Written by Tom Fontana
Directed by Clark Johnson
Looked with the distance of 30 years this episode
seems most significance for its casting of Neil Patrick Harris in the very cast
against type role of Alan Schack, the villain of the piece. Harris was still in
1997 best known for the innocent role of Doogie Howser MD so this role
was a major get and gave him a chance to play against type.
One can't deny the significance of this role.
Harris was in the process of transitioning from the teenage doctor to the more
sleazy characters he is known for playing in the 21st century, not
long before he would come out of the closet at the turn of the 2010s and add a
different level to it. Looked at in this sense, it's a clear progression of a
superb actor in the making.
Less known at the time and definitely so today
was the second guest role of Linda Dano, a prominent soap opera actress in the
NBC franchise (though it would be canceled in a few years' time) Another
World. But Dano's appearance as Dr. Miano, the marriage counselor that
Frank and Mary see is the far more critical one for the series overall. Because
this session finally lays bare the cracks in the Pembleton marriage and Frank,
the man who is known for being able to talk people into revealing their most
hidden truths, is now on the receiving end something he doesn't like from the
start and very quickly finds that he has been as good at lying to himself as so
many of the suspects he's gotten to confess in the box.
But first the cases. Pembleton leaves work for
personal time and makes it clear he has Kellerman covering for him. For the
first time Al asked Frank if he and Tim are speaking and Pembleton makes it
clear that they're just not working together. Bayliss and Kellerman are called
out for a bombing which leads to them working together for the first time since
the death of James Douglas. Kellerman is back from his time off and he seems
openly better for the first time since the grand jury subpoena came; he even
jokes about how Bayliss was snarky to him the last time.
Once there on the bomb site of with the FBI on
site (this is thought of as terrorism and we hear both Hezbollah and Waco
mentioned) the jokes start coming when they find an ear. "Friends Romans
Countryman," goes Bayliss. "Ear today, gone tomorrow,"
Kellerman. Yeah he's back to normal.
Things then get worse when there's a second bombing
of a defense attorney named Allan Corcoran. Kellerman says he knows the name
but can't figure out from where. Then
Kellerman ties to a previous case – Corcoran defended the man who shot Tommo
Roh a few episodes back. (See 'Inconsistencies') Corcoran defended the man who
shot Roh and acquitted him and Kuntz was the jury foreman. It becomes very
clear that Ben Roh is trying to deal with how the honor of his family was destroyed
and has been going on a path of revenge.
This leads to the tension with the fact that Ben
has gone to the courthouse where Lewis and Juliana are there for the Middleton
case. This leads to a good scene between the two where they discuss their
personal lives: Meldrick discusses the state of his marriage; Juliana is
dealing with the death of her father. We learned in an earlier scene that the
headstone has just been delivered and she's been delaying having it set.
This ties indirectly the deaths of these two men
to the actions of Luther Mahoney. When Kellerman asks why Ben didn't kill Luther,
the son says he was saving him for last. Given what will happen in a few weeks'
time one really wishes he had started with him rather than going through the
criminal justice system.
Meanwhile Munch is called to the apparent suicide
of Nick Bollaneterra. When Munch learns that he's the roommate of Allan Schack
Brodie knows Schack as a bad dude and decides to talk to him, something that
doesn't interest Munch.
This episode shows the lazy aspects of Munch we
haven't seen in a while. He doesn't want to investigate a case that he's
written off and he sure as hell doesn't want to listen to Brodie. Brodie goes
over Munch's head to Howard (very reluctantly) and lets the investigation
continue. To be fair there's something going on beyond Munch's instincts. Bollantera
was coked up and there were two sets of fingerprints on the gun. Schack has
joked about being there and playing Russian Roulette. (Munch says there were five
bullets in the gun and you only use one to play Russian Roulette. Howard:
"Is this is a game you play often?" The thing is, I can see Munch doing
it when he was in college and high.)
There is something quite brilliant in Harris's work. Even as he grew into adulthood it
would be rare he'd play someone who was so genuinely contemptuous of authority
and outright sleazy to so many around him. His later characters would have oily
politeness to them; Schack can barely refrain from bating Munch and Howard in
the box and he openly threatens Brodie before he attacks him.
