Peter Falk built Columbo piece by piece, raiding his own insecurities to create a detective who weaponized self-doubt. The slouch, the mumbling, the distracted stare—all of it a mask that let him slip under the guard of people who thought they were smarter, richer, untouchable. Audiences clung to him as proof that decency and persistence could still puncture arrogance. Yet Falk himself wrestled with impulses that dragged him away from that ideal: the numbing pull of alcohol, the thrill of infidelity, the uneasy distance from those who loved him most.

His glass eye became an emblem of how he moved through the world: half in, half out, seeing everything and hiding more. He could make a joke of his injury, but not of the loneliness it masked. In the end, Columbo gave viewers closure every week. Peter Falk rarely got the same verdict.