Homicide Rewatch: Happy To Be Here

 

Written by Julie Martin; story by Tom Fontana & Julie Martin

Directed by Lee Bonner

 

Boy, is the title of this episode an exercise in irony. It starts out with Bayliss emerging from a coffin with Emma in post-coital bliss which is the only moment in this episode when anyone is remotely close to happy. We’re back to dealing with drugs, murder and the trivial reasons so many crimes take place. The ‘comic’ subplot has one of the most unsettling depictions of romantic love we’ll see on the series. And we start watching the downfall of one major character on a path that will become sadly familiar for viewers of the series.

The more we learn about Emma the only conclusion we can draw is that the physical attraction hides a person you really don’t want that closely. Emma tells Bayliss that she told her boyfriend about him – but critically not that she wants to be exclusive with Tim from this point on. When she tells Tim that he shoved her he gets upset – but she’s not. It’s never stated directly by Fontana (considering how dark Emma’s character already is it might have been a bridge too far) but the implication is that a part of her likes violence as part of the attraction.

Bayliss then goes into his own dark grousing, unable to deal with the fact that his Emma is attracting to a man named Andy. He spends several minutes saying how stupid any famous person with the name Andy really is, which is his own macho posturing. Then he confronts the county cop and tries to attack him and is saved by Frank.

Emma then confronts him and is infuriated. We initially might be inclined to cheer for her feminism but she ends up breaking up with Tim by saying to him: “If you don’t want to fight with me, I don’t want to be in this relationship.” She walks out of Tim’s life and out of the series, though you could argue we see versions of her in so much of television today.

Bayliss does not take this well. In one of the most iconic scenes of Homicide he goes to a convenience story to buy beer and chocolate chip cookies, only to be told he’s eleven cents short. What follows is one of Secor’s great comic scenes as we see a man on the edge, all but begging a very devoted store clerk for “the quality that allowed man to emerge from the primordial ooze and walk erect! Humanity!” The clerk really seems devoted to his job and Bayliss who is spinning pulls a gun and demands his beer and cookies. The entire scene is hysterical, especially when Bayliss asks for a bag for his goods. (Paper, not plastic.)

Then he sits right by the front door, drinking his beer until the cops show up. He only manages to avoid some very serious problems when Frank bails him out for the second time in the episode. (One wonders if Frank is seriously considering what he’s getting out of riding with Tim at this point.)

During the ride off Frank and Tim have another one of their conversations. Usually during these conversations we want to take Bayliss’s side because of Frank’s attitude. This may be the first time we really get to understand why Pembleton has so little patience with his partner. It’s not just that’s he had to bail his partner out of possibly being reprimanded (let’s not kid ourselves; that’s the most that would have happened to him for his horrible actions even in real life) it’s that he has to listen to Bayliss’ lovelorn meanderings about how what if your true love’s an Eskimo and you live in Des Moines. Frank tries to tell him there’s a lot of nice girls in Des Moines and Tim wants his Eskimo. All things considered Frank is remarkably nice in his chiding when he tells Tim that finding love is like solving the perfect crime before pointed out it requires dumb luck and you “my friend, are the most unlucky man I know.”  Then he gets the last laugh: “By the way, you owe me eleven cents.”

The episode deals with both the best and worst case scenario of love and in typical Homicide fashion, it points out that even the best case ends in  a dark place. Bayliss and Pembleton are called to the Ballentine home where they find the very dead Sadie Ballentine, who has been decomposing in the easy chair for at least a couple of weeks. Nevertheless her husband has been bringing her roses every day. Talking to the neighbor about what happened the neighbor is astonished to learn of Sadie’s death: “This is going to kill Arthur!” she said, straight-faced.

Eventually the detectives find Arthur at the Baltimore Zoo looking at the seals. Arthur wants to take Sadie home and the detectives gently tell him that’s not an option. “Cremation or burial, that’s your option.” It’s never clear if Arthur is undergoing dementia or couldn’t deal with the loss of his wife. The way he talks about her as if she’s still alive is clearly unsettling. But there’s the genuine pain of not being able to let someone go when they’ve died which, compared to much of what we’ve seen love lead to on this show already, is actually kind of sweet.

