NEW YORK (AP) — The shocking double homicide on Sunday has shattered the image of the Reiner family, who were long considered distant from any shadow of crime.

For many years, Rob Reiner and his father, Carl Reiner, represented a comforting and optimistic vision of American culture. Carl’s creation, “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” showcased delightful humor, while Rob’s film, “When Harry Met Sally…,” became synonymous with heartfelt romantic comedies, a genre that seems to be fading. Carl often praised his son as his favorite director, and Rob once admitted that he admired his father so greatly, he considered changing his first name to Carl.

The Reiner family appeared to be untouched by envy, bitterness, or violence. Carl Reiner shared a loving marriage with his wife, Estelle, for over six decades, and Rob has been married to Michele since 1989. The notion of any Reiner being associated with crime seemed implausible. However, on Monday, a startling announcement came from the Los Angeles police: 32-year-old Nick Reiner had been taken into custody, suspected of murdering his parents, Rob and Michele.

Maria Shriver expressed her grief on Threads, stating, “They were among my closest friends. We shared laughter, tears, dreams, and just last week, a wonderful dinner together. They were in such a joyful phase of their lives.”

Rita Wilson, an actor and producer, reflected on the devastating loss in an Instagram post, writing that it is “impossible to reconcile the tragedy of their deaths with the beauty they offered the world.”

The Reiners never pretended to like everybody. Carl Reiner, who died in 2020, had appeared in an anti- Donald Trump ad two years earlier, urging like-minded citizens to vote during the midterm elections. Rob Reiner was a liberal who denounced Trump for years as a threat to democracy, and was labeled by the president Monday a victim of “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

But the Reiners’ politics, even at their angriest, were rooted in persuasion and civic engagement, the belief that the right words could bring about justice and redemption. In “A Few Good Men,” Rob’s adaptation of the Aaron Sorkin play, an inexperienced Navy defense lawyer outwits a bullying commander into confessing his complicity with the death of a young private. “The American President,” a 1995 Reiner-Sorkin collaboration released during President Bill Clinton’s first term, was a kind liberal fairy tale about a wavering chief executive who rediscovers his principles — and finds love with an environmental lobbyist.

“Beneath all of the stories he (Rob Reiner) produced was a deep belief in the goodness of people — and a lifelong commitment to putting that belief into action,” former President Barack Obama wrote on X.

As the liberal Mike Stivic in “All in the Family,” Reiner argued constantly with his bigoted father-in-law, Archie Bunker (played by Carroll O’Connor), but never gave up on reconciling with him. After one especially heated exchange, Stivic’s mother-in-law, Edith (Jean Stapleton), explains to him that Archie’s anger comes out of resentment that Mike is young and his life is before him.

When he sees Archie again, Mike hugs him: “I understand,” he says.

“We didn’t go into it thinking this is going to be therapeutic or bring us closer, but it did come out that way,” Rob Reiner told the AP. “It forced us to understand ourselves better than we had. I told Nick while we were making it, I said, ‘you know it doesn’t matter, whatever happens to this thing, we won already. This has already been good.’”