Homicide Rewatch: Crosetti

 

Written by James Yoshimura; story by James Yoshimura & Tom Fontana

Directed by Whitney Rasnick

 

Rewatching Crosetti – one of the greatest episodes in Homicide’s storied history and arguably one of the greatest episodes in the history of television – I had reason to reflect on how, in all my years of watching television since I first saw this episode television has almost never dealt with this kind of subject, even in the greatest series ever made.

One of the most daring things about Peak TV, as any critic will tell you, is the high body count of almost every major show of that era. But having seen all of these shows and quite a few of the other contenders among this period, what’s striking is how few of those deaths came at the character’s own hand. I’m not talking about the noble sacrifices that one would see on shows like 24 or (I assume) Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead. I mean, shotgun to the head, slashing your wrists, overdosing on drugs and leaving your friends and family in a complete wreck.

In the last quarter of a century, I can count examples of this happening on one hand. Hostetler committing suicide after being accused of lying in the third season of Deadwood, Lane Pryce hanging himself at the climax of Season 5 of Mad Men, Kuttner’s body being found in Season 5 of House and Nacho deciding to kill himself rather than face death at the hands of the cartel in Better Call Saul. No other examples immediately come to mind. (If they do to my readers I welcome hearing of them.)

Television has worked around the edges quite a bit, usually in the case of physician assisted suicide and mercy killings particularly on shows like Grey’s Anatomy. And notoriously 13 Reasons Why courted controversy by focusing its first season on that very subject. But by and large suicide, particularly among regular characters on any television, is a button that most showrunners tend to shy away from. It’s understandable, done the wrong way, it can feel exploitive and its an incredibly depressing and wrenching subject to deal with. It’s almost safer to deal with the aftermath of a character being butchered by a serial killer: at least then the grief is more understandable. But how do you deal with the fact when someone you know and see everyday is gone, by their own hand and you have to deal with that gap?

Tom Fontana and David Simon are perhaps the only writers in all of Peak TV to ever try and deal with the subject in their work in television. Fontana already had in his previous series St. Elsewhere where in Season 2 Dr. Joyce Randolph ended up dead in the Er with a note that explained nothing. He would explore the subject again from many different angles in his follow-up series Oz. Simon would deal with the subject a few times in his follow-up series, most notably in Treme when John Goodman’s character, a husband and father chooses to kill himself at the end of the first season. Both writers were intelligent enough to never go out of their way to provide motivations for why these characters would do so, understanding that the real pain comes from those left behind. Homicide would deal with this issue in a few other stories during its time on the air, but never as viscerally – or brilliantly – as it did in Crosetti.

Its effect was deadened when it first aired. Yet again the wizards at NBC argued that Homicide needed to put up ‘life-affirming stories’ so as a result  a storyline involving Bayliss’ relationship with Emma Zool, which took up two full episodes aired immediately after the conclusion to the ‘white cotton gloves’ murders. By the time we’re ten minutes we know that Crosetti, who until this point the viewer assumed was on vacation, is dead and has apparently been dead for some time based on the discussion of the characters. When Crosetti aired two weeks later, it was done with a subtitle before it started ‘a month ago’ so the viewer knew what was coming. To be fair Jon Polito’s name hadn’t been on the opening credits so it was safe to assume that his character was going to be written out of the show but the fact that he was on vacation one day and dead the next with no explanation was, to put it very mildly, disconcerting. As I may have mentioned I didn’t see this episode until it was rerun so I didn’t know the context until years later but it’s still an incredible display of cognitive dissonance on the part of the programmers  and insult upon injury to the character.

To the immense credit of Fontana and Yoshimura, there is nothing in the two episodes that aired immediately before Crosetti to give any indication as to how he died – he could have had a heart attack, died in an auto accident on the way back from vacation or killed in the line of duty. The impact of the episode is still powerful for the reasons I gave above: it wasn’t just that characters didn’t get killed off in 1994; it’s that they certainly didn’t kill themselves.

And few moments in the show have been more powerful then watching the harbor patrol pulling a bloated, waterlogged corpse to the sound of John Lee Hooker’s ‘I Cover The Waterfront’. Even now that we’ve been told the episode will deal with Crosetti’s death, the mind doesn’t make the obvious connection seeing the corpse even as Meldrick walks into the squad and covers for Gee, saying his partner is fighting off a cold. When Felton and Howard start joking about what’s going on between Meldrick and Crosetti, Lewis admits he’s started to think something’s wrong. But he just think he did something to hurt Steve’s feelings; he doesn’t really believe anything happened to him.

