Homicide Rewatch: Justice, Part 2

 

Written by David Simon; story by Tom Fontana & Henry Bromell

Directed by Peter Medak

 

If one were a pedant you could make the argument that the conclusion of Homicide's two-parter takes an entire hour to basically confirm what any viewer who knows anything about police dramas knew what is inevitable from the final scene of the first episode.  But doing things the easy way has never been Homicide's style and its not going to do that now. And there's an argument that more than any other episode so far the conclusion of Justice makes it very clear that Homicide will never fit into the term 'cop-a-ganda' that has come to define every single police procedural in TV history with very few exceptions.

The reason this episode works is because at a gut level, every member of the squad has a pretty good idea of who killed Kenny Damon and why but is hoping in their hearts there's an alternative explanation.  They all know what the right thing to do is but that just makes it all the harder. No one was going to mourn Damon well before he killed Edgar Rodzinski and every cop knows that at some level he got what was coming to him even if the obvious explanation, as is almost always the case on this show, is the right one and they will have to lock up one of their own.  As Kellerman says more than once, just doing this makes him feel dirty.

That's why Fontana makes the wise decision to keep Pembleton and Bayliss out of this investigation (and in a stroke of genius, use the two of them for comic relief). As Frank makes clear the one time he is asked, he sees no shades of grey in this. If he and Bayliss had caught this case there would be some discussion of the morality but neither would blink at what they were doing. (Besides they've already looked at this from both angles in previous seasons, so it would seem more formulaic then many of the storylines in Season 4.) So by keeping them out of the story, we're allowed to look at this from every other characters perspective and show just how much it bothers 'mere mortals'.

Yaphet Kotto gets to give one of the best performances he has in a while. Kotto frequently complained that for all the layers that Giardello had compared to so many of the other token African-American bosses that were populating procedurals during the 1990s (Arthur Fancy on NYPD Blue and Anita Van Buren on Law & Order are but the most famous examples) they weren't explored as much as he would have liked.  This is the first of several episodes in Season 4 that give us a chance to see beyond the often stoic façade of Al and actually explore his history as in the Baltimore PD.  Even more interesting is the contrast between the last time an episode dealt with a potential police involved shootings. In Black and Blue he openly resisted Pembleton's attempt to tie a cop to the shooting of C.C. Cox and he was indifferent to finding whoever killed Gordon Pratt. In the former case, he actually pushed back against Bonfather for going after the officers involved in the Cox shooting.

Now dealing with the possibility that one of their own killed Kenny Damon Kotto gets a chance to so more layers then we've seen. When Damon's body is discovered Howard makes the command decision to have Kellerman, who's the primary, investigate the possible that Jake  killed him while Lewis pursues the just as likely possibility that Damon was killed by any of the dozens of people in the world of the Baltimore drug war that wanted him dead. She says that the right hand can't know what the left hand is doing and since Kellerman has just returned from his cousin's wedding, he's clean in a way none of the other detectives are.

Lewis storms into Al's office prepared to read the riot act – only to find that Giardello is doing his yearly review of the detectives. Meldrick calms down slightly but then says he can be trusted. Al makes it clear that were it up to him he wouldn't have Lewis investigating this crime due to his connection to Jake. (This is keeping with Al's process overall: it was only through the weaseling of Crosetti after Chris Thormann was shot that he allowed Steve to investigate and even then, Lewis was the primary.) This is the rare moment of humor during this as Al quotes certain aspects that says Lewis "responds well to the supervision of superiors" and then says he needs an eraser. Meldrick meekly lives the office.

Much of what unfolds in based in the history of the Baltimore police and in Season 4, Al knows it better than anyone else in the unit. (If Bolander were still part of the unit, you could see this going to him.) Indeed the case is solved because of Al's history and the decision of how the justice must be meted out.

