Homicide Episode Guide: Fallen Heroes, Part 1

Teleplay by Lois Johnson; story by Eric Overmeyer

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow

Given all the events involving the Mahoney organization which have transpired this season, it was perhaps inevitable that the two-part season finale of Season 6 would tie up the loose ends of the story.  Regular fans of Homicide  who watched ‘Fallen Heroes’, however, must have been stymied by how it played out. But let’s start at the beginning.

Pembleton and Bayliss are called in for an ‘old-style’ red ball--- the murder of a federal judge, stabbed to death in broad daylight. It is our old acquaintance Gerald Gibbons. Because Frank and Tim have had  almost no association with the Mahoney murders, they don’t learn the Mahoney connection until near the end of the first act, when the Feds show up and tell them that Gibbons was about to be indicted for  corruption charges. Obviously the case takes on a whole new turn and a far messier turn when we learn who the killer is Nathaniel Lee Mahoney, aka Junior Bunk. You’d think Junior would still be in prison considering he’d been arrested in the season opener, but his sentence was reduced so that he could get out on work release--- reduced, by the way, by Judge Gibbon.

 But this isn’t the weepy eyed, girly man we met way back in season 5, oh no. Even though Junior has only done six months in the joint, the experience --- physical, mental and sexual--- has made him a stone-cold, tightly wound felon. (Some might argue that prison doesn’t change a man that quickly; I would counter by pointing out the character of Tom Marans in  last years ‘Prison Riot’ or Tobias Beecher in Fontana’s Oz)  This becomes clear when Tim and Frank interrogate Junior and he doesn’t even flinch at the threat of death row. He is wound up, but we don’t know how much.

Given the way the detectives dislike the Mahoney organization, and the way Kellerman and Lewis ride Junior when he is being held in the squad, we can see Bunk is ready to snap. And  after the director (in an unusual lack of subtlety) telegraph something might happen when Junior (and the viewer) sees a cop put his gun into a desk drawer, we’re ready to expect something. It comes as a huge shock though when Junior grabs the gun and starts shooting up the squad room. (It must have been a pretty full clip; I counted fifteen shots minimum that junior fired) Three uniformed officers are killed and Gharty and Ballard get badly wounded--- Gharty takes two in the chest; Ballard gets shot in the ankle. (There’s a certain style of the show that the two detectives who nearly die in Junior’s rampage are the ones who had the least to do with the Mahoney investigations.) Of course, Junior gets killed too, as at least four detectives and Lieutenant Giardello shoot at him.

We’ve seen gunfire on the show before, but this is the first time it really seems like overkill (pun intended). The sight of the squad after the gunplay ends is a haunting site, with the lights burnt out and windows shattered, but it really seems it belongs on some other type of program. I don’t know of any  police drama  where a squad-room ended up looking like Beirut and it blows any pretense of ‘reality’ out of the water.  They don’t even kill off one of the regular patrolmen like Westby or Sally Rogers. The war metaphor seems particularly appropriate  because after this Gee and the Baltimore PD  informally declare war on the Mahoney organization, vowing not to sleep until Georgia Rae is in custody.

 Despite all the shooting, like the old school Homicide we have a B-story going on. Falsone and Stivers are called in to investigate the murder of a parole officer. Actually, execution is a better term--- his car is riddled with gunfire from a moving vehicle, a la a drive-by. Turns out this PO was a real stickler for rules and one of his parolees was another old acquaintance --- Pony Johnson,  who was arrested for a double homicide in year one of the show. (Why he was paroled after only five years is a question the show never answers They also make a huge continuity error by saying Munch was the investigating detective; in actuality Kay Howard and Beau Felton were the arresting officers) Johnson got pissed when violated him and sent him back to Jessup and got his crew to kill him. He also hired a member of his crew (who was sleeping with the PO’s secretary to make him an easy set-up. Even throughout the violence in the squad, Falsone and Stivers still put the case bed before going to the hospital to check on their friends.

‘Fallen Heroes’ is a very dark-natured show but compared to some of the best episodes of Homicide  it is incredibly derivative and chaotic. It also features two of the most inappropriate musical interludes the show ever dead, including one that has ‘Save the Last Dance’ playing while we watch Ballard and Gharty undergo major surgery. Parts of the episode (the stuff with the parole officer, the early interrogations) are well done but a lot of it seems out of place. It well directed and acted but the efforts don’t seem even as good as last season.

My score: 3 stars.

Fan ranking: 7^th