Homicide Episode Guide: Lines of Fire

Teleplay by James Yoshimura; Story by Tom Fontana & James Yoshimura

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow

As I have mentioned on multiple occasions within this guide, throughout its run NBC programmers would constantly show episodes out of their intended order, something that was usually detrimental to a series that depended on week-to-week viewing. On one occasion, though, I think the programmers made the right call.

In April of 1999, three high school students in Columbine would engage in one of the most notorious mass high school shootings in history. With Homicide now coming to an end, NBC executives no doubt considered that it would be insensitive to show an episode that ended with the murder of a young child. Unfortunately, as a result the episode that aired on April 30^th would be the penultimate one of the season (and the series), which would cause more than its fair share of continuity errors, which will become evident very soon.

The greater shame, however, is that far fewer eyeballs were viewing Lines of Fire when it finally aired. And that is a great shame, because it’s pretty clear that Fontana and Yoshimura were planning for the episode to be another seminal one, much like last seasons The Subway. There are great similarities between the two. Yoshimura wrote both episodes, it’s one of the few Homicide episodes that has no footage of the squad room, and only a few of the detectives are involved. In addition, Kathryn Bigelow, who directed the  Season 6 finale, and is one of the great filmmakers of our era, helmed this episode, and it’s a far better show of her abilities than Fallen Heroes was. The episode basically centers around a series of conversations between two men: in this Mike Giardello and Emmett Carey. Carey is in a much more strained situation than John Lange was last year – he’s already shot a cop by the time Mike starts talking to him, and he’s holding his two children hostage. In The Subway, Frank had to confront a man with his eminent death. Mike is a similar situation – he has to convince Emmett to release his hostages, but if things go bad, QRT will put him down. And in both cases, the episode ends fatally, but in this one the consequences are much worse.

Mike and Gharty are called in for a police involved shooting, but not a serious one – the cop is even laughing about it because he’s going on disability. When Emmett sees Mike on TV, he tells the hostage negotiator that he’ll only talk to Mike. Mike and Stu get swept in. Mike slowly manages to build up a rapport with Emmett, and is just about to get him to give up the gun in exchange for breakfast when Emmett’s ex-wife shows up, and inflames the situation by screaming profanities and worse, derivatives, at her husband.

One of the clearest differences between this and so many other hostage negotiations that we saw before and since is the presence of a third party who immediately makes the situation worse.  Lucy loathes her husband, and even when she’s told that he’s shot someone already, is utterly contemptuous of him. She wants her kids back, and honestly doesn’t believe Emmett capable of violence towards anyone. When she breaks past QRT the second time, she starts berate him again, and he fires at her. Lewis and Bayliss are called on scene for the murder, and even they can’t believe the odds that he was able to kill her that cleanly from that far away.

Even at that point, Emmett Carey’s fate is not yet sealed. Though the negotiation team is pissed at hell at what has happened, Mike still thinks there’s a chance to get the hostages out alive. When he goes back in for the second time, he now has to keep telling Carey that his wife his alive in order to get him out. Emmett knows that things are bad – he’s not educated, but he’s no fool – but he wants to believe Mike. So he agrees to hand over his gun for a pizza. Mike agrees.

Mike comes in with a pizza, a soda and a candy bar. The situation ekes along slowly. Emmett is still resistant. Then he needs a stiff drink. He walks towards Mike, QRT prepares to deliver the kill shot – and Mike gets in their way, handing him a Coke. This may be Mike Giardello’s defining moment with the squad, and like so many on this series, it doesn’t end well. The two of them manage to keep up their conversation, and Carey agrees to surrender his stepdaughter – whom he has made very clear in the episode isn’t really his child. The second the girl is clear of the gun, Mike turns around, and three shots ring out – two killing the younger boy, one killing Carey. Mike’s immediate reaction is one of sure hatred – “Kill yourself fine, but you don’t kill your kid, you son of a bitch!” and then quiet despair. He knows there was a moment, and the fact that he let it pass will probably haunt him for the rest of his life.

About the only way that this episode suffers in comparison to The Subway is that Giancarlo Esposito and Ron Eldard are not Andre Braugher and Vincent D’Onofrio. Nevertheless, both actors are definitely at the peak of their talent in this episode. Esposito gives what arguably his best performance on the series as a man playing outside his depth and yet somehow more than up to the challenge. By the end of the episode, you find yourself realizing that its unlikely even Frank Pembleton could have handled the situation any different or any better.

Ron Eldard, at the time of this episode, was largely known for work on a failed sitcom and a recurring role on ER. He delivers what is arguably his best performance in television period, playing Carey as a desperate man who was driven to this situation, not out of violence or any moral failing, but simply because of circumstance. Hundreds of little things had to go wrong for Emmett Carey to end up in the situation where he is today, and you feel a lot of sympathy for his situation, until his final act, which no one can forgive. Attention should also be paid to Gerety for fine work as Gharty, both in his talking with Carey, and his utter terror that Mike will get killed and he’ll have to explain it to his father.

Were it not for the confluence of events that led up to its delayed showing, I have no doubt that Lines of Fire would be held as one of the great episodes of television, and would no doubt have gotten the level of recognition at the Emmys. As it is, the episode ranks (along with Shades of Gray) as the creative high point of the final season, and clearly one of superb episodes in a series that was full of them.

My score: 5 stars