I should mention that the decomposition is so obvious the smell is something Bayliss can’t stand. (Frank, of course, is fine.) So he asks Arthur: “How did you deal with the smell?” And Arthur tells him, honestly: “You get used to it.”  One could see this as a sign of his mental state – or if you wanted the idea that his love for his wife was so great he could ignore what everyone else couldn’t.

We also see what happens when love doesn’t work out and in the case of Felton, it will end up destroying. The episode clearly takes place within at most a couple of days after the end of ‘A Model Citizen’ and Beau’s already a wreck. He tells Howard that Beth is gone and has taken everything he owns, including the kids. For the next several episodes Felton will spend every spare moment – and in many cases when he’s supposed to be on the job – trying to find out what happened to Beth.

We see him have a conversation with Russert, clearly trying to find a way back. Megan’s the grownup and tells him she can’t afford to carry a torch. This double whammy ends up putting Beau where we find him at the end of the episode: in a bar about to get drunk. Daniel Baldwin will reach new heights as Felton goes to rock bottom. Felton has at best never been a good detective and the destructive of his marriage will lead to his collapse in the squad. Some later had issues as to how Baldwin ended up being written out of the show but considering where he was by the time Season 3 begins, it actually seemed appropriate for him.

But the major tragedy of the episode unfolds in two parts. It begins with the murder of Raymond Liddell. Sam Thorne, who we met in the last episode, takes it personally because he’d been working with him on a story about the Colombian cartel and its infiltration of the Baltimore drug scene. (This was becoming a reality in Baltimore during the 1990s.) We see Sam talk to Al and for the first time we realize that for all the cynicism Gee clearly respects what the man is trying to do. There’s a sense of humor between the two – which is sad because it’s their last interaction.

Sam is killed while having lunch and Lewis and Bolander catch the case. The killer was an eighteen year old who shot Sam and then walked to the counter, picked up a mint and paid a dime for it. This Homicide twist covers the fact that to this point on the show we’ve never seen a guest character killed and end up on the board.

The investigation that follows is one of the saddest ones in Homicide history and that’s saying something. The kid who did is Matt Cameron, who is both scared and may very well be suffered from some kind of mental disability. Eventually Lewis and Bolander get him to admit what he did by asking him why he paid a dime for the mint. Matt, who’s been weakly denying his involvement in the murder says almost angrily: “I ain’t a thief’, a statement both Bolander and Gee parrot in disbelief. In the world of Homicide depriving a man of life is just a job but a mint is an object of value, not to be taken lightly or stolen.

The investigation proceeds efficiently with Stan and Meldrick first tracking down Dwight, the man who Matt asked him to hold the gun for him and then Jerome, a businessman who is proud of being a ‘facilitator’ for certain interests. More concerned with his haircut then the lives he’s destroyed he thinks he can negotiate his way out of it. And by the end of the episode we learn he does: he’s agreed to immunity in exchange to give information on the cartel.”

Bolander sums it up resignedly: “The kid who did he’ll go away for the rest of his life, the guy who arranged it, maybe he’ll get a few years but the head honcho, he’s just gonna buy another helicopter.”  The show never follows up on it but considering what we will see about the drug war over the next several seasons (and later on shows like The Wire) Stan’s cynicism is more than merited.

But one of the most painful moments in all of Homicide occurs at the end when Giardello goes to talk with Matt. He asks why he killed Sam. Matt says for $500. “A man’s life is worth $500 for what?” Gee asks. “A boom box? Gold chains? Savings bonds.” And Matt says: “A bike.” Not a motorcycle but a bike which he describes with the first real emotion he’s had the entire episode, ending “Best mountain bike there is. With the grief of a man who keeps having his spirit crushed Al says sadly: “There are no mountains in Baltimore.”

The story of trying to be a good man is seen through Sam’s daughter, also a family friend. (I can’t find the name of the actress who played her; it isn’t listed in the credits on the show.) It seems clear that Sam was so focused on saving the world he neglected all the people around him including his family. Thorne’s daughter thinks that Al was more of a presence but Al knows the truth. That his wife raised their children while he was out chasing the bad guys. It’s clear that Al can see that Sam and he are two sides of the same coin. This is seen in the final moments when he spots a doll that Sam was trying to use to give away for guns at the start of the series and then decides to call Charisse his daughter – and clearly his favorite child.

