Homicide Rewatch: The Documentary

 

Written by Eric Overmeyer ; story by Tom Fontana, James Yoshimura and Eric Overmeyer

Directed by Barbara Kopple

 

In 1997 when this episode first aired the idea of 'meta' in television was all but non-existent. To be sure Darin Morgan on The X-Files had realized it on an epic scale in his writing, most magnificently with Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space' which had aired just a few months earlier. But by and large, television took itself seriously and that was particularly true of drama.

Considering that in the 2000s so much of comedy, first on network TV, then cable and then all through streaming, was about to create the format of the mockumentary and turn it into an art form I find it fascinating that one of the earlies recorded examples of it on TV in any form was 'The Documentary' episode of Homicide. To be sure, it doesn't play by the rules that The Office and Parks & Rec will do later on as the camera is always there and the cast is always referring to it, all in the name of a documentary we may never eventually see.  By contrast Brodie makes it very clear that he's been making a documentary almost entirely without the permission of the members of the unit and it's only on the unusually slow night that is New Year's Eve that he decides to show the detectives what he's been working on.

Brodie has never really gelled as a character in the nearly two seasons he's been on the show but it is possible that for Fontana this was intentional. In this episode Brodie is clearly a stand-in for David Simon who originally wrote the book that inspired the series which everything is based on. Like Simon when he chose to write his book the detectives have treated Brodie as if he were a nuisance and never a member of the squad. Even when he's doing his job he is barely tolerated and all the detectives consider him basically a gadfly. They don't think of him as an obstacle the way they do the bosses but they don't consider him an asset either.

This was true, I should add, of the detectives when Homicide became a series. While some were generous to its accomplishment many of them openly degraded it in terms of quality or how they were played onscreen. Many of them, I should add, would end up being transferred out of the unit in the years that would followed and by the time of the airing of this episode, only one of the detectives Simon had originally written about was still working in Homicide. (There were other factors and the show itself will make it part of the story by the time we get to Season Six.) So watching both Brodie's documentary and the detectives criticizing it, both humorously and with increasing anger as they see themselves portrayed, works very much as a metaphor for the detectives themselves.

But its also a metaphor for how many viewers and NBC itself often looked at the show. The opening credits play over the theme music for the series, they criticize the editing techniques as well as his camerawork and complain the show doesn't have enough action, all criticisms that the network constantly made of the show throughout its original run. Throw in the fact that in the middle of this Bayliss goes on a bathroom break, not long before the show itself cuts to commercial, and its clear just how much fun the writers are having. Which is good, considering just how bleak the season has been so far and how much darker its going to get once the phones start ringing again.

There's also an added layer to this episode which the overwhelming majority of mockumentaries ignore (save The Office): is the workplace documentary any good?  Aside from an in-joke that I won't yet spoil, having seen Brodie's documentary the answer I have is if this has been sold to TV and I knew nothing about going it, I would applaud it solely on its own merits. This opinion, I should add, is held by the fans itself as you'll see below in 'Notes From the Board'.

Part of the reason it stands out comes from the sequence called 'Random Thoughts'. In it all six detectives recite, pretty much verbatim, a memorable five page sequence from Simon's book in which he tells us the exact process that a suspect does every time he has committed a murders. It’s a description pretty much of the process we saw Frank go through in the pilot and that we've seen so many times before. But this time it has an added power as the detectives relate the Miranda warning and in exact detail why the first three points are so pertinent. They make it clear from the start that the detective  is 'a man who is not your friend' and that every suspect who they bring in knows this in their soul at every level going in.  They make it clear they are telling you about your 'sacred Fifth Amendment freedom',  that anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law and that this detective is offering you an attorney, someone that anyone brought to a police station guilty or innocent has to know its in their best interest to have.

It's this monologue, more than anything else, that makes it clear that me that Homicide is not and never will be 'copaganda'. These detectives – particularly Braugher who has rarely sounded more God-like – are essentially telling anyone watching exactly what they should do when they end up taken to the Homicide unit, having committed a crime of violence. They make it clear that they know the rules of engagement, that they are adversaries and that it is their job to convince the suspect that it is in their best interest to waive their rights and incriminate themselves. These scenes in 'The Documentary' might as well be a step-by-step instructional video telling you what is going to happen to anyone brought down to a police station in the dead of night and how the process will play out. And there's no doubt in the final minutes that Pembleton is making it very clear that he thinks the guilty people who confess to him "are ignorance personified." If anyone watched this episode in 1997 than  in the next thirty years committed a murder (in Baltimore or anywhere else) and still decided to waive their rights, I would have a difficult time if later on they argued 'the cops tricked them."

