Homicide Episode Guide: Secrets

Written by Yaphet Kotto

Directed by Ed Bianchi

A lot of what Homicide is about, essentially, is secrets. What do people declare as their occupation on their income tax form, and what do they really make their money doing, like the Mahoney family. What do people desire, what do they do when they’re not working, like the late Gordon Pratt. Our secrets can be important things, sometimes they are worth killing for, but are they worth dying for? That last question is the central issue of ‘Secrets’.

The case involves two suicides that occur within hours of each others. The victims  chose different ways of ending their live. They were both well-off, financially speaking, both of them had families who cared about them. So why end their lives? This is a question that the detectives normally don't have to deal with---- they have enough problems dealing with people killing each other, they don’t have time for ones who decide to kill themselves. But the investigation takes a different turn when Bayliss and Pembleton learn their suicide victim received photographs documenting his adultery--- which is bad, but only becomes explainable when we learn that the woman he was having an affair with was his half-sister. Ballard and Munch check into the life of their victim, and learn she was having an affair with her child’s babysitter.

These are serious transgressions but one doesn’t understand why the victims would end their lives until we find the link between them: the two victims went to the same country club, and the photographs were taken under the orders of a fellow member named Remington Hill.  Bayliss and Pembleton confront him and find that he is a member of the ‘old school’ type of society who found the victims transgressions ‘morally obscene’.  We learn that this is not a case of simple extortion--- Hill didn’t order someone to find out dirt on them, he knew about it before he had the victims photographed. And he didn’t ask for money, he ordered the victims to stop, or he would expose them to the world. For that matter, these weren’t the only people that he had photographed---- he did the exact same thing with eight other members of the country club,  all of whom apparently chose to give up their sins rather than be exposed.

This is all morally ambiguous, but strictly speaking, these aren’t crimes. It’s not very nice what Hill was threatening to do, but if he didn’t ask for money, there’s no extortion. One could even justify it (as he does in a memorable exchange with Pembleton) by saying that it was done for the greater good. It is, however, a little shocking to hear hill discussing the deaths of people he knew as if they were commodities that failed, and it unsettles Frank too.  It seems as if nothing can be done--- until the detectives learn that Hill is now dead. It appears to be a suicide but its quickly revealed to be a murder. The killer is revealed quickly--- it’s the man who took all the pictures and who was sick of Hill’s actions.  It turns out the reason he took the photographs was because Hill was holding a secret over his head--- but the photographer doesn’t give it up.

For a case that doesn’t involve a crime until the very end, the episode is very intriguing for most of its duration. The confrontation between Bayliss, Pembleton and Hill (Remak Ramsey) is pretty powerful, if not grade-A Homicide. Furthermore, its discussion of secrets bring up two of Bayliss’ darker issues--- his molestation by his uncle when he was a child, and his current flirtation with bisexuality. He seems more sympathetic to Hill than he deserves, and its interesting that these action enable him (in the denouement) to tell one of his secrets to Ballard because “keeping secrets leads to trouble.”

No one knows more about the evils of secrets than the people involved in the Mahoney shooting which is having its own kinds of fallout. First of all, Lewis does not protest the trail board and, as Gee said he would, gets off with a slap on the wrist.  He returns to the unit, bring back the football with him. Things would seem to be back to normal. The problem is that the drug war Meldrick started with his dirt and the little white envelopes has now officially spiraled out of control.  Now people whose names Falsone didn’t give Meldrick are starting to turn up on the board as well. Unfortunately, they’re not the only people involved in this who are going to end up dead. Things are about to get worse.

This investigation also lets us in a little more on the character of Falsone --- and it’s not a flattering picture. Up until we have assumed that Falsone had a certain sense of justice and integrity--- otherwise, why else would he continuously poke his nose into a subject where it definitely does not belong? But now, we learn that he just investigated the Mahoney shooting for his own clarification to make sure that he wasn’t transferring into a particularly troublesome situation--- self interest rather than justice. Ironically, by pressing forward with his investigation, he helped turned the squad into a tinderbox but this is never dealt with on any level. For that matter, after the final showdown with the Mahoney crew, neither Stivers or Lewis bear Falsone much of a grudge; at least they’re willing to partner with him with no problems.

As for Kellerman, the freeze-out he’s going through doesn’t change much. Though he makes a friendly overture to Meldrick in the weight room, Lewis effectively brushes him off. Then there is the civil suit pending. Kellerman goes to jury selection only to see our old friend Judge Gibbons decide to toss the case., much to the surprise of the court. Then he has a shouting match with Gibbons outside the courtroom,  in which he basically tells him to give Georgia Rae up to the feds. This scene essentially gets Gibbons killed, but Mike doesn’t seem torn up about that either.

While ‘Secrets’ is not quite as good as Kotto’s  previous teleplay ‘Narcissus’, it does show that Kotto does have a better understanding of the show the storylines and characters of Homicide  better than some of the other writers. The story raises some interesting issues, though not as powerful ones as before, and it impresses you with the problems it raises.

My score: 3.75 stars