (died 1948, age 61) - Andrew’s former mentor and boss of a crime syndicate in the underworld; the series’s overarching antagonist. Just as ruthless and narcissistic as Andrew, but calmer, more shrewd and calculating. Unlike Andrew, he doesn’t bother hiding his true nature. Red was a notorious mafia boss in life until the law caught up to him, and he died in a shootout with police. A criminal mastermind with a vendetta against the living world, his plan is simple. Use Murphy’s Law to break people with suffering, sending their souls to the underworld to build his crime empire.

(Other characters that appear throughout the series include friends and family of the NYMLD (most often through flashback), lower-level NYMLD employees, employees from other Murphy’s Law departments throughout the world, Red Rossi’s underlings, and real-world New Yorkers)

Pilot Episode - "To Uphold the Law"

INT. COFFEE SHOP; REAL-WORLD NEW YORK; MONDAY MORNING

The episode opens in a real-world Manhattan coffee shop where we find NYMLD officers Sid Banks, Damon Walker, and Bobby Cohen. Sid, nursing a hangover from the previous night, is slumped in his chair with a newspaper covering his eyes. He pretends to be asleep while Bobby spouts his latest conspiracy theory: the artificial sweetener packets in the cafe contain mind-altering chemicals that the government uses to control people. Damon joins them, carrying a box of pastries and three coffees in a drink carrier. Unbeknownst to Sid, Bobby spikes his coffee with pepper packets instead of sugar. “Here, Sid. Looks like you could use a pepper-upper,” he says.

Sid takes a sip of the pepper coffee, chokes, and quips, “There aren’t enough chemicals in the world to control your mind, Bobby.”

Sid and Bobby argue until Damon scolds them, reminding them that they have work to do. At that moment, their phones ping, showing a case file on the latest target of Murphy's Law: a mid-30s attorney named Kat Alvarez. Damon and Bobby study the case file, but Sid doesn’t bother looking at his phone. He insists he got along fine without it for over 100 years.

Damon reminds Sid that the boss’s orders say to use their phones, but his lecture gets interrupted as Kat appears outside. Damon opens the SNAFU app on his phone, a program designed to ruin anyone’s day with the push of a button, and uses it to make a passing taxi drive through a puddle, splashing Kat. Kat enters, soaking wet and cursing. As she stands in line to order, Damon pushes a button on his phone again. This causes the customer ahead of Kat to place a massive order and take forever to pay.

Bobby decides to get in on the act and opens his own SNAFU app, intending to make the register decline Kat’s card. But it doesn’t work. Bobby frantically tries to fix his phone to no avail. Finally Damon suggests they call Lindsay, the NYMLD equipment manager who designed the app, to help them fix it. While Damon and Bobby are talking to Lindsay, Sid notices that Kat has paid for her food and is about to leave. Taking matters into his own hands, he “accidentally” spills his coffee on the floor as she walks past. Kat slips and falls to the laughter of the cafe patrons.

Lindsay tries to walk Bobby and Damon through a workaround, but they keep doing it wrong and start bickering. During the argument, Kat picks herself up and heads for the door. Sid puts his partners’ coffees back in the drink carrier, picks it up, and crashes into Kat, pretending to be a distracted patron in a hurry. This stalls for time but only for a few moments. As Kat leaves, Sid turns to his partners and says, “Guys, we gotta go!”

INT. SUBWAY STATION; REAL-WORLD NEW YORK; MONDAY MORNING

Sid, Damon, and Bobby follow Kat into a nearby subway station where they continue to make her day miserable. Sid watches with indifference as Damon uses his SNAFU app to make Kat’s train arrive early. Bobby grows bored and wants to do something too. He notices a guy performing for spare change and gets an idea to make him sing an annoying song on loop. He asks to borrow Damon’s phone to do it, but Damon refuses. Bobby grabs for the phone. He and Damon engage in a tug-of-war for the phone, bumping into Sid in the process. This causes Sid to fall forward, accidentally knocking Kat off the platform… right into the path of an oncoming train.

