Homicide Rewatch: All Through The House

 

Written by Henry Bromell

Directed by Peter Medak

 

One of the few areas were broadcast television still has the clear edge over all other forms of content is the Christmas episode.

This is understandable considering the nature of television on both cable and streaming. With both their shorter schedules, no clear idea as to release date and the rise of binge-watching trying to do an episode with relevance to Christmas is kind of pointless. The few times it has happened its there to subvert the construct. Six Feet Under begins with the family patriarch having hearse being plowed into by a bus while ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas’ plays on the radio and only gets darker from there. Mad Men had the occasional Christmas party episode but usually as a way to show the falseness of the holiday as opposed to its joy. And it takes a bit of a stretch to call the early episodes of Stranger Things where Joyce makes contact with the Upside Down through Christmas lights as in the holiday spirit.

Growing up some of the greatest episodes of any of the dramas I watched were among the dramatic highpoint of the series. ER, which premiered during Homicide’s third season, would go out of its way to make the Christmas episode emotional highpoints as well contrasted with lows for major characters often within the same episode. During the Aaron Sorkin era the Christmas episode of The West Wing would be among the greatest episodes in the entire history of the show and frequently win Emmys for the performers and writers involved. And though it didn’t air in December, a huge part of the reason ‘The Constant’ episode of Lost is considered one of the greatest episodes in the history of television is because it takes place on Christmas Eve.

Even growing up, however, I always felt a certain kinship with the shows that had a way of subverting the Christmas narrative. In the first season of its run Chicago Hope’s ‘The Quarantine’ ranked as one of the high point of the series and many episodes that followed would be just as powerful. One of the most hysterical episode in the history of The X-Files is ‘How the Ghosts Stole Christmas’ in which Mulder and Scully find their corpses under the floorboards and the episode only gets darker from there. But it’s clear looking back that Homicide was just as determined to shift the idea of showing that all the narratives we see about Christmas don’t take the night off for murder in Baltimore. As we see in All Through the House, it’s just another day for ‘Ho-Ho-Homicide’.

This is, of all the holiday episodes Homicide did, the most light-hearted and humorous. Of course because it’s Homicide, every single joke is lined with death and sadness and even the cheerful moments have a dark punchline. And throughout it the detectives manage to remain as blank-faced as always. Part of me wonders how many takes Clark Johnson needed to go through without cracking up during the scene at the morgue where Scheiner greets him wearing a Santa hat, tells him the teeth of his victim are perfect and tells him that the reason the menorah’s there is because “this time of year we get all types. And I want everybody to feel welcome.”

It is perfectly logical to have a Christmas themed episode with Munch at the center. John, of course, could be annoyed because this this isn’t a holiday themed squad room (the war on Christmas hadn’t started in 1994) but the episode never mentions that fact and we all know that even if there was a menorah he’s still be bitter. Nor does the commercial aspect of the holiday bother him. No it’s the idea that you have to be happy during the holidays and John Munch is as we all know perpetually miserable. Bolander, as we know, is almost always gloomy to but he seems determined to be cheerful even though the squad is working the graveyard shift on Christmas Eve. He has brought a Christmas tree which he goes out of his way to decorate and every single member of the squad goes out of their way to degrade. One funny point comes when Frank chooses to give a history of the Christmas tree to his captive audience and then finishes by saying this “is an unholy example’.

The theme of this episode is, perhaps more than usual, family. The most direct example comes when we see Felton wrapping presents for his kids even though he still has no idea where they are. When Howard calls him on this, he says someday he will find them and when he does he’ll know they were thinking of him. But he’s clearly depressed (in the early scenes he looks hungover) and when Bayliss tries to cheer him up, he calls him on it and Tim’s efforts are, to say the least, ham-handed.

Early in the episode Russert shows up in the squad, ostensibly to give Christmas cookies to Gee. She says that her daughter has fallen asleep waiting for Santa and she wants to visit. Not long after Meldrick comes in, having written the name of his victim on the board and she recognizes it – it has to do with a case a detective on her squad is investigating. She goes out with Lewis because she thinks the case is hers based on the flimsiest of excuses. Meldrick calls her on it immediately and she tells him that she misses this. “Don’t tell me you don’t.” Meldrick accepts this for most of the night – he’s been riding solo since Crosetti and no doubt the idea of spending Christmas Eve alone trying to solve a murder isn’t going to make his holidays brighter.

