Saturday, October 15, 2016

Homicide Episode Guide: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

Written by Tom Fontana and James Yoshimura
Directed by Wayne Ewing

         This episode  is probably my favorite of the first season. Perhaps the most obvious is that it contains some of the biggest laughs that the series would ever do. Rather then dealing with the seriousness of death, this one deals with some of the amusing characteristics of the detectives.
         High on the list is smoking. Those who have been watching the show up to this point will have counted that five of the detectives---- Bayliss, Crosetti, Felton, Howard and Pembleton---- all smoke cigarettes and a sixth--- Bolander--- smokes cigars. Though we now live in a society that has been driving smokers out of everywhere, it is still a  vital part of the police atmosphere despite all the risks to a persons health. You need something to get through looking at dead bodies all the time, as Pembleton suggest when he explains why he started smoking again after thinking that he had the habit kicked. But there are all kinds of consequences, particularly with Bayliss  who is having all kinds of problems. Two of the funnier sequence involve this, when Bayliss tries to vicariously smoke through Pembleton and during the stakeout where he talks himself into a cigarette.
         However, one of the more hysterical moments of the show occurs when Pembleton asks Howard why she quit smoking. After implying that her affair with Ed Danvers played a role in her quitting, Howard brags in very exacting detail her sex life. This is the kind of thing that guys do all the time, but Howard’s attention to detail unnerves even the mighty Pembleton. (How much of her story is exaggeration is very difficult to say but I think she was stretching things more than a little.
         But without a doubt the most hilarious sequence comes in relationship to the main murder of the hour, the killing of Percy Howell. Interrogating another one of those brain-dead suspects that seem involved in crime, Detectives Bolander and Munch use an ‘electrolyte neutron magnetic test scanner’--- or in layman’s terms, a copy machine--- to determine whether he is lying. The threat of possible sterility due to the radiation panics the young man into a confession . I still can’t watch it without cracking up.
         Despite all the humorous moments of the show, ‘Smoke Gets In Your Eyes’ also contains some very serious moments. Most of them come from Giardello. When the episode begins, he seems a little depressed. In a conversation with Lewis, he seems to be sad at the loss of his wife (this is the first time that we hear of her or her death)  and disturbed by the retirement of Jim Scinta. When he goes upstairs to get a Coke, he seems even more depressed and his mood isn’t helped by the fact that he walks into a room  that seems out of a science–fiction movie as  men in respirators remove asbestos from the walls. This angers him so much that he berates Granger and Barnfather into winning concessions for the detectives that work in his unit--- angrier than seems warranted. This improves his mood somewhat and he actually seems chipper and upbeat when he rejects Howard and Bayliss’ suggestion for a non-smoking section of the squad. (There seems to be some contradiction in that he worries about his detectives getting sick from asbestos but not about whether they die of cancer from smoking. Maybe its whose responsible?)
         We also get some more insight into the relationship of Lewis and Crosetti when we learn that Meldrick is building a Cobra from scratch. Crosetti mocks this but in the end he buys him a horn for it. Crosetti and Lewis seem to have close relationship, and given what will ultimately happen to Crosetti, we wonder if they really are as close as they appear to be. Lewis calls his partner ‘the closest thing that he has to a best friend’; was he only fooling himself?
         And then there is the murder that takes up the majority of the episode: Percy Howell, a young teenager who died of complications from the beating. Eventually, we will learn that he was beaten by a member of a local gang as a combination initiation and gesture of affection. This may seem like a real miscarriage, but Howell’s life seemed singularly devoid of happiness. His father seems to be extremely cold and we have no indication that the mother is in the picture at all. He had no real friends and no one seemed to care about him.
Was this all the affection that he was capable of receiving? It seems that way.
As Bolander points out: “Murder ain’t what it used to be.”
         Bolander is in a maudlin mood for most of the episode. The death of Howell bothers him but he is also concerned with personal problems. His relationship with Dr. Blythe doesn’t seem to be going as well as he hoped. His wife is finishing the process of moving out of his house, ending twenty two years of marriage. No wonder he seems so depressed at the end of the episode. The sight of Ned Beatty singing to himself over a lonely beer is not a cheerful image (which is one of the reasons that NBC aired it out of sequence) but it does seem to fit the mood of Homicide to a T. It’s a fairly moving moment.

         Technically, this was the ‘end’ of the first season of Homicide. However, other factors have caused me--- as well as many other fans to consider the second season a part of the first. Even so, ‘Smoke Gets In Your Eyes’ feels like a season ender and resonates very well in the memory.
My score: 4.75 stars.

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