Homicide Rewatch: Law And Disorder

 

Written by Bonnie Mark & Julie Martin; story by Henry Bromell & James Yoshimura

Directed by John McNaughton

 

In a sense the most important part of this episode is the teaser. With   Homicide  doing this brief comic crossover with Law & Order, the writers are planting the seed of an idea that will lead to what becomes an annual event for both shows (while Homicide is still airing) but will effectively take the path that will unofficially link the former franchise with the latter series long after the original has been forgotten. Of course in February of 1995 it was for all intents and purposes a ratings stunt and no one connected with the series was sure they'd be renewed at the end of the year.

The episode isn't officially connected to the three parter that involved the cop shooting storyline. In fact Bayliss's investigation into the murder of Gordon Pratt is almost insignificant to the main investigation and the other character related subplots. Bayliss is essentially abandoned to investigate this murder, none of his fellow detectives seem that concerned about the significance of it and while Giardello initially presses his after his first results turn up empty when Bayliss shows up again at the end of the episode and announces he can't go any further the only remark Gee says is "This won't help your clearance rate any." The murder of Gordon Pratt, a man who was likely the shooter of Bolander, Felton and Howard will go unavenged and there will be no official justice for him or them. The investigation is for all intents and purposes an afterthought and it is precisely for that reason that it is so important.

From the start of the episode Bayliss is positive that a cop killed Pratt. It almost goes without saying not just because no one was there when he arrived at the crime scene but how all of his fellow detectives seem untroubled by his murder. Even Frank, who so ruthless investigated patrolmen in the murder of C.C. Cox in Season 2, doesn't seem remotely troubled by the fact that Pratt is dead. When Bayliss asks if any of them have an alibi for Pratt's shooting, they barely seem willing to put up an effort.

Homicide has dealt with cop related shootings and violence before and will do so on multiple occasions for the rest of the series. It was not afraid to deal with the difficult feelings so many of the detectives had when it came to investigate their own for the murders of civilians and it was willing to have them arrest them when it came down to it. But the series was also more than willing to engage in the idea of 'the blue wall' when it suited them: we have already seen Gee and Frank nearly come to blows when it came to how to investigate the murder of Cox last season and Frank more than anyone believes in the idea of justice for all in death if not in life. That he seems so indifferent to Pratt's murder – taking a call that puts him on a separate investigation throughout the episode – seems out of character for him.

In many ways this episode is another layer to the front of Frank as the 'Grand Inquisitor', which has been taking some blows all season. He has spent the last few days laser focused on finding who shot his comrades, was led down the wrong rabbit hole for two days and when he got the man he thought was responsible in the box, he couldn't close the deal and it infuriates him that he failed. There's also the possibility he's just exhausted from the last few days and just wants to go back to solving murders the old fashioned way. Before the season comes to the end, he will have regained his sense of purpose and will follow it in a darker place.

Giardello is a different story. During the Cox murder he was infuriated at the idea a cop could have killed a man. You'd think he'd be more inclined to let Bayliss off the hook but while he's unemotional about the whole thing, he does seem to want his detective to do more than just go through the motions. Of course Pratt did shoot three detectives under his charge, so his death probably doesn't bother him that much either. And the fact that none of the bosses seem that interesting in assisting one way or the other would seem to argue that the entire department feels the same way.

Kyle Secor is put at the front of action in a way he really hasn't been during Season 3. In fact this is the first case as a primary we've seen him investigate all year, though no one could say he's exactly been absent from the action. Bayliss has always served as the moral compass of the unit, and it's clear even after two years on the squad he still has struggles of conscience that the rest of the squad just doesn't. This time that conscience doesn't want to follow the case to its natural conclusion, something he tells an indifferent Giardello at one point.