The teaser of the episode which features Bolander and Munch talking about a bird crapping on their car truly seems out of context with the rest of the episode. In hindsight it’s clear this is what the two of them were talking about before they got called to the harbor to investigate a suspicious death. Bolander’s talking about visiting his ex-wife in Santa Barbara (he’s clearly feeling a little less bitter at this point) and Munch is arguing about that divorced people don’t see each other. They look at the body who’s been in the harbor a week, Munch says “I hate these kinds of suicides”, Bolander chides him and Munch backs off. Then they realize it’s a cop.

Then we cut to Giardello’s office and Lewis jokes: “What I do?” Then he identifies the badges and medallion as belonging to Crosetti.

The power of this episode is that everyone knows exactly what happened from the beginning to the end: they just don’t want to admit it to themselves. Lewis makes it very clear that he doesn’t believe Steve killed himself and that he wants ‘to catch the son of a bitch who did this’. Munch begins to back away from his conclusion on the pier which angers Bolander no end. Giardello just says to proceed under wrongful death, which infuriates Stan. Crosetti’s name goes on the board and everyone just looks at it in shock.

Everyone is dealing with this in their own way. Howard and Felton end up investigating and closing the murder Meldrick is primary on so that he can pursue his ‘investigation’. Howard tries to ask Lewis to go out to dinner and keeps clumsily asking if he’s okay. Lewis keeps pushing her off. With Felton he’s more brutal, using the events in last year’s ‘See No Evil’ to basically bully Beau into trying to slow Bolander’s investigation down. Felton knows that this is crap but he makes a feeble effort in the episode that isn’t really committed.

Bayliss and Pembleton take on the burden of the memorial. This leads to their major interaction in the episode when they are getting cookies. It’s here Frank makes it clear that he has no intention of going to the church. “God and I are not on speaking terms.” This selfish attitude is one he keeps for most of the episode. (Wait.) The scene where Tim and Frank are buying the cookies and Frank starts pushing for a discount on them will make anyone squirm and Tim, who’s usually defers to his partner, is clearly furious at what he did. “This our friend. We don’t go retail!” he all but shouts. Frank tries to push this aside but while they’re talking, he’s trying to get out of a parking spot and he’s getting ridiculously angry. He’s actually talking about shooting the cars before he just runs out of things to say. “That silly man with his silly cookies,” Tim says resignedly.

For reasons that will become clear Andre Braugher’s work here is considered the most memorable but this is an episode pushed  by three exceptional performances. The one that is the least talked about, in my opinion, is Richard Belzer. As I’ve pointed out numerous times Belzer’s performance is usually mixed with dark comedy, hiding behind a dry poker face. Throughout the episode, it’s clear what’s going on is bothering John in a way we’ve never seen before. He backs away from his original position not so much out of pressure from Lewis but his own guilt. During the interviews of the detectives he and Bolander come away talking about the murder of Joey Winston, a five year old who his mother hung. He tries to take on more of the role of a confidante to Bolander then usual and there’s also some genuine anger about what’s happening. When Felton comes to see Munch at Lewis’ behest, he says to him: “We all want to do right by Steve.” Munch says angrily. “We all do. Problem is what’s right and what happened may not be the same thing.” He then demurs and says he tried to get Stan to back off. When Beau says it must not have worked he says: “Why do you think I’m alone?”

Throughout the episode the usually dry wit of Munch is just a bit off. In the scene where Munch introduces Tim to his brother (we’ll get to that) there’s clearly some tension between the two, which Munch is in no mood to alleviate despite Tim’s efforts to try. “Go wait in the car,” he tells him. He makes jokes about what to say in the eulogy “The point of the eulogy is to lie” he says and when they leave for the memorial and Frank stays behind he says: “Take care, Frank.” It’s here we see how much this has affected him; this case has put him through the ringer more than most and Frank’s selfish behavior is beneath contempt for him.

For Ned Beatty this may very well be his finest hour on Homicide. Bolander is trying to deal with the loss of Crosetti as much as anyone and its clearly bothering him. As he tells Munch he sat three feet away from him for years and he doesn’t know if he ever said as much as hello to him. (Crosetti and Bolander never really interacted when Jon Polito was on the show.) He tells Munch that he treated him with respect but it seems more like he’s asking him then telling him.

What no doubt angers Bolander as much as saddens him is that he clearly wants to mourn the loss of his colleague but is being pressured by everyone to investigate the death as if its murder. When Giardello comes to him, he finally unloads:

“You want me to let Crosetti’s death be a murder? A murder that can be solved. I’ll do it. I mean, my clearance rate is so low already… Everyone says I have to do right by Steve. And I keep thinking if he chose to commit suicide, what right do I have to make it go away? I don’t agree with what he did, but if that’s his final statement, should I wipe that clear just for our peace of mind?”

