Dr. Dylan Reinhart
Played by: Alan Cumming
A former CIA-agent-turned-professor who's recruited by the NYPD when a serial killer leaves his book as a clue.
- Age Lift: Murder Games Dylan is 34 years-old. In Instinct he's at least 45 years-old.
- Badass Bookworm: Dylan is a professor and consultant, but he is also ex-CIA and can handle himself in a fight.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Was once an Unwitting Test Subject in an extremely unethical psychological experiment conducted on a group of teenage prodigies. One of the other test subjects was so damaged by the experiment that he became a spree killer and murdered the scientist who ran the project as well as several other people who simply reminded him of things associated with the experiment. Dylan insists that they didn't break him and he's fine.
- Happily Married: To Andy.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Dylan and Julian trust each other a great deal, and Dylan often goes to Julian for information the NYPD can't access. According to Julian, for Dylan he'll compromise his dating standards, morals, his loyalty to the Crown- just not his racquetball game.
- Hyper-Awareness: Dylan can tell if someone is hiding something, capable of committing a crime, or carrying a weapon.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Shoots a glass out of Joan's hand in "Bye-Bye Birdie.
- A flashback in "Long Shot" reveals that as a child, he accidentally killed his first deer while aiming to miss; his marksmanship must have improved greatly since then.
- It's Personal: Said word for word in "Blast From the Past," when Dylan realizes that a spree bomber, who survived the same abusive psychological experimentation that Dylan did as a child, is targeting him and trying to ruin his happiness.
- More than Just a Teacher: Is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and secretly a former CIA employee.
- Photographic Memory: Dylan has the ability to perfectly recall sound, which he calls "phonographic memory".
- Platonic Life-Partners: Their relationship starts off pretty rocky, but Dylan and Lizzie eventually come to work together and trust each other. Dylan even pushes Lizzie to ask out a mechanic who's helping them on a case. After analyzing the guy first, that is.
Det. Elizabeth "Lizzie" Needham
Played by: Bojana Novakovic
A no-nonsense NYPD police detective reaches out to Dylan to help solve a murder.
- Action Girl: Lizzie has no problem taking down criminals and suspects.
- Alcoholic Parent: Her mom was an alcoholic, and Lizzie was Promoted to Parent to look after her younger sister.
- Dead Partner: Lizzie's previous partner and fiancé died while undercover a year prior, and she hasn't had a new partner since.
- Death Seeker: In Pilot, Dylan notes Lizzie didn't seem to care if she lived or died when she Took The Bullet for the court clerk.
- Disappeared Dad: Lizzie's father is never mentioned.
- Failed a Spot Check: Lizzie easily figures out Dylan hasn't told Andy he's working with the NYPD, but completely misses the fact that he's gay.
- Fair Cop: Lizzie cleans up very nicely when she goes undercover on a date with a potential suspect.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Lizzie and Jasmine are close friends despite Jasmine's promotion to lieutenant, and know each other very well.
- Survivor Guilt: She was diagnosed with this following Charlie's death.
- Workaholic: Frequently puts her work before her personal life. When a date asks what she does for fun, she's unable to answer.