Damon has been killed with a two-shot derringer.  This amuses everybody, Meldrick lifts from his own past by saying that you use it to kill the President of the United States. The use of the weapon puzzles everybody. When Kellerman finally gets around to diving deeper and describes how the murder took place and why he thinks Jake did it, Munch tells him that for all his theorizing the set-up really does seem like a drug hit. And he's not wrong to think so. As the episode progresses we get a clear idea what a sweetheart Kenny Damon was. The most promising lead comes from his former girlfriend whose father, it's worth remembering, was nearly strangled by Damon because of how he treated his daughter. Now we meet his daughter and find out the father had his heart in the right place. She's clearly a junkie, who Kenny basically turned on to smack and despite her own words, is almost certainly going to end up an OD herself someday. She tells him that Damon stole a G-Pack of cocaine from a Dominican drug dealer who made it very clear that if Damon didn't pay he would ice him. Lewis comes into the office sure he has a lead and Howard has to tell him that the reason the killer who couldn't have done it is because his murder has already been solved. It's one of the few times in the show's history when a name in black is a cause for despair, not jubilation.

So when Howard asks why a drug dealer would use a derringer Giardello is stunned because now it makes sense. Back in the 1960s when the city was ablaze with violence, cops chose to carry extra weapons such as derringers, including Al himself. He even quotes an old saying: "I'd rather be judged by twelve then carried out by six." Kellerman then decides to go through Edgar Rodzinski's service record looking for a shooting with a derringer. Sure enough he finds one: Edgar was guilty of shooting a burglar (he got a reprimand and lost four vacation days, though no charges were filed) with a Cooper Arms derringer.  It's the kind of thing that would be canonized in a 1970s Dirty Harry movie – a cop killing the man who killed his father with the gun his father used – but in this case it is used for mourning.

This is the first episode penned by Simon after he officially joined the show as a staff writer and it is a remarkable debut. In many ways you can tell bits and pieces of it are cribbed from his book, including the anecdote about Jimmy Poulsen which is mentioned throughout the episode by Edgar's old partner and finally related by Al in the final scene. In 1974 a cop was killed and in 'the good old' days" (typified by Edgar's old partner Augie) you were allowed to shoot first and no questions would be asked. Poulsen was a good cop and he encountered the suspect – and allowed him to surrender. He brought him in and the suspect is beaten practically to death (Al was there at the time). In the aftermath no cop ever talked to Poulsen again. The title of the episode actually comes from the discussion in which Al says the worst memory had was of the suspect screaming for justice. Finally a sergeant laughed: "there's no justice. There's just us."

In his review of the episode for his guide David Kalat says "the soul of the story is the contrast between the old school police force (represented by Jake, his dead father Edgar, Jake's partner Pez and Augie) and the new order (represented primarily by Mike Kellerman. Gee recalls with ambivalence the old days when the police meted out mob-style vigilante justice to defend themselves. It was not a particularly pretty sight, but was it worse than today when the police force is burdened by rules that favor cop killers like Kenny?"

This review has by far aged the poorest of what is basically an objective piece of criticism.  (We see similar aspects occasionally in Tod Hoffman's book as well.) The actual episode gets away with leaning to hard into this idea, but it tips its hand very clearly during the interrogation of Pez.

After Kellerman and Howard manage to trick Pez into confessing his involvement with the shooting Kellerman makes a statement that puts the biggest tarnish on his halo so far. He wanted this to work to get Edgar and he makes it clear that Pez's involvement in the shooting is contemptible. However he makes it clear that believes the fact he gave up his partner to save himself is in his mind just as bad. This is foreshadowing of the greatest flaw in Kellerman's character and we will see it play out in both of the storylines that focus primarily on him in the next two seasons.  When Al relates the story he says that Jake Rodzinski and Jimmy Poulsen were born at the wrong time but tellingly he doesn't say which one of them did the right thing or indeed if either of them were wrong in what they did.

Bruce Campbell is just as brilliant in the second part of the episode as he was in the first. In the teaser we see that he has spent his suspension drinking heavily, shutting himself off from his wife and kids and that the only person he's willing to talk to is Augie. Augie clearly approves of what Jake did and for all we know he may have encouraged him to take this action though we never know for sure.  When Jake comes back to work he seems better but you get the feeling as the investigation progresses not only does he know where it's going but there's a part of him that wants to get caught.  His entire purpose has been to follow in his father's footsteps and he needs to believe the system works. Now both have betrayed him and he has nothing left.

