Homicide Rewatch: And the Rockets' Dead Glare

 

Written by Jorge Zamacona; story by Tom Fontana

Directed by Peter Markle

 

When I first reviewed this episode more than twenty years ago I said it was the least successful one of the first season. Not because it was unwatchable or even mediocre -  as one very quickly finds the worst episode of Homicide was still better than eighty percent of network TV in the 1990s – but it seemed a bit unfocused.

And there is a certainly underlying truth to an episode that was originally planned to be the penultimate episode of Season 1. During the 1990s traditional dramas built to a climatic season finale that would be a cliffhanger which was almost never the show’s style. What you get in Rockets’ is an episode that seems to be trying to wrap up some stories, telling new stories about existing characters and building up new relationships for the future. That’s something that by and large most shows get more time to do overall even in the shorter seasons of today. And indeed much of the ‘sins’  - if you can call them that  - is that Zamacona are trying to fill in as many gaps about their characters as quickly as possible without any time to breathe. To be fair to the writers all of the stories would play out to an extent in future seasons but it’s a lot to take in at first (and maybe even third) viewing.

The most important element in terms of the show’s legacy involves John Munch. We’ve gotten hints of his character’s nature in the series so far – lovelorn, inclined towards trivia, not perhaps the best investigator – but in the episode the series opens up its greatest well. The murder involves the death of Ambrose Urban, a marijuana dealer who was gunned down. From the start of the investigation its very clear not only that Munch knows far more about the subject of marijuana and its growth then the average detective should but unlike so much of its other ramblings, it’s clear that this is something he feels very strongly and emotionally about.

The show makes this very clear by having his scenes clash with Detective DeSilva, the first narcotics detective we’ve met on Homicide so far. Steven Marcus would only make two appearances on the show but in his scene in the breakroom, he lays a discussion that would become one of the bigger ongoing arguments on Homicide and almost certainly the inspiration for The Wire.

It starts humorously enough – Munch shows up in the squad with a bag of dope that a young man tossed to him because apparently he didn’t look like a cop. Munch and the others are joking about this when Da Silva comes in with the news that the man pulled a gun and they took him out. There’s grousing about this – no one wants to do the paperwork – but Munch actually brings up the major point about how many of the murders in Baltimore involve drug dealing. He argues if they legalized it (the theme of Season 3 of The Wire) it might make things easier.

Da Silva makes a point much louder than anyone ever will on that show about its futility. When Bayliss brings up the idea of legalization he says Baltimore will drown. (That it pretty much is a decade later is a sad aftermath) Then he argues: “Why let the mafia make all the money? You want the government to get involved in extortion?” This is actually a point you honestly wonder why none of the bosses ever think to make. When Bayliss argues for regulation he says: “The government can’t even deliver the mail! You want them to start handing out dime bags?” (Another very valid point.) When Bayliss points out cancer kills more people in a year than heroin does Da Silva argues: “Tobacco and alcohol are as addictive as heroin and in large enough doses they kill.” When Munch adds we rarely have people kill each other over a Marlboro light he is denying the very real level of the problem. Da Silva has just a cynical an idea about the war on drugs is being fought – and he makes a telling comparison between foreign policy and drug addiction that is something McNulty never seems to get – but he’s arguing for escalation, not legalization.

But Munch will never give up this point. And in the scene in the squad car with Baltimore we get our clearest sense of his counterculture upbringing to take. Its also the first real sense that Munch may not entirely be repentant – he refuses to answer Bolander’s question about getting high and you actually wonder about whether he pass a test for clean urine. Bolander never presses the point the way other members of the squad will but it does explain something. It’s pretty clear based on what Munch says in this episode that he and Bolander are roughly the same age but the reason that Bolander thinks himself as the grownup in this partnership has to do with emotional maturity. He has it; Munch never will.

