...oh most unfortunately.
Boston police Det. Barry Frost has been with the Rizzoli & Isles TV series since it began in 2010. Lee Thompson Young incarnated his character so well that, like the rest of the main cast ensemble, he came to seem inseparable from them.
Last episode, youngest Rizzoli, Frankie, who'd recently made the grade of Detective of the Boston PD, thought Frost's junior as one, was trying to help Frost get through a bloody murder scene without being nauseated (which has been a rather humorous part of Frost's M.O.).
This time the murder scene's a horrific one that has the potential to trigger Det. Jane Rizzoli's past trauma as a victim of a serial killer. Thus, Frost plays a supporting role to both Rizzoli and Isles as they team up to investigate 'who done it?'. Frost, who is usually instrumental doing computer wrangling like no one else on the team can, does so again.
Tragically, however, on the evening that viewers are watching this 9th episode of season 4, on August 20th, 2013, which is entitled "No One Mourns the Wicked," the end of the episode pays a memorial tribute to 29yo Lee Thompson Young aka Det. Barry Frost. Tonight he is one of the good guys who is mourned after dying the date before this episode was aired, on August 19th, 2013.
The cast ensemble most be bereaved and grieving a truly tragic loss of one of their own. Yet, in homes of masses of viewers, there is also a sense of loss that will, eventually, have to become the absence of ever watching the performances of Lee Thompson Young playing Det. Barry Frost. Distant as this ordinary viewer is to the real human beings who are the cast of a favorite hit TV series, not ever having met the young man, just knowing of his sudden absence and all too brief life's end has opened up a space that was somehow reserved for his presence. A space that feels more like a hollowed out vacancy. Another character will not fill his spot. A sadness is quietly hovering over where his presence used to come alive, time and again for years and seasons. Although Mr. Young was not a member of my family, intimate friends or colleagues, he will always be part of an ensemble of performance artists who viewers came to know as well as their scripts wanted for us to.
Det. Barry Frost was a team player for and with that ensemble and a significant character in an extremely popular TV series. I know that dying is an absolute mandate that goes with living which every one of us must do. However, being more than twice the age of Mr. Young, and having far less public potential to shine as a beacon of a role model for millions of youth viewers, had I the choice I'd gladly given up my own life as a bargain for him keeping his.
It is bothering me terribly at this moment thinking and-or feeling that perhaps this younger man did not know the extent of his influence upon admiring viewers, how well he entertained millions, or that through his performances as Det. Barry Frost, Lee Thompson Young entered our collective consciences as an agency of empowerment working as a good-enough public servant, for the well being of others while striving to improve the quality of living for a city in the US.
Tonight I definitely do not mourning the wicked because I am among those who are feel a loss of an accomplished young man who publicly shared himself by performing as a character who engaged in acts of goodness while also entertaining in the types of ways that made smiles and laughter break out in homes, where, oft time, it was not just welcomed in but also needed.
Boston police Det. Barry Frost has been with the Rizzoli & Isles TV series since it began in 2010. Lee Thompson Young incarnated his character so well that, like the rest of the main cast ensemble, he came to seem inseparable from them.
Last episode, youngest Rizzoli, Frankie, who'd recently made the grade of Detective of the Boston PD, thought Frost's junior as one, was trying to help Frost get through a bloody murder scene without being nauseated (which has been a rather humorous part of Frost's M.O.).
This time the murder scene's a horrific one that has the potential to trigger Det. Jane Rizzoli's past trauma as a victim of a serial killer. Thus, Frost plays a supporting role to both Rizzoli and Isles as they team up to investigate 'who done it?'. Frost, who is usually instrumental doing computer wrangling like no one else on the team can, does so again.
Tragically, however, on the evening that viewers are watching this 9th episode of season 4, on August 20th, 2013, which is entitled "No One Mourns the Wicked," the end of the episode pays a memorial tribute to 29yo Lee Thompson Young aka Det. Barry Frost. Tonight he is one of the good guys who is mourned after dying the date before this episode was aired, on August 19th, 2013.
The cast ensemble most be bereaved and grieving a truly tragic loss of one of their own. Yet, in homes of masses of viewers, there is also a sense of loss that will, eventually, have to become the absence of ever watching the performances of Lee Thompson Young playing Det. Barry Frost. Distant as this ordinary viewer is to the real human beings who are the cast of a favorite hit TV series, not ever having met the young man, just knowing of his sudden absence and all too brief life's end has opened up a space that was somehow reserved for his presence. A space that feels more like a hollowed out vacancy. Another character will not fill his spot. A sadness is quietly hovering over where his presence used to come alive, time and again for years and seasons. Although Mr. Young was not a member of my family, intimate friends or colleagues, he will always be part of an ensemble of performance artists who viewers came to know as well as their scripts wanted for us to.
Det. Barry Frost was a team player for and with that ensemble and a significant character in an extremely popular TV series. I know that dying is an absolute mandate that goes with living which every one of us must do. However, being more than twice the age of Mr. Young, and having far less public potential to shine as a beacon of a role model for millions of youth viewers, had I the choice I'd gladly given up my own life as a bargain for him keeping his.
It is bothering me terribly at this moment thinking and-or feeling that perhaps this younger man did not know the extent of his influence upon admiring viewers, how well he entertained millions, or that through his performances as Det. Barry Frost, Lee Thompson Young entered our collective consciences as an agency of empowerment working as a good-enough public servant, for the well being of others while striving to improve the quality of living for a city in the US.
Tonight I definitely do not mourning the wicked because I am among those who are feel a loss of an accomplished young man who publicly shared himself by performing as a character who engaged in acts of goodness while also entertaining in the types of ways that made smiles and laughter break out in homes, where, oft time, it was not just welcomed in but also needed.
