Written by Noel Behn;
story by Tom Fontana
Directed by John McNaughton
During its seven year run, Homicide would deal with many
complicated issue. Most of them surrounded the business of being murder police:
grief, race, violence , punishment. However, since a lot of murders are
committed for passionate reasons, love and sex
are also an integral part of the characters lives. Watching how the
character dealt with love---and by insinuation, sex--- would play a vital role
in how the characters few life. Very few episodes would portray the kinks and
twists of these issues more than ‘A Many Splendored Thing’.
On the personal level, we see how
the promise of love has greatly changed the life of the normally morose Stan Bolander. His relationship with Linda has struck some chord with him in a way
that probably surprises even him. As he tells Giardello, he is happier then he
ever remembers being. Unlike his relationship with Dr. Blythe which never
panned out, this relationship has made him positively buoyant as we see
hilariously in the teaser. Munch is absolutely staggered by this, and because
of his own misery with Felicia, he can
not bear the thought of his partner--- or for that matter anyone--- as being
happy. Just because Munch is depressed
doesn’t make him stupid, though, and he can spot signs of dissent in the
burgeoning relationship between Howard and Ed Danvers (who double dates with
Stan and Linda). How much of that dissent is brought to the surface by Munch, we
will never know for sure but it is notable that in the next seasons, their
relationship will no longer be a part of the series.
Of course, you don’t have to have a
relationship---- or for that matter even
love a person--- to have problems with love. This is reflected to surprisingly
comic effect when Lewis and Crosetti catch on of the odder murders the show
would veer deal with . A man at a public library is shot by another man
because he refused to give up his pen.
Meldrick, though he refers to Baltimore as home of the misdemeanor homicide,
thinks that here has to be more to this murder than a dollar forty nine pen—especially
when the killer doesn’t take the pen with him. But, it turns out it’s all about
the pens. When they visit the killers house, his room is covered from floor to
ceiling with pens. Just your average everyday citizen. The disturbed man
eventually turns himself in for another pen. Understandably, Meldrick is
confused about the kind of devotion that would cause a man to kill for a pen. But
it’s not his nature to obsess or brood like some of the other detectives might.
Case closed, he’s on to the next murder.
Obsession plays a greater part in
the central storyline of the episode: the murder of Angela Frandina. From the
beginning it seems like this case is troubling Bayliss, and the deeper he
explores the victims lifestyle the more disturbed he becomes. To be fair
Frandina’s life does have some
potentially disturbing aspects. She has a fairly active sex life. She works as
a saleswoman in a store that sells sexual apparel like leather jackets and
chaps. She worked another job giving phone sex. And she liked to hang out at a
nightclub where masochistic (possibly sadistic) relationships are pursued.
However, the deeper Bayliss gets into the life of Frandina, the more agitated
he becomes. By the time he interviews a
boyfriend at a nightclub, he’s itching for a fight, and when he finally
captures the killer he doesn’t want to hear the extent of the sexual details
of it. He is so disturbed by this that
you might suspect (and your suspicions
would be borne out) that Bayliss is seriously repressed for some reason.
All of this makes for gripping TV.
What elevates this episode to something extraordinary is a sequence between Bayliss
and Pembleton after they visit the
nightclub. Tim asks Frank if the nature of this crime doesn’t disturb him. It
clearly doesn’t. When Bayliss tells him that he believes ‘sex equals love’
Pembleton retaliates by saying that no one thinks that way, and if he does:
“You’re either a liar or a moron.” Bayliss takes this to mean that this is a
further indication that Pembleton doesn’t think that he can cut it as homicide.
Pembleton then delivers one of the most memorable speeches he ever would (and
that’s saying something):
“We’re all guilty
of something, whether it’s greed or cruelty or going 65 in a 55 miles per hour
zone. But you know something? You want to play the fair-haired choirboy you go
ahead…. All I’m saying is that you Tim Bayliss have a darker side. You gotta know the uglier darker side of Tim Bayliss.
You gotta know them, so they’re not sneaking up on you. You gotta love them
because, they along with your virtues, make you who you are. Virtue isn’t
virtue unless its tested against vice, so consequently your virtue isn’t worth
anything unless its been tested.”
This is an
impressive speech and though it doesn’t affect Bayliss immediately, it does
sink in. By the end of the episode, after the owner of the sex shop brings him
a leather jacket to thank him for solving the case, he is seen in the last
scene , uneasy and flustered but still out there on the block, still trying. It
would take several years but Bayliss would eventually be able to face his
darkness. The fact that it would take so much time is one of the reasons
‘Homicide’ was such a great show.
There are also some unusual comic
elements in the episode. Perhaps the oddest occurs when Tim and Frank visit a
phone sex establishment and find that I operates like a normal business, with
scripts and distractions and ennui. Then there is the fabulous sequence at the
restaurant when a very romantic mood is spoiled by the arrival of Munch and his
very downbeat view on love. This is followed by a scene where Linda manages to
momentarily lift even Munch out of the doldrums. But the meat of ‘A Many
Splendored Thing’ comes from the two very diverse cases that show the very
dysfunctional nature of love. Many of the relationships in the episode are
complete failures, but they do show that not only does the course of love not
run smooth, a lot of the time it doesn’t run at all.
My score: 4.75 stars.
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