As the sequence plays out all six detectives are superb with their individual lines. Belzer delivers his trademark snark in regard to needed someone 'who is familiar with the Baltimore code of law or at least read the cliff notes."  Diamond contrasts by telling you your best bet is to shut up and then in the next sequence speak up. Melissa Leo is brilliant in the charming beguiling ways that we've seen far too little of in recent years, particularly when she says, "with eyes full of innocence." And the sequence where Meldrick takes the role of interrogator and Pembleton the dumb-eyed suspect is extraordinary because the viewer is so used to Frank being the one who reels the fish in rather than falling for bait.

Its striking to see so many of the detectives unnerved by having their inner secrets aired. Its hysterical in particular seeing Frank unnerved by having his dirty laundry aired, whether it involved joking about overtime being televised or lying about how they reveal how the damaging of a department vehicle was covered up by Frank to avoid paying for fender-bender which he caused and Brodie recording.

Of course the most fun takes meta to a whole new level. Lewis and Kellerman are going to arrest a suspect, who ducks out the back and runs behind the alley where he runs into a crew that is filming a TV show…by Fatima Productions…called Homicide…and Barry Levinson is shooting. Which means Homicide is a fictional show being made in Baltimore but the detectives we know are part of the show Homicide…and everyone's brain explodes after they stop laughing. (This in itself is the ultimate in-joke and I'll get to that below.)

The question that the detectives ask over and over is why Brodie chooses to focus on the murder of Llewlyn Kilduff. (This murder, based on where it is on the board, took place between the end of the Sniper two-parter and The Hat, in terms of the calendar. This is a murder committed by Bennett Jackson who kills his neighbors, sits on his porch swing and confesses without a thought. Pembleton, who is the primary is fine taking the confession but Bayliss wants to know why. We learn that Jackson was a funeral director and that his wife has Alzheimer's. He's had parties with people coming in and out of his home.

The truth is revealed at the end and its grim even by the standards of the show. Jackson has been taking bodies from his funeral home to his house, dressing them up in poses and pretending to have parties. (The writers stop just short of arguing that necrophilia was involved.) His only explanation is: "I was lonely. The Kilduff's didn't understand."

I think there's a meta level to this as well, considering that one of the reasons Homicide struggled for renewal was because the executives wanted more 'life-affirming stories' which went against the nature of what Fontana did. By having this be the public face of the unit – and part of the documentary – Fontana is putting forth that the show is always going to be about the darkest and most ugly parts of human life and those who can't deal with it have to turn away. The fact that Bayliss is painted as the hero – Secor's character was seen as our way into the unit – is also meta as is the fact of the greater lesson we've always known. "You're better off not knowing the why." In this case I'm not sure Bayliss – or the viewer is.

We also get insights into the personal lives of the detectives: we see Howard's secret beau (who Kellerman recognizes but tells only Howard) Giardello having a night on the town (with two women!) and Lewis hanging out with Stivers. This is nicely intercut with Cox showing up in the middle of the documentary saying she was bored when its clear she wanted to see Mike. The scene where we see the two making out is sweet, especially as the two try to decide to start actually dating.  The viewer wants to root for both of them, we do, but we've seen relationships between detectives and ME's. They never end well.

And as an added bonus we finally find out who the Lunch Bandit, who we met last season, is. Brodie figured it out, and while the unit is surprised we really shouldn't be. Of course it's Gaffney has been stealing everybody's food and of course he's been doing it even after becoming a boss. And of course, this is never mentioned again.

But the high point comes at the end with Pembleton giving another monologue that is pure Simon:

You're history. And if I wasn't so busy locking you up, I'd tell you…I'd tell you that after all my years I'm still a little amazed that anyone utters a word in this room. Think about it son. When you came in this room, what did the sign say? Homicide unit, that's right. Who lives in a homicide unit….And what do Homicide detectives do for a living?  You got it bunk. And tonight, you took somebody's life. So when you opened your mouth, what in God's name were you thinking?

