Homicide Rewatch: A Shot In The Dark

 

Written by Jorge Zamacona

Directed by Bruce Paltrow

 

During the first season the writers were faithful, as far as storylines went, to David Simon’s book. Every episode of the first season has as least one major plot or element from it. This is particularly true of this episode which not only continues the avenues of the Adena Watson investigation and the Chris Thormann shooting as they played out, more or less in real life, as well as an additional case that is briefly discussed in the book.

And it’s worth noting that in many cases the way these investigations were pursued were far from the thing viewers expected in police dramas to that point and wouldn’t really see again until Simon began taking it to the next step in The Wire. You could even argue one of the major plots of this episode – Felton and Pembleton searching every car lot in Baltimore hoping not to find a potential suspect’s car – is the kind of thing that Herc and Carver would pursue on the show a decade later. There’s even a similar level of humor to it the same way Carver would begin the work of Fuzzy Dunlop in the attitude of Felton’s almost lackadaisical attitude towards trying to buy a car in one of Ike’s lots.

But there’s a big difference between the antics we see from those two and what we see here and that’s because of the subtext that Pembleton puts under the dialogue at the start. Felton starts the investigation with a theory that for him is actually fairly well-thought out. He argues that the reason that the ME can’t pin down time of death is because Adena’s body had been killed earlier then they thought and stored in a cool, dry place – like the trunk of the car. The theory he lays out is pretty solid for him but Bayliss, who has now focused his investigation entirely on the Araber, refuses to follow this lead. Pembleton, however, jumps on it and given his attitude towards Bayliss to this point on the show, you might think he is doing so to prove that he is right and Bayliss is wrong. The fact that he’s willing to go with Felton – a man we already know he dislikes – to follow this hunch seems to prove it to the viewer – and perhaps to Felton himself.

Their suspect tells them that his car got repossessed by Ike’s Auto Repair. Felton and Pembleton believe this is a lie and in order to prove it, they need to search Ike’s repo lot and not find the car.  But when Felton forgets, as we sometimes do, the name of an old street, Pembleton takes it to mean something deeper. Felton argues that not everything is about race or directed at Frank Pembleton. Pembleton doesn’t deny that directly.

They then go to the first lot and they don’t find the car. They go to another lot. Still no car. By this point we are engaged in one of those ideological discussions that Homicide did so well with Felton talking first about the terminology of African-American (then a relatively new identity term) and then arguing less subtly about affirmative action. Pembleton takes a tone he will often do that seems almost militant, first lecturing about slavery and then arguing that he wants to achieve things purely by merit. It’s a fascinating discussion on its own merits but it also leads us to continue to believe that Pembleton is convinced of his own self-righteousness more than anything.

Then the lot owner tells them that they’ll have to go to Rosedale and Felton goes back to his old self and starts equivocating about driving all over Maryland. He mentions that for Pembleton this is all about being right. Frank gets angry but not in a way we’re used to. His voice gets lower:

“All night I’ve listened to you philosophize and criticize…I don’t care about proving Bayliss wrong. I don’t care about what you think. What I care about is finding the man who butchered and molested an eight-year old girl. If that’s too much trouble for you, go home.”

To this point we’ve come to believe Pembleton is all about brashness and ego. This is the first time we’ve seen that Adena Watson’s murder has affected Frank as much as it has Tim and that there’s a human being behind the rage. It may also be the first time we really got a look at how great an actor Andre Braugher would be on Homicide.

They do find the car in Rosedale and they hope that a stain in the trunk might be dried blood. But it isn’t. Felton goes back to the office and can laugh it off. Frank can’t.

Bayliss is going through his own crisis; by this point his health has suffered that he’s fighting a horrible cold. He’s trying to press the Araber again and is holding back a detail that the press doesn’t have yet to try and bludgeon him with. But (again in keeping with the original investigation) at a neighborhood watch meeting Bonfather pressed for details reveals that detail to the media, inflaming Bayliss.

An infuriated Bayliss calls Bonfather at home, disturbing his meal and in an act of sheer rage calls him a butthead. (No doubt the harshest insult 1990s censors would allow the writers to get away with.) Bonfather comes in that night, demanding Bayliss apologize. Bayliss, understandably, is irate: Bonfather is the person who endangered the investigation and undermined his detectives. He does owe Bayliss an apology. In earlier shows he would have gotten one. In Homicide Giardello tells Bayliss that while he has the high ground Bonfather has rank and that’s all that matters. This is something Gee’s clearly learned the hard way; when a dejected Bayliss walks out of the squad room he tells him: “The first time is the hardest.”

Bayliss has run out of energy by the end of the episode and thinks he should cut his losses. Giardello tells him to go home and get some sleep. That night Pembleton knocks on his door and tells him he found the missing lab report and that the smudges on Adena’s dress are soot from the Araber’s barn. This is the first time Pembleton acknowledges that Bayliss’ instincts were right and he agrees its time to bring the Araber for questioning.

We’re also following the next part of the Chris Thormann shooting where the fallen officer is recovering in a way that makes his attending surgeon “want to go back to God.” It might seem to the viewer of today that Thormann’s remarkable recovery – he’s able to speak and is forming sentences – might well be a gimmick of television of that era. In fact this is a case of truth being stranger than fiction: the real-life inspiration for this character actually recovered quicker than is seen on the show.