The other case that the show is dealing with is Lewis and Crosetti’s investigation into the murder of a Chinese student who was apparently one of the leaders at Tiananmen Square (still memorable to America viewers in 1993) They meet a witness who claims the Chinese government had Wong murdered which leads to Lewis and Munch making a trip to DC to get information from the Chinese embassy.

At first this seems like an excuse for Crosetti to realize his ambition of seeing all of the sites on his tour of the Lincoln conspirators which has been his obsession throughout Season 1. (Compared to the kind of rants Munch will go on later in the series, it’s kind of adorable watching Steve go all fanboy outside Mary Seurat’s boarding house.) But when the detectives get to the embassy things get very peculiar: men in a town car show up and the detectives are brought into meet a man with the Secret Service who tells them to drop their investigation and that the woman who they talked to doesn’t exist. Munch might be thrilled with this of thing; Meldrick and Crosetti are annoyed.

The two detectives go to Ford’s Theater and while Steve is overjoyed to see his favorite place in the world Lewis is stone-faced. The discussion about the Secret Service starts in a dark place and Lewis starts going after Washington in comparison to Baltimore. It becomes clear very quickly that this is more about an argument of civic pride. (And for those who watch it from the present the Ravens were not in Baltimore until 1996 and Washington had no baseball team until 2005.)

Meldrick Lewis will have a tendency to be self-righteous more often then most characters and while this can be tiring later on, in contrast with Munch’s antiestablishment position there’s something righteous about how this humble detective has no use for the institutions that the Secret Service defends and believes in government being of, by and for the people. This has nothing to do with politics (Homicide rarely brings up current events) and more to a higher principle that Meldrick will not find in DC.

The most interesting storyline in a sense is the conclusion to the Ida Mae Keene case which was closed yesterday. In what will be one of the few times in the show’s history the detectives go to the court. I can’t imagine what today’s viewers  where Law & Order is always on somewhere will think if they see the court proceedings here. To be sure there’s the sparring between the detectives and Danvers that we sometimes get on Law and Order but we see very clearly that Ed Danvers is not Jack McCoy. And I have a feeling based on what we do see that Homicide’s depiction of criminal trials are far more accurate than what we get on Law & Order.

The big deal is that Howard and Felton spent the majority of the episode sequestered unlike so many other cop shows where the detectives seem to observe the proceedings from start to finish. A lot of the humor in the episode comes from seeing Howard, dressed in clothes and wearing makeup she absolutely never wears on the job because she wants to make an impression on the jury, sitting in an anteroom, nervous and antsy about how things are going. Felton is more relaxed and is watching a portable TV but unlike other episodes this is a case of being smart rather than unprofessional. He gets why Howard is so twitchy –  she’s a very active and dedicated investigator and she’s not comfortable with this part of the process. In the squad room and the box she has control of everything: now she’s basically isolated from whether or not Pony Johnson goes to prison. Felton’s laxness is more about someone who knows that the process is out of his hands and is not being lazy but accepting.

And when Howard is called as a witness we do see a side of her we haven’t as Johnson’s defense attorney flusters her. This is the first appearance of Michael Willis as the slimy Russom, who seems to be the only defense attorney in Baltimore based on the fact every time a client needs an attorney he’s on hand. That said, when we do see Russom in the courtroom you might understand why he is always on call: he manages to fluster Howard by poking holes in the evidence and causing her to make a critical misstatement on the stand.

Furthermore anyone who’s used to trials on Law & Order would be astonished to see how the defense becomes undone. We don’t see a soaring closing argument delivered by Sam Waterston, the accused doesn’t become unraveled on the stand – indeed we never see the defense witnesses at all – and there’s no soaring musical chords when things go wrong. Indeed the case unravels when Russom makes procedural misstep so subtle that the average viewer might not realize unless they were paying close attention. (I think I know what it is but I won’t spoil it here.) And like so much else on the show, this comes from how the investigation in Simon’s book unfolded basically at trial.