He gets little support from Frank when he comes to him midway through the episode. Considering that Frank told Beau earlier this season that 'every life has meaning' his contempt for Pratt's is very telling. Bayliss tries to ask him for advice and Frank is indifferent for once. Under other circumstances he would push Tim in the right direction but this time he doesn't seem to care. When Tim brings up the Araber (reminding us Adena Watson is never far from his thoughts) and Annabella Wilgus he knows there's no justice in the world but he doesn't seem to think being an executioner is the right idea either. (For those who know his arc by the end of the series, this is irony writ large.)

The writers don't give us any closure either, refusing to give even a hint as who the killer might be. To be clear Bayliss seems to think that Munch is the killer. Even he admits he cheerfully admits he has a motive: "Never investigate the murder of a man who tried to kill you," he tells Tim. And when Bayliss starts to press him he gets incredibly pissed, offering his Glock to him. But just as we will never know for certain that Pratt shot at the detectives, we will never know for certain who killed Pratt. Homicide has spent three episodes dealing with its most violent storyline and we are left in the same world of ambiguity we were with Adena Watson at the start: we think we know who's responsible but the show will not tip its hand.

The series is trying to deal with the aftermath of the shooting, albeit in that of an accelerated timetable. (See Notes From the Board for more.) Felton has gone through physical therapy and says he's ready to get back to work. Considering that all he has to go back to is an empty house you can't exactly blame him for that. Perhaps taking advantage of their relationship Russert allows Felton to go back to desk duty.

But Felton has never been the best judge of his capacity before and he isn't now. He presses Giardello to ride shotgun on a case and the moment he gets out to a stabbing it's pretty clear he's not ready to come back. Frustrated at his reaction to it, he makes the enormous mistake of throwing a soda can at Giardello's direction.

Al has always been willing to go to bat for his detectives before and will again so his reaction is telling: "I'm sick of covering for you. Your marriage has been falling apart as long as anybody can remember. You come to work looking  as if you'd crawled through every bar in Baltimore…You weren't up to the job before you were shot. That's the point. That's the truth. It's time someone told you." This is a fair summation of Felton's career.  It might have been a path forward but other factors would intervene.

The rest of the show is very much a model of the kind of old-school Homicide we've become used to during the first two seasons, a mix of humor and darkness. Pembleton goes out on a call and he takes Lewis as his partner.  (It's the first time he's taken anyone who isn't Bayliss as his secondary on a case since the Pilot.) This is the first time that two African-American detectives have worked together on the same case, and critically Frank has just as much trouble getting along with him as…well, everybody.

They are called to investigate the murder of Jean Battisto, a woman who died bagging groceries in a Fulton Street parking lot. The trajectory of the bullets reveal that it could have come from anywhere within a radius of several hundred yards. On one side is a predominantly white neighborhood: on the other, the predominantly black projects. The victim is a white woman and the witness, also white, makes it very clear that she thinks the shooter came from the side of the projects.

Almost from the start Pembleton and Lewis clash. Pembleton wants to start the investigation from the projects where he thinks it is more likely the bullet came from. Lewis objects to what he considers Frank's stereotypical position that all violence must come from the black side of town. This is a pretty open-minded position coming from a homicide detective in this unit. On the other hand, Frank may simply be trying to solve this case in a completely efficient matter and we know he's never had a problem differentiated between white and black killers before.

The show bravely goes against the idea that two African-Americans detectives will think the same way, which was also brave for 1995. (We also get a scene where Giardello berates his two feuding detectives like a parent scolding children and again no mention of race is made.) It's perhaps inevitable they'd clash: Frank is the original lone wolf and Lewis is a collaborator. It also plays into the season long routine of Lewis partnering with everybody on the squad and not really getting along with anybody.

There's a hysterical scene where Lewis and Pembleton literally stumble upon a closed case without meaning to as they find a woman who has shot her boyfriend and put him in the freezer, then offers to serve them brisket. But eventually the show reaches a tragic end when they go to the white, middle-class section of town and find that a child took their gun out and fired it out the window. (Left unstated is the fact that because of this family's privileged she will likely suffer no criminal punishment for her crime; Pembleton implies as much.) When Lewis points out the irony of who the killer was, Frank doesn't back down, saying he would investigate the case the exact same way again. And the thing is we know Frank; that's the truth.

