Homicide Rewatch: Gone for Goode

 

Written by Paul Attanasio

Directed by Barry Levenson

 

What strikes the viewer watching the Pilot of Homicide is how dark it is.

I don’t mean in terms of subject matter, per se – despite the fact the episode opens and closes with detectives standing over a dead body in the dark of night, this would be the funniest opening episode of a drama until The West Wing debuted – but rather the cinematography and the lighting. Even when we are in the daylight or indoors, the lighting always seems muted, the color bleached out, like there’s a dim fog over the camera. Homicide is one of the greatest series of all time for many reasons but one of the major ones are that it is a technical masterpiece.

When I first watched it as a teenager I had no real awareness of what the rules for television were, so I had no idea when they were be broken. One of the rules Homicide broke was in a way was that it allowed television to be cinematic in a way it hadn’t been before. In all the years since the role of the writer has become more important then it ever has and the role of the director has diminished when it comes to TV being a work of art. There would always be exceptions of course, mainly on network television. But the difference between the direction of 24 or Lost or much of the work of say the Breaking Bad-verse is that much of it is done in a style that is closer to the theatrical epic. Homicide, by contrast, has more of the layers of the independent film world which would be at its peak during this decade.

There are examples of some of the tricks that would become beloved by fans like myself – pans back to the character with a chord of music are prominent in the Pilot – but we don’t see any of the editing or work with music that the show became legendary for in the Pilot. This is no doubt by design on the part of Attanasio and Levenson. They are attempting to establish both location and characters. And not a small cast, either: Homicide set out to be an ensemble show and it wants to make sure all nine characters are introduced, if not given a full picture of yet.

We get a pretty good handle on at least six of the characters almost immediately and an established one for the three partnerships that are at the core of the show. And perhaps most importantly the show established what kind of cop show its going to be throughout.

The rules of police dramas had been firmly established over the past forty years: the police drama was an action show with clearly defined good guys and bad guys. You had car chases, you had shootings, you had the cops beating on suspects, you had the suspects cursing at the cops. You had cops were heroic figures. Hill Street Blues and Cagney & Lacey had done much to strip away the glamour and make the battle seem more futile then it was but even then the principles were basically the same; not even David Milch was prepared to mess with it yet.

None of this happens in Gone for Goode. There are no car chases, no shoot-outs, no one even pulls their gun. No one busts down a door for a suspect. There’s no action; there’s no energy. Indeed, the clearest thing that comes across from Homicide is that while everyone is cynical, they are for all intents and purposes, talking like there at another day at work. To be fair, this is a day at work for them and they are experiencing the kind of fatigue you and I do after six or seven years on the job. But I seriously doubt at the end of the day people who are in the dry wall business, as Munch mentions his brother is,  think that they are accomplishing something at the end of the day. When Howard tells Bayliss in their first interaction: “We work for God,” this is the kind of line that would be said with optimism or cheer. Howard says it the way you discuss your lunch order.

Technically speaking a lot does happen in Homicide, and quite a bit of it will actually be relevant to the first season. In the teaser we see Meldrick Lewis and Steve Crosetti standing over a body that will lead to an investigation called ‘The Black Widow Murders’. A case that is three months cold is cleared as a murder and two murders are opened and closed on the same day. What’s different is not even how easy or mundane it is but how clueless everyone the detectives interact with seem to be. Howard and Felton go to a murder where the killer calls the house and agrees to show up at the station – and then actually does so before the episode is halfway over. Pembleton’s case involves a homicide where the murderer steals the victim’s car and is caught when the car goes out on the teletype. When we first meet Munch – in a moment that has gone down in TV history – the suspect tells a dumb story, then a dumber one that is even more ridiculous, then rips up his statement and comes up with a dumber one. By the time Pembleton tells Bayliss ‘Crime makes you stupid’, the viewer should realize its gospel – but the series goes out of its way to keep proving it over and over.