Of course the fun story comes when Howard starts talking up Danvers and Felton starts to sense that his partner might have a crush on this poor civil servant. Howard adamantly denies – and of course that’s the moment we see that Danvers has entered the room. At the end of the episode Danvers shyly asks Kay out on a date and she’s more than willing to go. This relationship will go on throughout the next few seasons but in keeping with the series behavior we only learn about it from behind the scenes. Howard values her privacy very deeply and in an era when female characters were defined exclusively as love interests, there’s something revolutionary about it.

The character who shows up the least in this episode is Pembleton, who is working a case. He is sent up to see Granger and Bonfather and he actually thinks he’s here to be disciplined. Bonfather goes out of his way to praise Pembleton’s work as a detective, mentions streamlining the department and gets to the point that the brass is considering Pembleton to be the next shift commander.

It's rare we see Frank taken aback and his first reaction is not to tell Gee. We then get a different insight into Frank we haven’t seen before – he’s a husband. In one of those acts of talent we meet Mary Pembleton who is played by Ami Brabson, Braugher’s real life wife and a superb actress in her own right. Right from the start we see that Frank truly loves Mary and that he truly wants what’s best for her. She tries to talk up the meaning of both the money and what it means and Frank, tellingly, says that it would mean he’d see even less of her than he already does. Mary says that if he wants it they’ll find a way to make it work – and she also knows her husband well enough to know what he’s thinking.

Andre Braugher usually makes his scenes work with the power of his delivery so there’s something moving about how he wordlessly goes to Gee’s office, looks around nervously, sits in Gee’s chair, looks at the picture of Gee and Scinta, respectfully cleans it and then walks out. Afterward he talks to Gee and apologizes for lying and then makes it very clear that while he respects the man he doesn’t want his job.

And the thing is we already know Frank would suck as a leader. He himself knows it: “I don’t want to me in the squad room when I’m supposed to be,” he tells Gee. We know the kind of man Pembleton is and we already know he would be wasted behind a desk. He is where he needs to be and Gee is where he needs to be. He also knows that he’s the wrong person to be the kind of disciplinarian Gee is; it’s not in his nature. The bosses will eventually move to fill Scinta’s spot – it will take until Season 3 to find a candidate – but Pembleton is never considered for leadership again. And television is all the greater for it.

 

NOTES FROM THE BOARD

Detective Munch: “I really enjoyed how Jimi Hendrix played the Star-Spangled Banner at Woodstock.” The first line that really tells us the kind of person Munch is, even if he wasn’t actually there.

First Appearance: Michael Willis as Russom and Ami Brabson as Mary Pembleton. We also learn that Felton’s wife grew up in the town Boring in Maryland. “And you wonder why we’re in counseling?” he tells Howard when she asks. (There’s more to it as we’ll soon find out.)

Hey Isn’t That… No you didn’t read the opening credits wrong, that is Bai Ling in the opening sequence as Taryn Chow. The same woman who has been appearing in B-Movies in America. To her credit she also appears in a lot of Chinese films and in this case her more annunciation skills work in the episode’s favor. She’s also only there for ninety seconds, which is just about the appropriate amount of screen time before she becomes unbearable.

Ed Lauter plays  THE Secret Service Agent in the middle of what was a long and storied career as a character actor in a career that mostly had him playing authority figures on every 1970s TV show to The Longest Yard to his last role in The Office. He might best be known for his role in Family Plot what would turn out to be the last movie Hitchcock ever made. His only role as a series regular was on The Golden Years the first TV series that Stephen King ever wrote for. (It didn’t last long.)

This episode was directed by Peter Markle who is one of the hardest working directors in television. His film work is less reputable including such forgettable movies as Youngblood, Bat 21 and Wagons East, the last movie John Candy ever starred in before he died. He has a better track record with television, later directing episodes of The X-Files, NYPD Blue and such critically acclaimed series as Life, Rescue Me and Crash.