Late in the episode we see him going through a lot of guns with Augie and then he hears that Pez was brought in. We see an ashtray filled with cigarettes and its clear Jake is drunk. When he takes a gun and orders his family into the basement, his wife believes he's going to kill them all and when we hear a shot ring out, we naturally believe he's killed himself rather than face going to prison.

Instead he's done something far more symbolic. For the last two episodes we've seen constant shots of Edgar's dog barking and barking. You get the feeling he's never shut up since his master was killed and that's the dogs not going to know any peace either.  So Jake put him down in the worst possible way. The dog was the last thing reminder he had from his father and now that's finished. When they find Jake at his father's grave, he seems completely at peace for the first time in the whole episode. He's sorry that he got Pez involved in all this and he almost seems happy that Meldrick is putting the cuffs on him.  The trials ends remarkably speedily, much like the first one did, but that's so we can see the contrast between the end of the two episodes. One jury let a cop-killer go free; the other convicted the man who killed him.

When Al points out that justice has always been a crapshoot Simon is stating more emphatically why Homicide isn't cop-a-ganda. Justice will always be a crapshoot. It may not be color blind, it may be weighted unfairly towards the poor and minorities then the white and the rich, one side may very well have more advantages then the other, but nothing is guaranteed once the jury starts deliberating. And whether you think justice was done or not really depends on which side of the courtroom you're sitting on and what the verdict was. Like everything else in the human experience, there's never going to be an outcome that perfectly satisfies all the participants.

That's the main reason we're glad that Pembleton and Bayliss basically spend the episode focusing their attention on a more worthy subject: each other. In one of the great comic stories of the entire series Frank comes into the office having gotten everyone's lunch order but Tim's.  Bayliss thinks the fact that Frank keeps forgetting his order is symbolic of another problem. Frank thinks its just because his choice of sandwich – grilled cheese – is just so banal.

So Bayliss showing that he is no longer the new guy, delightfully spends the episode ignoring Frank. He makes a show of giving pastry to everyone in the office and deliberately ignoring Frank. He gives the run sheets to everybody and ignores his partner. He reads the paper in view of him and refuses to hand it to him even when Megan asks for. We see Frank increasingly becoming annoyed as this progresses.

And then in a wonderful sequence at the end of the episode Tim finds a grilled cheese sandwich in his mailbox. And on his chair. And in every drawer in his desk. It's hard to know which part of this final sequence is funnier: how Andre Braugher watches all of this unfold complete deadpan, not even letting his cigarette flicker or how Tim chooses to react by saying: "Apology accepted." (Don't worry, they'll be at each other's throats next week.)

Justice tells a story that appears simple but is more complex then it looks, moves both too quickly and at just the right pace and asks questions that linger long after the final images. What's astonishing isn't how good this two parter is but that the season will actually only get better as it heads towards the finale.

 

NOTES FROM THE BOARD

"Detective Munch": Belzer actually gets to do a fair amount of dramatic work in this episode but we still have time for a few one-liners. Perhaps the most fitting is when he and Kellerman are watching the space shuttle go up and Kellerman is looking at in awe. So Munch says: "Do you think it'll blow up?" (Then again, considering he's been around since the Mercury Seven were introduced he's seen more than Kellerman how many times Houston has a problem.)

Fredrika Kesten, who plays the ballistic expert Janine, was at the time Reed Diamond's wife. Unfortunately their marriage would struggle and by the end of 1996 they would divorce. (Hey, not all the married couples who worked together on this show lived happily ever after.)

Do You Need The DVD?  They use a different recording for the background music involving the montage where Kellerman and Lewis investigate Kenny Damon's murder. On the original broadcast it's Hothouse Flower's Stand Beside Me. But honestly the replacement works well enough with the mood that it doesn't make a difference.

I don't think it’s a coincidence that on the first episode where David Simon is staff writer Donald Neal appears as Augie. A decade later he would play rewrite man Jay Spry on the final season of The Wire.