Homicide Rewatch: The Old and The Dead

 

Written by Randall Anderson; story by Henry Bromell & Jorge Zamacona

Directed by Michael Fields

Years after the fact it would be clear that of all the cast members of Homicide Ned Beatty was viewed by the writers they had most difficulty with. Tom Fontana would express as much on the Season 4 DVD, though he didn't call him out by name.

Part of this frustration was no doubt caused by Homicide's constantly being on the bubble and an actor of note like Beatty being unable to take opportunities he might want because he was tied to a series. Another issue might have been how the series evolved over time. In the first two seasons it was clearly an ensemble show and Beatty's role was slightly more prominent even when he wasn't investigating cases. By Season 3, however, Andre Braugher's exceptional talent had become more obvious to the writers and he was deservedly being put more front and center. The rest of the cast would suffer as a result but it was particularly clear for Bolander, whose character had a much less prominent role in the first half of Season 3.

With no clear idea by this point in Homicide would be renewed, the writers might have been trying to hedge their bets in the final third of the season: Bolander is far more front and center than he has been to this point. To do so they have to rush the recovery timetable of not only Bolander but Felton and Howard to a ridiculous standard (see Not By The Book) but this was a case of necessity being the mother of invention. This isn't really a complaint, either: as someone who always admired Beatty's work on the show and who wanted to see the rest of the actors get their due, these episodes stand much closer to the mark of first season episodes across the board.

From a logical point of view it also makes sense to deal with the detectives who were shot from the perspective of Bolander. He is the elder statesman who's been on the job for 27 years and he was by far the most seriously wounded. His major way of dealing with the 'trim he got at Maryland Shock Trauma' is a natty grey fedora, which combined with the Orioles scarf he traditionally wears actually works as a fashion choice for Stan. He spends the episode keeping the hat on at all cost; it's not until late when he's finally getting ready for the bed we see the horrible scar and understand that this has nothing to do with vanity.

He also has more of a reason to be philosophical then usual which considering that Munch is usually the more pensive one in their partnership is an interesting reversal of the dynamic. We're not sure how long he spent since being discharged before heading back to the job (again see below) but his own concern is his mental and psychological capacity. This adds more layers to Beatty's performance as on his first day back, he picks up the phone and goes out as primary.

It's clear Stan is dealing with issues that in part have to do with trauma: when he enters the Warner household and takes a look up the stairwell, the show lets us know by implication where his mind is. Munch spends a fair amount of the episode taking on the role of more of a caretaker than usual: when Stan appears repulsed by how savagely the Warners have been beaten to death, he slightly takes over the crime scene. Bolander makes it very clear he resents that fact but as his first day unfolds the viewer has reason to doubt whether Stan is ready to come back.

It's understandable he'd been dealing with memory loss issues given what happened to him, and he makes some errors involving medical terms and with Eldin Warner in certain details. Then when Munch finds a potential suspect he almost overcorrects by going too hard at him and John gently pulls him off. That night Russert has to gently tell him to go home. When he shows up at his partner's house later that night (very likely for the first time) I almost wondered if he had forgotten where he lived. The fact that he couldn't sleep and was dealing with nightmares is just as logical.

As Stan undresses he gives the kind of rant he's given to John a few times about his life, but this time there's an air of regret. He's been forced to contemplate his mortality in a way most of us never do and now he realizes at the end of the day, he doesn't have anything but the job. "I don't need a will," he tells Munch sadly. Munch, who usually can't shut up in Stan's presence, doesn't say anything even to offer false comfort: he lets Stan talk and leaves him to sleep.

But by the end of the episode it's clear that Bolander does still have what it takes. When Lyle Warner, the grandson of the deceased, finally shows up at the house both Munch and Bolander can sense that something's off in his behavior. For the first time Bolander seems more like his old self. The interrogation is one of the shows masterpieces: Munch plays the bad cop when it comes to arguing why he killed his grandparents and then Bolander tells him to take a walk. Then in the kind of fatherly way that we've always associated with him in the interrogation room Stan gets Lyle to confide in him.

