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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