Meanwhile after several episodes of great dramatic work Munch is back to being comic relief – or in this case, the butt of the joke. He enters the squad to see everybody laughing and smiling at him and he doesn't understand why until Lewis comes in and tells him to go across the street. There is an exhibit of Hippie Days and there front and center is a picture of a much younger Munch were nothing but flowers in all his glory.

Like so many other people Munch can't see the humor when he's the center of the joke. It doesn't come as much as a shock that the woman who took the photo is one of Munch's old flames, Brigitte. John has to come to the gallery that night and humble himself before a woman he abandoned in the middle of the night many years and who spent two years mourning him. In a sense she manages to achieve the best kind of revenge. She covers the notable part of the photo of at the evening – but it ends up in the paper the next day.

And in what is the biggest sign that thinks are getting back to normal when John goes to visit Stan in the hospital, he is back to a crochety old self. At the end of the last episode he didn't remember who his partner was, by the end of this episode, it's clear he wishes he was still blessed by that. As he berates John for his immoral behavior and acting badly Munch is actually pleased: Stan cares about him!

As Munch says early in the episode, things are finally getting back to normal. Of course, normal is always an odd term in Homicide and things will never be quite the same, even during the rest of Season 3.

 

NOTES FROM THE BOARD

Not By The Book: Gordon Pratt's shooting, as Bayliss reports in this episode, was at the very latest, yesterday. That means Bolander, Howard and Felton were shot, at most three days ago. Yet in this same episode Felton's been discharged and seems to have been going through weeks of physical therapy and is being allowed back to work. We'll allow for the accelerated timetable because other TV shows have been like this (Andy Sipowicz was shot in the stomach in the Pilot and was back on the job practically two weeks later) and the writers still didn't know whether they were going to be renewed.

Detective Munch: The puzzled looks on his face as he walks in and can't understand why everyone's looking so delighted to see him. It's rare to see his checkered past come back to haunt him in such a, ahem, public fashion.

The Opening Teaser: Frank Pembleton is there to pick up R. Vincent Smith (John Waters again) who fled to New York on a murder charge. Bringing him back to Baltimore? None other than Mike Logan (Chris Noth). Logan denounces Baltimore saying, "Charm City sounds like something you got in a box of Crackerjack."

Remembering that Frank himself was born in New York, his defense of Baltimore is that of someone who says, "Only we're allowed to berate this city." He tells the story of how Dorothy Parker after she died was cremated and her ashes were spread in Baltimore. Mike Logan says: "Two words. Babe Ruth." Smith weighs in: "Edgar Allan Poe. He hated New York so much he came to Baltimore to die." Logan has one last snide comment: "What he die of? The local crab cakes?"

"Pembleton tells Smith. "You're going to prison, but you'll do in Baltimore, not New York. Smith: "Why do you think I didn't fight extradition? I may be a murderer but I'm no fool."

R. Vincent Smith, by the way, is another joke: the real R. Vincent Smith was the props master for Homicide. This is a far more fitting cameo for Waters then his first one; you can just see him being the kind of killer would lock up.

Hey, Isn't That… Valerie Perrine made her debut as Montana in the screen adaptation of Slaughterhouse Five in 1972. Two years later she was nominated for Best Actress for her work as Honey, the stripper who married Lenny Bruce in Bob Fosse's Lenny in 1974. After appearing in Superman (with Ned Beatty) and later Superman II, her fast moving career began to slow down and by the 1990s she was mainly doing television, eventually cast as Cookie, Susan Lewis's mother, on ER, Nash Bridges. Her last role of any kind was in Silver Skies in 2016, though as of this writing she is still alive.