It’s not until the murder is solve and the criminal arrested that he finally asks for the real reason Russert spent Christmas with him instead of her daughter. The mask goes down. Her husband’s grandparents have come in to spend the holidays with their granddaughter and as much as she loves them they remind her of her husband. For the first time we learn about Mike: he was a tax lawyer who he met through his sister, who was an accountant. She first met him at a Christmas party. This is one of the first Christmas she’s had to spend without him and the memory is extremely painful. “The bastard ruined Christmas for me forever,” she says sadly.

In a way this episode is a forerunner for Russert’s story arc in Season 4. More importantly it allows us to see Hoffman in a way we haven’t really gotten a chance to see since the opening three-part arc of the season. It gives a more complete picture of Russert then we’ve seen to this point and Hoffman gets to show more layers than we’ve gotten to see so far this season.

We also see the effect of family in every part of the story. Meldrick is called in to investigate the burning of a woman named Whitney Louise Freeman, who has been doused in kerosene and set on fire in an alley. Freeman was the main witness in a case involving a drug-dealer named ‘Boots’ Chiggins and Lewis and Russert spend the episode between those two worlds. The first is the most striking when we visit the Freeman household and find it is essentially that of the upper crust section of Baltimore. Caroline Freeman is serving egg nogg and has servants in the garb of old money decorating the tree.

Modern day viewers no doubt only know Nancy Marchand for her last major role that of Livia Soprano in the first two seasons of The Sopranos. Marchand was an accomplished actress before this (see notes from the board) and many of her roles were essentially playing the equivalent of high class matriarch as opposed to the frumpy bully she is most famous for. It’s an exceptional role in two short scenes as Mrs. Freeman puts on the mood of the good hostess, clearly trying to deny what these two detectives are doing there. She spends more time lecturing the ornaments on the tree. Finally when Russert tells her what happens we see the mask begin to slip. She’s more angry then upset, blaming the detectives for losing her daughter, saying she never knew her daughter’s friends and being unable to understand why her daughter never needed money. When they leave she’s back to dealing with the tree.

We spend the next part in the Chiggins household (in keeping with the show Meldrick and Megan are greeting with a teenager aiming a shotgun) and we see the man’s girlfriend and the mother of his children having a smaller but infinitely more intimate family Christmas then the posher but emptier one at the Freeman household. As you might expect the trail eventually leads to her and it has the sad reason that she did it to make sure her husband was there to provide for his children. Of course now both parents will be in jail as a result of her actions but that is the job.

Megan and Meldrick come to see Mrs. Freeman at the end of the episode to tell them they arrested her daughter’s killer. Marchand is incredible trying to hold up the façade. It is only when she focuses on the ornaments on the tree and how they’re hung that we see it finally hit her as she shatters one of her fathers and essentially comes as close to breaking as she will allow.

While this is going on Munch and Bolander have been called in to investigate the murder of Santa Claus. They believe the victim is Nicholas McGibney, a Salvation Army Santa who ‘plied on the guilt of the more fortunate’. They go to the McGibney home where Munch and Bolander find the man’s son. This is where the fun of the episode is. Fidel McGibney (the best joke is the kid has never heard of Fidel Castro) has the very protective nature of a ten year old. And it is hysterical watching the dark and cynical Munch spend the entire episode unable to tell this child his father is dead. Munch must have been in a situation like this before in his time on the squad, but its telling for all his cynicism about the holidays the idea of telling a ten year old that his father won’t be coming home for Christmas is something he just doesn’t want to do.

It's hysterical watching Belzer in these scenes. This is a man who has the ability to outtalk anybody his age or older but throughout the episode this eleven year old completely has his number. You wonder if Munch sees himself in Fidel, considering that his attitude is always on attack, incredibly sarcastic and always berates him. (The fact that this is the exact name you could see Munch giving a son if he had one is also telling.) We’ve never seen John this uncomfortable in his own skin, unable to deal with the gore in the films this kid watches, always delaying every opportunity he has, letting every single rational remark be overruled by this child.