That, I should add, is part of the reason Homicide is hysterical at times: because these are not the kind of criminals the viewer was used to in 1993 – or for that matter, today. Years of CSI, Law & Order and Criminal Minds spinoffs have convinced the viewing audiences that criminals could get away with horrible crimes and only dedicated professionals who are members of elite squads could catch them. Homicide argues the opposite: the killers are almost always stupid and the only reason they get away with murder is because the system is dumber then the victims – and the sheer number of killings each year.

Even in 1993 the squad room looks primitive, and that sadly is typical of the Baltimore PD by the time we get to The Wire. The paint on the walls is peeling and you can almost smell the urine in the box. The glass in ‘the fishbowl’ looks dingy. The cops type out their reports and we’ll later learn that liquid paper is prominent. And what will be the most iconic images of the series involve a dry erase board with magic markers.

It is in to this squad we meet Tim Bayliss so fresh faced he keeps getting lost on the way throughout the episode. In a sense Bayliss is the window into Homicide the new guy who n one respects and who will have to keep proving himself year after year. It’s startling to look at Kyle Secor in the opening episode: he has a fresh-faced look about him that would not go away until Season 4 after he buzz cut his hair. Famously he introduces himself to the wrong Giardello first.

Al Giardello may be the only character who isn’t immediately developed in the Pilot but Yaphet Kotto manages to make an impression immediately. By 1993 we had started to become inured to the idea of the token minority boss which sadly would remain a constant on network television for more than a decade and rarely were characters such as Arthur Fancy or Anita Van Buren given much to work with during their long tenures on NYPD Blue or Law & Order respectively. There are signs that ‘Gee’ will not be that same boss, in large part that two of the detectives on the squad are also African-American – and as we shall see, so is much of the command structure at the Baltimore Police Department.

We get a very clear picture of John Munch the moment we meet him and Richard Belzer manages to pretty much fill him out by the end of the episode. He’s cynical, he’s humorous, he tends to go off on digressions that have nothing to do with being a cop and he seems like a clown. But he can be just as relentless a detective when he needs to be.

At the start of the series run Stanley Bolander was set out to be more of a leading character than he ended up being. In large part that was due to the casting of Ned Beatty, a major film actor in an era when the twain almost never met. For the first season Bolander will be a major force on the show and will be one of the more developed characters. The show instantly establishes Bolander and Munch’s relationship; Bolander is trying to press Munch to be a better detective, Munch denies it but he wants ‘the Big Man’s’ approval.

Lewis and Crosetti have a similar back and forth. Crosetti seems the more philosophical of the two, inclined to go off on tangents that don’t seem relevant. (Though I have wonder about the difference between men and women’s reading material in the bathroom.) Crosetti is clearly more soulful than Lewis, pondering the Lincoln assassination, which will be one of the more critical elements of his character. He has a certain respect for the dead (we’ll later learn he’s Catholic) that Lewis doesn’t have. He wants to get the job done and he takes things a bit more personally.

Howard is clearly the perfectionist on the squad: we learn quickly she’s the only detective with a perfect clearance rate, something that annoys her partner. Nothing is made of Howard’s gender or the fact that she’s the only woman in an all-male squad. This in itself was significant in 1993 when women, no matter what their profession were defined solely as love interest first, even on procedurals.

Felton clearly seems to be the black sheep in the squad: we see in the way that Gee treats him and when he can’t decide whether to pick up the phone because he’s afraid this case will sink his clearance rate still more. Daniel Baldwin was at the time the least famous of the Baldwin brothers but I’ve always held that he was the most interesting actor, certainly in Homicide.

It’s clearly unintentional that we don’t meet the character considered one of the greatest in TV history until the second act. We’ve heard Pembleton described by his fellow detectives at lunch – and its not in glowing terms. They think he’s not pulling his weight and they don’t like that in a squad where everybody partners, he’s always going out on his own. When we first meet Pembleton he’s waiting for Gee in his office and he’s the only detective in the squad who is either arrogant enough or comfortable enough in his position to talk back to Gee. Naturally he goes out with Felton.