It's worth noting the suspect in the shooting Alfred Smith turned himself in the moment he knew he’d been named out of self-preservation: he fully expected to get shot ‘resisting arrest’ and doesn’t believe for a moment that the truth is going to save him from being taken out into an alley. (Hard to argue with his logic.) For those who might be wondering whether this is done to soften police in general, again, everything that happens in this storyline does follow Simon’s book to the letter.

Crosetti believes Smith is the killer but Lewis is not as sure. He wants to bring in Charlie Flavin for a lie-detector test and Crosetti is not happy about this. Later that night Danvers tells them they don’t have enough evidence to get a conviction and while he understands the pressure they’re under, he says he wants to offer 30 years. Danvers knows that this is not a suspect that deserves the best justice, but he also doesn’t like the odds. In this case he is not like the kind of prosecutor we’d seen on Law & Order.

Meldrick starts chasing down every neighbor he can find and ends up talking to an old lady who knows everything without meaning to. She leads him to the right shooter – Charlie Flavin. Charlie has had a bad attitude since Crosetti found him, and while he keeps blaming his migraines he is utterly unrepentant about what he has done. The case is closed – but not forever as we’ll see long after the viewer’s forgotten it.

The new case features Bolander investigating a drug deal gone wrong and while he’s been grumpy before now, as Munch puts it, he’s like a bear. To be fair Munch isn’t exactly doing the best job of policework on the Cole shooting and his theory on what happen kind of does merit Bolander’s argument of ‘the depth of his stupidity’. But there’s more to it than that given how Stan is doing everything in his power to avoid having a conversation with Dr. Blythe: he is reminded by Scheiner at the crime scene and she calls him twice in the squad.

It takes a while for Bolander to get the root of  his issue, and by that time he’s gone out of his way to have a conversation with a prostitute about it before he starts to open up. Again it comes back to his ex-wife, this time the issue is about how their sex life ended up dying. Munch asks him, with his lack of subtlety, if he forgot how. It’s not until he has the conversation with Blythe - who not only tracks him down to the squad=room but into the holding cell where there’s no privacy – that he finally admits his insecurities. It’s not a graphic conversation but it’s far more intimate then many we’d get on cable TV in just a few years, particularly because it’s the man who’s upset he disappointed his partner. And Blythe admits it wasn’t great – but that’s not enough of a reason for her to give up on him. You can decide whether that makes her more or less of a feminist than Carrie Bradshaw; I personally would prefer this kind of frankness.

The comedy in this episode also comes from the main investigation: the murder of Joseph Valentine Cole. There’s a witness to the crime and she’s hiding in the doghouse. Eventually we come to learn that the man who did so was Newton Stewart, Cole’s bodyguard. Bolander and Munch find him with a minimum of effort and Stewart just surrenders.

The humor comes when he confesses. Lowell, the man who showed up threatened Cole and pulled out a gun. Stewart took out a machine pistol and shot Lowell. At one point Lowell grabbed Cole so Stewart, following orders to protect his boss “shot through Mr. Cole to get to Mr. Lowell.” (Again this actually happened.) Munch handles the interrogation and its worth noting that while Richard Belzer is funny when he’s not investigating he tends to be deadpan when he is investigating. He takes in every detail of the ridiculous nature of what has happened with no reaction at all. It’s only when Stewart reveals that “I was just doing what Mr. Cole paid to be do,’ that he delivers an eloquent punch line: “Very commendable.”

At the end of the episode Gee invites the squad out to toast Crosetti and Lewis for closing the Thormann shooting and keeping with the show Crosetti ducks out early and Lewis follows him, leaving the rest of the detectives behind. Lewis finds Crosetti at the hospital chapel and it’s here that Steve admits his flaws. He gives us the Crosetti family history in policing and he reminds us again of his own shooting. He did so in Gee’s office to force him to getting the case; this time, we see it from the hospital bed and we get a clearer idea of what it was really was. He admits his flaws to Lewis and how he solved the case, not him.

The episode I should mention with Munch bitching about the menu at the Wharf Rat where the squad has been eating and drinking throughout the season. Finally when someone breaks out the karaoke machine he says he’s going to shoot himself if he ever comes back to this place. Is this where the seed of the idea was for the purchase of the Waterfront, the bar that will become the major storyline of Season 3 and the squad’s hangout place from that point afterward? I don’t give the writers that much credit.

Besides the episode ends with one of those iconic moments: Munch singing a mangled version of Mack the Knife to the entire squad.

 

NOTES FROM THE BOARD

Future Inmates: Jennifer Harmon, who plays Alison Ashley, would later upon OZ as Mrs. Lang. She was a soap opera performer best known for her work in the 1970s How To Survive A Marriage and One Life to Live, along with later appearances on Guiding Light and Loving. She is not as far as I can tell related to Mark Harmon, even though she did appear on St. Elsewhere while he was also a cast member. Most likely that’s where Fontana, who never forgets, decided to cast her.

Detective Munch: There are a lot of great lines but I think the best one comes when Bayliss asks why the killer would even stay in Baltimore:

Munch: Because if he’s REALLY from Baltimore, he won’t go. He’ll talk about it enough, but he’ll never leave.”

In the midst of the conversation Felton says he can’t remember what the name of Burma used to be and Pembleton tells him its now thee Union of Myanmar. Pembleton was clearly well informed. Burma was a country in Southeast Asia named after the dominant Burman ethnic group inhabiting the region and was controlled by the British until 1948 when it was granted independence. In 1989, it was taken over by a military dictatorship who gave its current name. It’s hard to blame Felton for not remembering that by the way; I still sometimes call the Republic of the Congo, Zaire.