Throughout the episode Munch is trying to find a way to deal with how Meldrick has decided, unilaterally, to pull out of the purchase of the Waterfront. First he tries to get Tim to apologize and Tim is unwilling because he happens to be on the right side of the argument. So Munch spends the episode looking for other investors, talking to Howard, then trying to hit up Danvers (who she’s still dating) Russert, his ex-wives and even Stan’s ex-wife. Finally he realizes he has to do the honorable thing – and lie. He invites Meldrick to the Waterfront and makes up a cock and bull story. It clearly must work because in just a few episodes the two will be working together as if nothing has happened. (Maybe they commiserated over Emma dumping them both.)

That’s the thing about Homicide. The job doesn’t care if you lose the love of your life; if your wife runs off with your kids or if a friend gets killed. Indeed as we will see it doesn’t even care if one of your detectives kills yourself; the bosses are going to expect you to keep clearing cases even though your one detective down. Indeed that may be the biggest legacy of how Homicide is different. In another series, if a detective was killed the producers would put in another cast member to replace them and have him work with the new partner. On Homicide the bosses will tell you they don’t have the money and Lewis, rather than be instant partners, will spend the rest of the season working with nearly every other detective on the squad. The writers will, in fact, actually double down on this as cast members depart over the next couple of years and make it an underlying part of the series. Murder isn’t going to allow you to take a breath for life. It never will.

 

NOTES FROM THE BOARD

 

“Detective Munch” His best moment comes in the teaser. Russert is coming in for coffee and she complains her life’s out of whack. Munch tells her to get her face read. He then puts his fingers between his eyes and then between the nose and the chin and says if they measure the same your soul is in harmony with the universe. Frank is nearby and does the same.

Russert is happy with the results but Frank isn’t because his face is off. “My soul is never going to be in harmony with the universe.” “My suggestion is plastic surgery.”

Russert then says there’s one us girls no. She then shows a place on the face where apparently it’s the same length as one’s penis. Munch and Frank privately measure and then each show their distance, ahem, much larger then it is. “I’ll check later,” Frank says. “Me too,” says Munch.

 TRIVIA: When Frank says he won’t let the smell bother him, Bayliss jokes you, G. Gordon Liddy and Henry Rollins. Liddy was one of the burglars of the Watergate who was known for holding his hand over an open flame without flinching. Rollins was the singer for Black Flag (and a future comedian) who famously refused to let the abuse of the fans and his bandmates bother him on stage of in life.

Hey Isn’t That… Not long after her appearance here, Lauren Tom would have her most famous role as Julie, the first woman Ross becomes involved during Season 2 of Friends. She had previously appeared in the Joy Luck Club and later had a longer role on Grace Under Fire. While she has acted to this day she is far better known for her voice work in animated series such as Happily Ever After, Angela Chen in the WB version of Superman, various Batman series and in Batman Beyond, most notably as the voice of the Green Lantern. She would have voices in such series as Fillmore!, Rocket Power!! And the video game World Of Warcraft. She would later play Jinx in the first version of Teen Titans and has famously given the voice of Amy in Futurama as well as numerous roles in king of the Hill. Her most recent role was in Disenchantment for Netflix.

After his stint on Homicide Morton found his best film role as Del in John Sayles’ masterpiece Lone Star. His work in television including Dr. Maxwell on the short lived series Mercy Point, Malcolm X on the TV movie Ali: An American hero and Thurgood Marshall on Mutiny. He later played Chauncey Eskridge in Michael Mann’s more famous film. He would star in Law & Order and all of its spinoffs but not find his biggest role of note until he was cast as Henry on the Sci-fi channel series Eureka.

Since then he has been a constant force in Peak TV. He is best known for his Emmy winning role as Eli/Rowan Pope, the head of B613 on Scandal but his work as Daniel Golden, the initial attorney for Peter Florrick on The Good Wife was even better. He then moved on to play Silas Stone, the father of Cyborg in the Justice League movies and can currently be seen as General Davidson on Going Dutch.

Daryl Wharton, who plays Matt later became a staff writer in Season 6.