It's clear that father and son have always been distant and ever since Lyle's mother has died it's gotten worse. He has essentially dumped him on his grandparents to raise him while he travels the world, making business deals and occasionally doing pro bono work. It's telling that the father seems more comfortable helping strangers then spending time with his son. There is something rather distant about Eldin that he doesn't even seem that bothered to stop his working after his parents are brutally murdered, not even to arrange their funerals. He doesn't think of taking his son with him on his long trips abroad and he doesn't even think of making regular phone calls. (Cell phones did exist in 1995, so that the father only calls his parents to get in touch with his son is also fairly telling.) Bolander gets Lyle to admit he was angrier than he'd ever been and that he beat his grandparents to death with a lacrosse stick. The moment he finishes Stan gets up, greets Eldin and coolly says: "Your son's going to need a lawyer," before calmly walking out of the room.

The episode also focuses on how the other two detectives are doing after the shooting. Felton has clearly done his time at a desk and Giardello is willing to let him work as a secondary. Bayliss asks him to go out on a call and Beau is willing. They are called into find a skeleton that was dug up by an old woman's dog ("Can I keep the thigh bone?" she asks Bayliss compassionately) and its clear this is a more personal case to Felton then most. This is 'Billy Town' the area of Baltimore where essentially the white trash of the city live and Felton grew up in this area. He takes a certain offense when Bayliss refers to it that way and Bayliss (who's dealing with reminders of Adena Watson) allows him to take the lead.

Felton shows a rare amount of subtlety, perhaps because he knows the neighborhood. He takes the slower of the Blakey siblings aside, talks to him about the woman who used to make candy and asks him about the body in the back. It is the father and the Blakey's say they didn't kill him. They buried him in the backyard because they didn't have the money for the funeral – something not uncommon among the poor.

This would normally be the end of it but showing a sense of dedication he didn't have before Felton finds out that the Blakey siblings haven't reported their father dead because they want to keep collecting his Social Security checks. (Or maybe they want to put the work on the Feds, which would also be common for the Baltimore PD.)

Howard is stuck behind a desk because of being shot in the heart. Is it sexism or seniority that gives Bolander the authority to go back out on the street despite being shot in the head? (It's the writers.) Howard's way of dealing with this is that her desk has been moved to make way for the fax machine and it pisses her off. This is both amusing and keeping with Kay's character: we already know she's got a superstitious streak in her the last few seasons and for all her talk of being a great detective she knows luck has to do with her record as much as skill.

Pembleton's role in this episode is much smaller than usual (considering he's been front and center much of the season that's actually a nice change) and when he shows up he treats Kay the way she likes to be treated. In his case, he's impatient because he's trying to solve the Gasparino murder and he delegated her to make phone calls. In his mind her superstition is getting in his way. But in a refreshing change of pace Kay follows through on the phone calls and figures out who killed the man after doing interviews. For once Frank is left speechless when he realizes that someone has done his job better than him and when Kay erased the name and says: "You're welcome," with just enough arrogance he looks comically stunned.

But the most significant storyline on the show has nothing to do with the detectives at all. In the first half of the episode Giardello has a discussion with Granger about the plumbing in the building and Granger, for once, agrees to help with no strings. The strings become clear when the plumbers come and go – and then the toilets are bubbling and explode. Giardello does some homework and realizes that the plumbers are involved with Granger's family and that they have been double billing the city for doing the same job twice. Gee confronts Granger about and he denies it.

What happens next is interesting. The following day there's a story in the paper about what Granger has been doing all this time. When Russert reads it to Giardello, he asks completely shocked by it – badly. Then he gets a call from Bonfather and he looks gleeful. It's pretty clear Gee leaked the story to the press: he's done it before and he will do it again. This time the consequences are greater than he could think.

Bonfather tells Giardello that Granger has been forced to retire. (This is Gerald F. Gough's last appearance on Homicide.) Bonfather has been promoted to Colonel, which leaves his position open. Gee clearly expects he'll been given the job but instead it's given to Russert. Giardello knows this is political but he has a read on it: "75 percent of the voters (in Baltimore)are black," he tells Bonfather. "And 61 percent are women," Bonfather counters. "Was merit ever a consideration?" he asks before he leaves.

