Saturday, November 10, 2018

Homicide Episode Guide: Zen and the Art of Murder


19. Zen and the Art of Murder

Teleplay by Lloyd Rose; Story by Julie Martin & Tom Fontana

Directed by Miguel Arteta

                It’s not clear if Tom Fontana and company still thought Homicide was going to come to a conclusion or whether they’d come back for one more series. It’s interesting to note that they seemed to be in the process of cleaning up all of the detritus that had made the seventh season such a wreck for most of the devoted followers (myself included). In Zen and the Art of Murder, they wrap up two of the messier storylines of the season, one simply and perfunctorily, the other anything but.

                The Falsone-Ballard romance officially comes to an end in this episode. And at least the writers are decent enough to lance the boil neatly. Falsone goes to Ballard, awkwardly tries to bring up the situation they were left in last week, and Ballard deflates it by simply saying they’re done. The end. Basically never dealt with again. In a bizarre way, its fitting that the worst storyline in the series history ends in a typical Homicide fashion.

                The main story of the episode deals with the murder of a Buddhist monk in a ‘temple’ in Baltimore. Lewis and Munch get called in, and from the start Munch, who’s in a pissy mood from the beginning (we’ll get a hint as to why in a couple episodes) seems even less inclined to give a solid investigation. As soon as Bayliss hears about the case, he wants to give involved – he knew the victim personally (one can’t imagine the Buddhist community in Baltimore is that large), and the minute he gets involved, Munch opts out. We knows he’s had problems with Bayliss all through the season – he’s been partnering with everybody but him in the last couple of months – but he has no problem walking away from him. This doesn’t make Meldrick any happier. Bayliss tries to look at this with an open mind, and Meldrick wants to treat it like any other investigation. When he hears that James Felder had had multiple affairs with his congregants, as well as with a married one, he focuses on that, and is less inclined to believe when even the cheated spouse says he was impressed with the man’s public confession.

                But the investigation takes a turn that no one sees coming. Hearing that a homeless man had stalked the temple earlier, Bayliss goes chasing after him, and finds him. It is clear from the moment we see the suspect – Larry Moss – that this guy is certifiable.   He waited on a soup line, got some soup, and apparently got so angry that Felder gave him a spoon, that he stalked him and beat him to death. Then he pulls a gun on Bayliss, and it becomes clear very quickly that he intends to kill him. Bayliss shoots him. Dead.

                And something inside him clearly breaks. Giardello tries to reassure him he did the only thing possible, but asks for a crisis worker to watch him. Lewis tries to convince him that he did the right thing, and even goes so far as to call him ‘a pretty good cop’. But Bayliss, who had a major problem with his sex life last episode, now finds that everything he thought he had learned spiritually seems to have changed nothing in him. He refuses to go and have a beer with Meldrick, and he’s never the same again. Taking a life has been a step too far for this particular murder police.

                This is the last time that Homicide will focus on Bayliss until the final episode, and it features the truly last great performance from Kyle Secor, who remains as always the guts of the series. But the secondary storyline is nearly as good. Ballard and Gharty get called in to investigate the shooting of an eighteen-year old. In a rarity for this series, there are three eyewitnesses to the murder, all of who claimed to have gotten a good look at the shooter. Ballard hears this, and says: “Too good to be true.” And it is. The victim’s sister identifies the killer as a friend of his named Jocko, and his mother seems to confirm it. But the man who claims he got that he ‘saw everything’, gives a completely different description, can’t pick the suspect out of a photo array, and when they finally get him in a lineup, can’t ID him. The case falls apart quickly after that – the suspect’s alibi is shaky but viable, he refuses to confess to the murder, and it turns out that the victim’s mother was coached by the sister to ID him. Danvers quickly tells them they can’t make a case, and the murderer walks. In a rarity for the series, we are given definitive proof that Jocko was the killer – we see him through the gun away in the final moments of the episode. However, I don’t regard as a violation of the rules Homicide has been playing with, as for once, we are seeing the failures of police work even when we know the guilty party is in custody. It’s also refreshing to see Peter Gerety doing some actual solid police work in a season which has seen him mostly regulated to personal (if well done) stories. His genuine dissatisfaction is built out of frustration rather than any personal prejudices, which is different for his character as a whole.

                In many ways Zen and the Art of Murder is a back to basic Homicide. Neither Giancarlo Esposito nor Michael Michele are present, so we have the mix of the cast that made so much of last season a delight to watch.  And you can definitely see the directions that Bayliss’ character could now go, considering just how well they managed to handle Sheppard’s arc in a similar situation. Unfortunately, the following week NBC, having shown perhaps far more patience than it really could’ve, finally dropped the axe on the series. As much as we’d like to see them as part of a sign of improvement, from now on the series is simply going to be running out the clock.

My score: 4.25 stars

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