But the detectives are not happy when they learn that Brodie has sold this documentary to PBS without their knowledge, much like Simon. Perlich almost manages to justify his stint on Homicide with his monologue in which he makes it very clear that the difference between investigating a murder and making a documentary are essentially the same thing. Both are working towards a greater good.

The episode ends, like so many others, with no resolution. They watch the ball drop and the moment it does the phone starts ringing. Everyone has to go back to work. The detectives go back to investigating murders. Giardello goes back to his office with a troubled look on his face. And Brodie takes the videotape out of the TV and goes to the board, erasing 1996 and writing in 1997. It's a new year but the bodies will keep dropping. Death took a holiday but its back at work.

 

 

 

NOTES FROM THE BOARD: In a poll on Court TV of the 15 greatest episodes of Homicide this episode is ranked 5^th all-time.

 

Inconsistencies: Brodie must be one hell of a documentarian. In the montage sequence where we see so many of the murders that have been committed during Season 4 and Season 5, Brodie seems to have been present not only in episodes where he wasn't called to the crime scene but even before he officially joined the unit. There are scenes from Fire, A Doll's Eyes and Scene of the Crime, all of which took place before Brodie was officially recruited in Hate Crimes. And if you're really paying attention, the majority of the most traumatic murders for the squad –  the ones in The Hat for Lewis and Kellerman, Requiem for Adena for Bayliss and the murders of Kevin Lugo and Raymond Dessassy for Howard and Giardello, Brodie was in the squad room at the time covering different events. (Brodie would refer to this as artistic license.)

As for the shots of the various detectives he did room with Munch, Kellerman and Bayliss. And who knows? Maybe Mary invited Brodie over for dinner.

Foreshadowing: When Munch sees Lewis and Stivers together he tells him: "A word to the wise. Nix the horizontal rumba with a fellow detective." He's wrong about Lewis and Stivers but in the final season…

Brodie said that he sold his documentary to PBS and that Bill Moyers will probably narrate it. In 1998 PBS aired a special in collaboration with Homicide called 'Anatomy of A Homicide'. (For the record, we'll be dealing with that in a while too.)

There's footage of Isabella Hoffman as Megan Russert in this episode but she's never seen in anything we haven't seen before.

"Detective Munch" I think his best line comes after Brodie says he admires Ken Burns. "Ken Burns, the only man to make something more boring than a baseball game. A documentary on baseball." This is Munch being facetious, we've already seen many references that he's an Orioles fan and we'll actually see that play out in a storyline in Season 6.

The event where Kellerman and Lewis chase a suspect onto Homicide and he surrenders is actually based on a real-life event. It’s a fictional adaptation of an event that Richard Belzer would make part of his routine. Security guards would chase a shoplifter where Homicide's cast and crew were filming. The thief mistakenly assumed that the cast were really cops and surrendered himself to the security guard! Clark Johnson was on set when it happened and eventually got tired of recounting the story. (But it's such a good one!)

Hey, Isn't That…Barbara Kopple, the director of this episode, is a famous documentarian best known for Harlan County USA for which she won an Oscar. She also won for American Dream in 1990. Those are just her most famous documentaries. She also directed Wild Man Blues, Woodstock '94, My Generation and Shut Up and Sing (the documentary on the Dixie Chicks) and Miss Sharon Jones! She would also direct episodes of OZ and attempted a foray into fiction film with the 2005 feature Havoc, starring Anne Hathaway. She is still working at age 80.

Melvin Van Peebles, who plays Bennett Jackson,  is most famously known for writing, directing and starring in the Blaxploitation film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, one of the most iconic films ever made. He had worked in short films prior to that and would work in that genre for years for such films as Don't Play us Cheap and the TV miniseries The Sophisticated Gents. He would have small roles as an actor over his career, most famously in the series Sonny Spoon in 1988. Most of his work, I should add, came at the behest of his son Mario who has been a bigger force in TV and films that his father. Van Peebles died in September of 2021 at age 89.

On the Soundtrack: In what is one of the best merges of music and film the Iguanas Boom Boom Boom is used throughout the episode. It is from that we get the line 'Back Page News' that Brodie uses in the title of his documentary.