Damon and Bobby panic, and even Sid is quietly horrified. In 150 years with Murphy’s Law enforcement, he’s ruined plenty of lives but never actually killed anyone! He keeps his cool under pressure and gets himself and his partners out of the subway station before anyone can identify them as Kat’s attackers. Once outside, he calls Lindsay to ask if the SNAFU app can be used to wipe footage from the subway cameras. Not wanting to worry her, he leaves her in the dark about what happened, saying only that there was a setback.

Together Sid and Lindsay brainstorm a solution. Meanwhile Bobby writes an impromptu poem eulogizing Kat. He and Damon get into a philosophical discussion about the meaning of life and death.

No sooner has Sid wiped the cameras that he, Damon, and Bobby receive an angry text: GET BACK TO HQ NOW!!!

INT. NYMLD HEADQUARTERS; ALTERNATE NEW YORK: MONDAY AFTERNOON

Sid, Damon, and Bobby return to NYMLD headquarters, a building in an alternate version of New York City inhabited by dead people, They’re greeted upon arrival by Janet Holley, the records specialist. Janet, noticing their defeated faces, offers them homemade cookies and a pep talk riddled with patronizing cliches. (“Always look on the bright side. The night is darkest just before dawn”, etc.) Bobby chows down on the cookies while Damon snaps, “Not the time, Janet!”

Sid remarks, “Why do you insist on treating me like a child when I’m old enough to be your great-grandfather?!”

Captain Andrew Petersen storms out of his office, berating the three men. Sid, Damon, and Bobby try to explain what happened, each blaming and talking over each other. “If Damon had let me use his phone, this wouldn’t have happened!” Bobby says.

“And if Bobby could take care of his phone, he wouldn’t need to use mine!” Damon counters.

“And if you two idiots hadn’t pushed me into her, none of this would’ve happened!” Sid insists.

Andrew, annoyed by the bickering, tells them all to shut up! It doesn’t matter how it happened. Today wasn’t Kat’s time to die, and The Chief is not happy about it! He says they’re supposed to make people suffer, not kill them, reiterating his favorite cliche: “Suffering makes them stronger.”

Sid points out that by killing Kat, they did exactly that. This enrages Andrew. He places Sid, Damon, and Bobby on probation and orders, “You three are on desk duty until further notice!”

INT. SID’S OFFICE, NYMLD HEADQUARTERS; ALTERNATE NEW YORK; THURSDAY MORNING

A few days later, Sid is at his desk, once again nursing a hangover. A loud knock at the door startles him, and he looks up as Andrew pokes his head inside. “BANKS! Get out here now! You’re being reassigned!” he says.

Sid joins Andrew in the bullpen, where he finds Bobby, Janet, and Lindsay crowded around a new recruit. Damon is nowhere to be found. When Sid asks where his partner is, Andrew responds, “Walker ascended to a higher plane of existence. About time too! Looks like his suffering finally made him strong. Pity the same can’t be said for you…”

The crowd parts as Andrew introduces NYMLD’s newest recruit, Kat Alvarez. “Meet your new partner,” he says.

As Andrew passes, Sid pulls him aside and tries to protest, fearful that Kat will recognize him as her killer. Andrew rebuffs him at every turn; he says his hands are tied. Since Kat died before her time, The Chief thought it only fair to give her a chance to continue her law career in a different capacity. Andrew’s phone rings, interrupting the discussion. It’s Red Rossi. He retreats into his office to take the call with one last ominous reminder for Sid. “This is your last chance, Banks. Next time you mess up, you’re canned!”

Shutting the office door behind him, Andrew answers the call. Red Rossi’s face appears on the phone screen as he asks how it’s going. Glancing out the window at Sid and Kat in the bullpen, Andrew answers, “There’s a flaw in the plan.”