Written by Eric Overmeyer
Directed by Kyle Secor
The biggest shock surrounding the premiere of this episode in January of 1998
was not anything that happened on it (though there was a stunning plot twist).
It was that Homicide, despite the
fact that it had not raised its ratings, was going to be brought back for a
seventh season. As was often the case during Homicide’s run, extenuating circumstances played a key role.
For
starters Jerry Seinfeld had recently announced that he would not continuing his
smash hit Seinfeld beyond the last season. This led to a huge and
messy contract negotiation with the producers of ER to keep it on the schedule
for several years. Mad About You, a
vital part of NBC’s Must-See TV lineup was considering changing networks (which
never happened) Finally, on top of all this, NBC lost its professional football
contract to CBS and FOX . In a matter of weeks NBC had gone from
king of the mountain down to lords of the manor. This would also lead to NBC
making a series of big investments for multi-year contracts of hit programs
instead of investing revenue in new shows--- a decision that would ultimately
lead to NBC dropping from first to third in
five years.
All
of these obstacles were down the road. For now NBC’s concern was on the here
and now. Warren Littlefield decided that
Homicide was a highly acclaimed
program with a low budget, and that it would make sense to hold on to the show
for at least a little longer. Unfortunately, they decided in order to keep it
fresh, they would start tampering with it, a move ultimately killed the show.
Little
of this is evident in ‘Shaggy Dog, City Goat’, a well written episode that
features many of the trademarks of Homicide
while focusing its attention on less
profiled cast members. Bayliss and Pembleton are nowhere to be found, so the
show turns its attention to M.E. Julianna Cox and newcomers Ballard and Gharty.
Using
the construct of an annual meeting of
the National Association of Medical Examiners,
Dr. Cox is named Examiner of the Year (perhaps a subtle dig at Homicide’s own problem winning major
awards despite critical acclaim) Cox has dinner with several of her colleagues
where they discuss oddities. Cox wows
her colleagues with her work on a case where a man jumped off a seven-story
building trying to kill himself, but ended up getting killed
when he was shot in the chest on the way down. Munch and Kellerman investigate and learn that
shotgun blast came from the apartment of an old, feuding couple who played out
a little exercise when something went wrong--- he would pretend to fire his
shotgun at her--- only this time it was loaded. The capper? The victim was the
couple’s son, who had loaded the shotgun hoping that his father would kill his mother and then, when
nothing happened for a while, decided to end his life by jumping off the
building where they lived--- ironically setting the stage for his own murder.
Sound
familiar? It should. This is an urban myth used by medical examiners in
teaching exercises. Furthermore, these exact circumstances would be described
in the opening montage of Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1999 film Magnolia. What gives the story its energy and wit is the work of
Michelle Forbes, who for the first time in a long time gets something to do as
she manages to solve the case on her own work. It also helps immeasurably that
the feuding couple is played by television legends (and real-life husband and
wife) Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows. They add a real zest and comedy to a tale
that, under other shows and other performers could have been routine.
Meanwhile,
in the here and now, Ballard and Gharty get the murder of a low-level drug
dealer. (Strange. Its been a while since we had one of those.) This drug
dealers was also a fraud known for selling bad packages. In an unusual twist,
the killers are white dealers from the Appalachian section of Maryland--- Baltimore Seattle
But
the biggest shocker comes in two parts. Part one hits when Lewis, Kellerman and
Stivers (along with Gee, the city, and the police department) in a wrongful
death civil suit by Georgia Rae Mahoney of guess who. Everybody is upset about this but the one who
gets really pissed is Meldrick. In a scene of anger, he’s goes to Georgia Rae’s
house, gives her a tongue lashing, and bashes her in the face. This is an
action so extreme that even Giardello, who stood by his men and let them stay
on rotation, doesn’t intervene when Barnfather orders Lewis to be indefinitely
suspended for his assault attempt.
Meldrick hands over his gun and badge, grabs his hat and the football
(which the detectives have been tossing around since season one) and walks out
of the squad without a word. To be honest I thought that we were never going to
see Meldrick again. And we didn’t--- for almost all of what was left of the
season, As it turned out Meldrick would
be very busy--- doing stuff that we would have not thought him capable of
doing.
‘Shaggy
Dog, City Goat’ is a layered story with ongoing storylines, dark humor and
addled social commentary--- in short, it’s what we’ve come to expect from Homicide. Its not perfect, but if this
was a representative of how the show would proceed into the post-Seinfeld era, it would have been in fine
shape. Unfortunately, ‘twas not the case.
My score: 4.5 stars.
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