At one point Munch goes with Fidel to a bar with a batting cage. Fidel essentially tells him to swing at some balls and his swing is laughably pathetic. Munch finally explodes at the child, angry at being compared to a man he knows is both a drunk and has clearly been lying to his son about what he does but also at himself for being so cowardly that he can’t tell his son the truth.

Finally at the end of the episode with Stanley having disappeared for most of it, he steels himself to tell the horrible truth. It sets itself up to be a powerful scene at first as we see Belzer trying to get himself the say the news he’s been waiting all night to say and trying to prepare the kid who’s been convinced all night his father would come home. Finally just as he’s about to say it, the door opens – and Nicholas McGibney comes in. It’s a Christmas miracle!

Not really, of course. The sick joke behind this revelation is that McGibney got drunk and a man named Lanny Krantz stole the Santa uniform, the bucket and the bell determined to take the money McGibney raised. Then someone came along and stabbed Krantz six times in the chest and took the money instead. Bolander is so joyful at what he’s accomplished and Munch is so pissed that Stan never called (Baltimore PD couldn’t afford cell phones in 1994) that it completely ignores the fact that for this reunion to happen, there’s still a dead man and Munch and Bolander now have to solve his murder, which they’ve spent all night not working on. But that’s a problem after the holidays.

The main humor comes in the squad where Bayliss spends the entire episode trying to convince anyone who will listen for a game of Hearts. Eventually he tracks down Gee in his squad room and clearly tries to hustle him and later the squad. What he doesn’t know – but Munch is glad to tell him – is that when Giardello was a detective he was famous for never losing a game of Hearts, supposedly putting a kid through college on it. It’s worth noting that when Munch realizes what Bayliss has tried to do, the first genuine smile he’s had all night comes on his face as he realizes that stupidity and being a sucker never goes out of style.

And so the episode ends with the squad leaving into the snow, everyone throwing snowballs at each other and shouts of Merry Christmas over the credits. A woman has been burned to death, Santa Claus was stabbed, one mother has lost her daughter, two children’s parents are headed to prison and there’s still an open murder. And as a bonus Danvers Christmas was spoiled when he had to go in to help Russert and Lewis figure out who was behind the murder. In short, Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

 

NOTES FROM THE BOARD

In Tom Fontana’s previous series St. Elsewhere during the fourth season Santa Claus came to St. Eligius to give toys to the sick children, suffered a heart attack in front of them and died before they good resuscitate them. The episode was called ‘Santa Claus is Dead’. Did something happen to Fontana when he was a  child involving a department store Santa that scarred him for life?

DETECTIVE MUNCH: Obviously this entire episode is full of these moments but much of the best parts come from the back and forth with Bolander in the early stages when Munch berates his partner for putting up a Christmas tree, leading to the following exchange:

Bolander: Christmas is when Jesus was born…That was a miracle.

Munch: All miracles happen in the past…Name one miracle that happened in your lifetime.

Bolander: How about the fact I haven’t killed you yet?

Hey Isn’t That…. Nancy Marchand’s career actually went back to the early days of television. She had roles in the Philco Television Playhouse, Producers Showcase and Studio One. She made her film debut in the movie adaptation of Paddy Chayefsky’s The Bachelor Party in 1957 and while she did have many film roles throughout her career (most notably for playing the Mayor in the first Naked Gun film) she was best known for her work in television.

Her most famous TV role before The Sopranos was playing Margaret Pynchon on Lou Grant, the one spinoff of Mary Tyler Moore which was actually a Drama. She would win a record four Outstanding Supporting Actress Emmys in a Drama for its run, a record that to this day no one actress has ever come close to breaking in this category. (Julia Garner is second with three for her work in Ozark.) She was also known for roles in Limited Series such as North & South Book 2 and The Adams Chronicles. While filming the second season of The Sopranos she suffered a stroke which reduced her ability to work. She died in June of 2000, just two months after the second season finale of that show aired, just one day short of her seventy-second birthday.

NOTE: The scene where Bayliss meets with Felton and he tells him that the idea of wanting to play hearts in this dump on Christmas Eve “makes me want to put a bullet in my brain” will have an added significance in two years.