One could make the argument that this is the first clear example on Homicide about how merit has nothing to do with how one is promoted in the police department. (The Wire, Simon's follow-up show, will state this directly.) But it's worth both Giardello's character and the circumstances. Giardello has already made it clear the first three seasons that he has no use for the politics the bosses play; he's butted heads with them countless times before and he's warned Frank about the kind of games earlier this season. But the fact remains Granger got fired as a direct result of Giardello's actions and he clearly expected that he was called up because he was going to get promoted. This was as political a maneuver as Giardello has ever done over the years. Did he think he could benefit from it? He talks about his career as if merit matters but after thirty years you think he of all better would know better. Besides after all his years of being a pain in the ass to the bosses, did he truly believe that wasn't going to be weighed against him?

It must be said that Russert's promotion to Captain just a few months after becoming shift commander makes less sense from a realistic standpoint: even if you acknowledge that she was promoting for political reasons, it seems an acknowledgement that the writers haven't been able to fit her character into the show as a shift commander and are now trying to change the game by making her captain. Perhaps they think by having her butt heads with Al on a regular basis after being his equal, it would add to more drama particularly given the circumstances. The gambit doesn't work; by the time the fourth season is less than half over, they will change her position again, demonstrated that the writers never figured out how to use Megan Russert properly.

'The Old and the Dead' ends with Bolander and Howard sitting on the roof, checking in on each other. Both of them say that they haven't missed a step but you can tell in their voices they don't have the confidence they should. Because of future events this would also end up not playing very well for either character but it's still a good note to end this superb episode on.

 

NOTES FROM THE BOARD

Not By The Book: I don't so much object to the recovery time of all three detectives being accelerated as much as they have as the fact that apparently during that recovery time there have been practically no murders in Baltimore. Last week, we got up to the 53^rd murder so far in 1995. Somehow in the space of time that Bolander and Howard have been going through physical therapy and being cleared for the job there's only been one more murder: the Gasparino case. The alternative is they came back to work from all of this in one week's time. I don't think either works.

Also though two people were murdered Warner is written up as one case. This isn't unheard of on the show to this point: the Billiard Brothers who Munch investigated in the pilot were written up as one crime. Starting with the next season murders in a family will each be accounted separately.

Detective Munch: We saw Munch's home for the first time and we hear him drinking bear and dancing to Lou Reed's 'Next to You'. He even sings a few bars before letting Stan in.

Opening Teaser: One of the best jokes in the series. Megan is bickering with her cousin 'Tim' and Felton comes in and recognizes him as Tim Russert, who at the time was the weekly host of NBC's Meet The Press. A starstruck Felton tries to ask him about politicians of the era ("Does Bob Dole have a chance in '96?) and all Megan and Tim can argue about is the socket wrench set she got him for his birthday present. She dismisses him: "Go play tennis with Hilary. Play golf with Quayle!" It's hysterical watching a man we associated with such gravitas tell Isabella Hoffman: "You know how they say when you're angry, you're beautiful? Well, you're not!"

Interestingly enough this unbilled cameo would become canon for Isabella Hoffman's character. When she was written out of the series, it was said she was introduced to a French diplomat that her cousin introduced her and she ran off to Paris with him. (Then again, that may just be talk.)

Hey, Isn't That…This episode marks the debut of Shawn Hatosy, a child actor who mad appearance in many films in the 1990s including In & Out, Anywhere But Here and The Faculty. His career began to slowly accelerate as he got older, particularly in television, where he would receive acclaim in films such as A Soldier's Girl and Faith of My Fathers.

He finally managed to break through playing Sammy Bryant on the acclaimed TV Series Southland and has worked constantly ever since in shows such as Bosch and Fear the Walking Dead. His first incredible work came as Pope, the silent son on the criminal Cody family in Animal Kingdom. He has been far busier in the last year starring on Rescue: Hi-Surf, Chicago PD and on The Pitt as Dr. Jack Abbott.