But this episode gives Melissa Leo a chance to
shine in a way she's gotten to far less during the last two seasons, first as
she interrogate Schack and then when she brings him into the box to trick him
with a videotape. "What we have here his more brilliant then Apocalypse
Now and more entertaining than America's Funniest Home Videos. (Ah
the 1990s.) Brodie has recorded a tape which he has doctored to make it seem
like the narcotics department was monitoring Schack's house and him entering
his home. He adds the sound of a gunshot going off and this fools Schack into
believing that's he been caught.
But for all that Brodie is still annoyed that no
one in the unit seems to be treating him with the respect he thinks he
deserves. There's a real sense of false entitlement here; Brodie has been more
of a nuisance then anything; he's lived with every single detective save Pembleton
during his housing crisis, and after a year and a half its still an open
question whether he's been more of an asset to the unit then a detriment. On
top of that he filmed a documentary on the unit and submitted it to PBS without
asking permission of the department or anyone. Al is more generous and says its
not his job to make them like you. You have to earn it. (One really wonders if
any people Brodie's age could watch this show today and wonder why he didn't
sue for a hostile work environment.)
The scenes with Dano as Miano are comic delights
for multiple reasons because its clear that she's just as good at her job as
Frank is at his. She sets Frank at ease with questions about how they met, eases
him into a false sense of security, then starts talking about his and Mary's
sex life. This makes Frank noticeably uncomfortable for the first time in
almost the entire series and we see him being questioned in a way that has
irony all around. You can see how frustrated he is at just how good Miano is at
asking questions and never answering them directly, which is exactly how he
does his job so well. Then she drops a bomb and tells him his wife is thinking
of leaving him.
We've known about Frank's being from New York
originally but we've never learned why he moved to Baltimore. Here he's very
direct: he makes it clear 'Baltimore is a brown town run by brown people"
and the NYPD was never going to give him what he wanted. This explains why he reacts
so much to the perceived slights of Felton and the real racism of Gaffney as
well as been so eager to correct Bayliss whenever he makes a remarks that hints
of looking back with nostalgia. And he tries the suspect's trick of blaming
everything that's going on on someone else, targeting Mary's parents and then
the therapist. Frank has built his entire career on being infallible on the job
and will not take criticism on it from anyone at work; we shouldn't be surprised
when he's criticized on it as a husband and father – and worst of all, a sexual
partner.
Frank is very honest about his problems about his
sex life and how much he resented doctors told them about how when they were
having so much trouble conceiving Olivia (back in Season 3) sex became almost a
homework assignment. Mary then tells Frank that he's approaching sex like his
job: detached. (She clearly doesn't know just how much effort he went into celebrating
their anniversary but the larger point is the same.) When Mary tells Frank the
very real possibility he disappeared from the marriage long before the stroke,
Frank becomes the worst we've seen him in front of his wife – until he points
out the very real sense of inadequacy he had after the stroke in a way we've
never seen him to do even when he was at his worst at the start of the season.
He may have physically recovered from his stroke; the psychological reckoning
may not happened.
But Mary gets to the heart of Frank sins when she
says: "Pride." And she makes it clear perhaps more than anyone what
his being a fallen Catholic has cost him. We know upfront its bad to challenge
Frank on faith (he says when he needed him "God was in the next county
over making hurricanes and hunchback babies") but now we see it through a
different lenses – Mary.
Ami Brabson has been superb all season but this
episode may be her finest hour on Homicide as she makes it clear – without
saying it directly – that she must have spent so much time by Frank's bedside
and then his recovery praying to God. This is first time we see how much Frank's
disdain for God might actually be harmful to those around him and it becomes a living
thing when it comes to discussing that Mary wants Olivia to be baptized but has
been afraid to do it because of Frank's refusal to go to church, something that
has been canon on the show since at least Season 3. Frank lists his believes as
justice and life and Mary cuts him off:
Mary: You believe in Homicide.
Frank: It's the same thing.
We know all too well that this is not something
held by anyone that isn't a homicide detective (and not even some of them). And
when Mary says: "Is it?" it cuts to the biggest question we've had.
Frank has made it clear without the job he's nothing and Mary is telling him the
opposite. It's telling that Mary chooses to end the session first, despite the
therapist's advice. She's the only person Frank can't pressure into doing what
he wants and its clear it stuns him.
He actually comes close to confiding in Gee,
asking him if he was happily married and the very real question whether she
might have gotten sick of him had she lived and he'd stayed at his job. Al says
he never thought about it and he doesn't want to now. He thinks he was happily
married and that his wife did the job of raising the kids. (We've already seen
what his beloved Charisse thinks of him as a father; in the last season we'll
get a chance to see what his son thought of it.) We learn that Mary is a
lobbyist who is passionate for the causes she fights for "but she can
leave her job on I-95." Frank considers Homicide 'a calling…we speak for
those who can no longer speak for themselves." He makes it clear he was a
cop when he met Mary.
