Jim Ellison: Cascade's best dectective, and, more importantly, Cascade's Sentinel. (AKA: Sentinel of the Great City)
Blair Sandburg: Teaching fellow at Rainer University, police observer, and Guide to Cascade's Sentinel. (AKA: Shaman of the Great City)
Simon Banks: Captain of Major Crimes, Jim and Blair's boss, and one just generally stressed out guy. He's the person that has to put up with those two, after all.....
'Ok,' you say, 'So Jim Ellison is this sentinel thing. What's that mean?'
That means that he has five enhanced senses. He can see and hear further, smell more, feel more, and taste more. It also means he has strange dreams and sees panthers in the middle of Cascade, Washington, but...uh...that's not the point. Because Jim's a Sentinel, he's very...territorial, shall we say, and extremly over protective. But, even so, he's a pretty nice guy. Blair mellowed him out a lot.
'Oh, yah, Blair. You said he's some kind of guide. What's that got to do with the show?'
Well, if you're seeing someone decked out in camping gear ready to lead you through the mountians, you've got the wrong idea. Blair's not just any guide, he's a Sentinel's Guide. He helps Jim with his senses. When Blair and Jim first met, Jim thought he was going crazy. He didn't know about Sentinels, or enhanced senses, all he knew was that he was hearing things he wasn't supposed to be hearing. Blair helped him understand that he wasn't going crazy, and offered to help Jim, the only condition being that Jim allow him to write his dissertaion based on the information he gathered while helping and studying Jim. Jim agreed, abeit not at first, and, through a very complicated string of events that doesn't require explaining right now (and takes exactly two hours to tell...), eventually Jim and Blair ended up as roommates, and Blair ended up as a police "observer." Now, in order to help Jim with his senses, Blair can't just sit around all day at the precinct and 'observe.' That's where Simon comes in.
Simon's the one person, other than Blair and Jim, that knows that Jim's a Sentinel. He helps cover for them, he plays marrige counselor when Blair and Jim fight, and he keeps Jim from doing stupid/reckless/suicidal things when Blair gets kidnapped/held hostage/shot at/blow up/lost at the grocery store. (Sorry, couldn't help myself.) Or at least he tries to. Unfortunaly for Simon, all this obsfucation (yes, that's a word) and action and having to be the sane one results in lots and lots of stress. ::sighs:: And he already smokes those cigars....