The scene in the garage is classic Homicide: its both hysterical and deadly serious at the same time. Pembleton has made the mistake of not writing down the parking space of the car he took out. But rather then go back up and get another key, he decides to methodically put the key in every single squad car. Felton becomes understandably pissed and Pembleton says “you don’t like n---s like me.”

This is clearly the biggest tension between them: Pembleton thinks Felton’s a racist and Felton thinks Pembleton’s arrogant. However there’s more to it than that. Pembleton thinks Felton’s a worse cop than his and that Felton is taking it out on him this way. But Felton is right: Pembleton is arrogant and does think he’s above all the other cops in the squad. He makes it clear to Bayliss that he doesn’t want a partner and while Bayliss wants to observe Pembleton is in no mood to teach. (He never finds the car, by the way.)

The climax of the Pilot involves no beatings, no shootings, no berating. But it’s also the most critical moment in the series. “What you shall witness is not an interrogation as smooth as anyone who ever sold aluminum siding, Florida swampland or Bibles. But what I am selling is a long prison term to a client who has  no genuine need for the product.”

Pembleton walks into the squad room with the suspect (a very young Alexander Chaplin) He says Bayliss lives on Eagle Street “right next to the gas chamber.”  He hands the suspect a form in which he acknowledges he hears his rights and is willing to talk. When the suspect asks for a lawyer Pembleton raises his voice – slightly. He tells him if he does so, he will leave and an assistant state’s attorney will come ‘a man in a three-piece suit with a license to kill.” (In the next episode you’ll see just how funny that is.)  “You see this room. It’s a wall. And there’s one way out. I am that way out.”  He gets the suspect to admit he was in the room at the time of the murder.

The all-too-innocent Bayliss says that the suspect asked for a lawyer. After some dispute Pembleton tells him what will happen: “Ok, if this ever comes to trial he’s going to say he changed his mind about the sex. And there’s not a man or woman on that jury who will think Burger was dirty old man who got what was coming to him. So he’ll plea it out to five years, the kid’s gonna do a third of that and you ask he if he had a chance?!”  Pembleton has no use for his ethics and blows him off.

Perhaps the most iconic moment of the pilot – the one that truly sums up what is about to come – shows up in the penultimate scene. Munch, Crosetti and Lewis are bitching about the job and they notice that there’s a man whose been eyeing them and the car for a while. They’re annoyed that no one can tell they are cops. Finally Munch walks up to him: “We’re police. Go rob somebody else.”  No fight, no arrest, no entreaty to lead an honest life. Just a request to go away and leave them alone. They’re not going to bring this criminal in. There’s too much paperwork involved. Although Crosetti, thinking of his clearance rate does say: “Munch if you shoot him, he’s mine.”

The episode ends with Bayliss answering his first call as a primary. And in keeping with all that has happened before the final shot of the episode involves the case that will form the backbone of the first season – and indeed the series. Moments that will change your life can happen without you knowing it. That’s Homicide pure and simple.

NOTES FROM THE BOARD:

In a poll conducted by Court TV in 2000 in which fans were asked to rank the fifteen greatest episodes of Homicide, this episode ranked number one. The episode would originally air after the 1993 Super Bowl and would have the highest rating of Season 1 with just under 19 million viewers.

Barry Levenson would win the Emmy for Best Direction in 1993 and be nominated for the Directors Guild Award in Drama. Paul Attanasio would be nominated for the Writers Guild Award for Episodic Drama. (We’ll discuss the winner later.) The iconic opening credits were nominated for Outstanding Graphic design and title sequences.

Hey, Isn’t That…The clueless Bernard who Munch goes off on is played by Steve Harris who later would go on to achieve stardom as Eugene Young on The Practice.

Detective Munch: Quite a few of them as you’d expect. My personal favorite comes from when he’s told to ‘lay of the Irish’. “A million Irishmen died in the potato famine. Ireland is an island. An island is by definition surrounded by fish. A million people died because they didn’t like fish…Potatoes aren’t even the main course!”