Giardello doesn’t answer directly giving a sweeping statement about what Italians thought should happen to a man who committing suicide. The exchange is very dark:

Bolander: The Italians are an unforgiving lot.

Giardello: Yeah, but we make great pasta. It balances out.

And the episode represents one of the greatest performance in Clark Johnson’s entire career on Homicide; he will give performances that show greater levels of depth but will almost never lay his soul as bare as he does in Crosetti. You can see him going through all five stages of grief during the episode: denial at the start, anger at Bolander for the investigation, a kind of bargaining with Giardello to try and pursue the case; despair when the autopsy reveals what everybody knows already and finally at the end of the episode, a kind of acceptance. The scene where Meldrick breaks down in tears when he learns what he’s been avoiding is superb as well as when Stan just hugs him. Lewis has been constantly moving since he learned the truth; in this moment he just goes limp and yields himself to despair.

Throughout the episode Giardello’s way of dealing with what has happened is for what he sees as his own failure. His determination to get a honor guard for Crosetti is clearly the only kind of redemption he can seek. During a sequence with Granger and Bonfather, Bonfather shows the kind of stand-up leadership by being more concerned with public relations. He thinks that if Crosetti killed himself, he should not get an honor guard. During this he and Granger discuss a detective who recently killed himself in a hotel on the block, with his blood pouring down the drain. “What’s to get upset about? He knew when he did it we’d find him like that,” Bonfather says callously. (This may sound cold even for a boss but as we’ll see Fontana isn’t that far from reality.)

This leads to the final minutes of the episode, the moment that will forever rank this as one of the great episodes in TV history and will no doubt haunt me until the day I leave this mortal coil. For the entire episode Frank Pembleton has acted like a selfish jerk, refusing to go the church, being considered less than human by some of his fellow detectives. Then the funeral procession, with jazz fitting for the man who loved it, walks through the street and passing by the precinct. We see Lewis look up first.

There in his dress blues is Frank Pembleton, a one man honor guard. The moment that Crosetti’s coffin passes the station, he stands at attention and salutes. The last image we see (before Crosetti’s name is erased) is Frank’s solemn face, taciturn as always but revealing so much with the eyes. After thirty years, it still chokes me up and it will do the same to anyone.

Crosetti’s death will haunt Homicide until the final episode and even past that. It’s not just that he has died; it’s that the series never even tries to give an explanation. There’s no note; no real indication from those closest to him, and whatever his friends might have thought has been obfuscated by Lewis’s efforts. And wisely the writers never try to explain it. Why should they? Murder never make any sense; why should suicide?

What matters as with everyone else on Homicide is the impact the loss of a life leaves on those around them. The biggest gap will be the loss of a man in the squad and the show will be dealing with that for this season and more many seasons to come. The emotional fallout – that’s going to start being shown later on and it never goes away.

 

Notes From The Board

 In a poll for Court TV of the 15 greatest episodes in Homicide’s history, this episode ranked 3^rd all time.

 

‘Undertaker Munch’: Whatever humor there is in this episode comes from our first meeting of Bernard Munch, played by Joey Perillo. Watching John and Bernard bicker and Bernard clearly have the advantage is frankly hysterical. Around his brother he shows little of the professionalism we see around him  “How guilty are you?” he says. “The rule is you might want to spend more on the deceased in death then you would in life.” Then he goes through his coffins as if he were discussing Chevrolets. (Fisher and Sons this ain’t.) He and John bicker about the costs before he gives him a coffin. Bayliss spends much of the episode trying to point out the fact that John’s never mentioned him to us before, points out the similarity in their professions before John tells him to shut up. When he’s gone Tim finally lets it out: “Between you and your brother. Thanksgiving at your house must be a laugh riot.” John: “One life-affirming story after another. Bernard will be mentioned again and show up from time to time for the rest of the series.

 

For all Bonfather’s coldness, his remarks and Granger’s are from David Simon’s book. In the epilogue Lieutenant Gary D’Addario (remember the name) and Sgt. Landsman are called to the scene of a detective who committed suicide, much as described her. Simon refers to it as a ‘detective’s suicide’ because one only needed to turn on the faucet to clean it up. D’Addario says: “Fuck him. He knew when he did it that we’d find it like this.

D'Addario would later say this is the only section of Simon’s book that he took exception with. “I did say it was a policeman’s suicide…but the tone which Dave (Simon) wrote it was that I was condemning his suicide, and that wasn’t the case. He was a good decent man, who was having some personal problems.