He makes a real attempt when he agrees to have
Olivia baptized but then he gets hung up on a case and he misses it. It's not
clear if this is the final straw or if it would have happened regardless but
Mary tells Frank she's leaving and taking Olivia with him. She makes it clear he's more comfortable
standing over a corpse then changing his daughter's diaper, that Frank cared more
about getting healthy so he could get back on the street then be a husband and
father "that you care more about dead strangers then you do about your own
family."
When Mary leaves for the first time in Homicide's
entire history we see Frank broken in a way we never have: weeping saying:
"That's not true."
This episode does take place on the title day (it
actually originally aired February 14th 1997!) and we see multiple
signs of it in the final montage. There's Cox with Kellerman at her father's
headstone; Brodie hanging out with his roommate; Meldrick and Barbra kissing in
front of his Teddy Pendergast painting, apparently happy. But all of this is
intercut with scenes of Pembleton in his empty home, looking more lost then he
ever has. For Frank this is actually rock bottom. The rest of Season Five will
be about him climbing up.
NOTES FROM THE BOARD
"Detective Munch" In the opening scene Munch
asks if there's anything that makes it look like this isn't a suicide Brodie
responds: "Just because there's no sign that something isn't doesn't mean
that it is." Cox responds: "Careful Brodie, you're starting to sound
like Munch.
Munch: I resent that remark.
Brodie: So do I.
Just as brilliant is when Kellerman says he hates
red balls and Munch says he can recommend a good urologist.
Inconsistencies: Guides to the show have pointed
out that its been less than a month since the Roh case was opened with no
suspects. Yet somehow in less then three weeks the shooter has been caught,
tried and found innocent. That's somewhat unrealistic.
Nearly as unrealistic is that after Brodie is
beaten severely with a lead pipe he's somehow in a condition to just not be
discharged the same day but shoot the video of Schack's confession without any
sign of injury. But honestly I've seen more inconsistencies between episodes of
Law & Order and X-Files on a week-to-week basis during this period so I'll
let it go.
Future Inmate: William Cote who plays officer
Keane in this episode, would later be cast as William Cudney on OZ, a Christian
evangelical who shoots the son of an abortionist and is sent to prison for
life.
Hey, Isn't That…Neil Patrick Harris' career began
at fourteen when he played David in Clara's Heart. He was cast as Doogie Howser
MD in 1989 and would play the role for four seasons. During this period he
began his career in voice acting starting as Max on the short-lived series
Capitol Critters (I'll focus on TV though there's clearly a lot else.). Most of
his work was in TV movies in the aftermath, such as My Antonia, A Family Torn
Apart, and the Man in the Attic.
In 1999 he was cast as Henry in the comedy Stark
Raving Mad which was canceled after one season and he did the voice of Spider-Man
in a 2003 animated cartoon. Then he became legend – wait for it – dary! Legendary!
as Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother for nine seasons. He eventually
would play Dr. Horrible in Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog written by Joss
Whedon and Count Olaf in the Netflix version of A Series of Unfortunate Events.
He starred in Uncoupled which both Netflix and then Showtime renewed for a
second season and then canceled.. His most recent TV appearance was Lowell in
Dexter Resurrection.
He has to date won five Emmys, though none of
them were for comedy. He won four of them for hosting the Tony Awards including
three consecutive ones from 2012 to 2014 and Special class programs. He also
won tow in 2010, one for hosting the Tonys and won for his guest role in Glee.
He has also hosted the Emmys multiple times and the Oscars in 2015 and was
nominated for doing so that year.
Linda Dano made her TV debut in Police Story in
1973 and had small part in many shows from Lucas Tanner to Harry O TO Matt Helm.
She played Cynthia Haines in as The World Turns in 1981 and 1982 before
appearing in 1548 episodes of Another World as Felicia Gallant between 1983 and
its cancellation in 1999. She would then play Rae Cummings in All My Children
and its spin-off series Port Charles as well in General Hospital and One Life
to Live before playing Vivian Alamain in Days of our Lives in 2021. She would
win a Daytime Emmy for her work in Another World in 1993 and be nominated for
it four that show four other times and for One Life to Live in 2003.
