Homicide Rewatch: Diener

 

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

Directed by Kyle Secor

 

The episode that serves as Kyle Secor's directorial debut is an interesting one, if somewhat messy.  It's designed to center on two characters more than the case itself and the emotional dilemmas they find themselves at. For the one involving Juliana Cox – the one that the episode indirectly refers to in the title – its an attempt to add layers to a character who even by this point is increasingly absent from the action. Unfortunately it's done so ham-handedly that it barely works. The one that involves Pembleton is much better, mainly because it deals with a familiar bit of his character – and a well that in four and a half seasons the show hasn't even tried to tap.

The investigation of the death of Carol Bridgewell shows just how Frank has decided to deal with the fact that Bayliss has decided to stop partnering with him – he has gone right back to his pre-show habits of working cases entirely by himself. This wasn't a popular decision before he starting working with Bayliss and now that he's had a stroke its less popular despite the fact Frank clearly seems to be absent any of the habits we've had associated with it the first half of the season. Gee is clearly uncertain of Frank's abilities and has decided to send Meldrick to partner with him. The fact that Bayliss is allowed to work alone and Frank isn't doesn't make him any happier. For the record neither is  Lewis - with good reason.

(The episode barely refers to the events of last week but its interesting to see it. Kellerman shows up and tells Meldrick he's going to take some time off to deal with his own issues after everything that happened. It's clear the moment Meldrick sees Mike he's visibly uncomfortable around him and doesn't do a very good job of covering it. Events will later unfold that will give a more direct reason for Kellerman and Lewis no longer partnering. In hindsight one wonders if the roots of it started in the aftermath of what the experience did to Meldrick. Did this incident make him doubt the stability of his partner and everything that followed was just as an excuse?)

As the episode reminds the last time the two of them partnered was two years ago during the investigation into the shooting of Marilyn Battista. From the start the two of them clashed on how the investigation was to be handled and while the case was solved Frank immediately went back to working with Bayliss. Now two years later a lot has changed but the way they clash hasn't.

Fascinatingly the murder of Carol Bridgewell and how the two investigate it is a mirror of the Battista murder. (The episode reminds us of this and so do Meldrick and Frank.) That murder took place at the intersection of two parts of Baltimore, one white and upper class, one black and lower class. Meldrick wanted to investigate the upper class section first, Frank believed the shooting was most likely to take place with the more criminal section. When it played out it turned out Meldrick was right about who was responsible but Frank refused to acknowledge that point. Now they are dealing with a millionaire socialite who was murdered in her own home with what appears to be a fireplace poker. There is no obvious sign of robbery (we'll get to that). Now the two have reversed positions. Lewis wants to investigate the lower class people that Carol Bridgewell helped during her spare time, while Frank wants to look at the nearest and dearest, which would be upper class.

Lewis is less annoying then he has been in that past, and while he keeps pushing them towards the students that Carol taught when he learns that Matthew, the victim's brother, lied about his timetable he begins to see Frank's way of thinking. When Matthew then shows up on their doorstep screaming about the missing diamond ring not long after they try to calm him down he takes Matthew into the box and begins to question him gently. When Frank comes in he continues to follow his lead and the two of them begin to interact well for two people we have rarely seen in the interrogation room at the same time. It's clear he is now in complete accord with Frank that the brother killed the sister and that he's lying to cover for it. What complicates it is the fact that the ring was on the body at the scene and its gone now. Indeed Lewis makes it clear that the fight over the ring has to do with sibling rivalry. When he makes the statement that he thinks everything has to do with your relationship with your mother, Howard actually agrees with him. "You don't see me with a  kid, do you?"

The murder comes down to whether the ring was on the body at the time of the murder or not and the detectives can't pin it down. Eventually the detectives start considering the possibility it was stolen. They consider the possibility a cop would do it and while they'll acknowledge its possible they find it harder to believe a cop would steal evidence. (Money from the wallet seems possible, not personal effects.) Then Munch and Howard begin to think of random bits that were absent and find they all happened within the last three months.

But Cox wants to admit her flaws and she goes to the other civilian on the staff: Brodie. He agrees to help her with gear he needs and makes it clear why this kind of stuff is available. "We live in a cynical, distrustful world," he tells Cox. It's not clear whether this upsets Brodie or not; it's clear Cox is counting on it – but doesn't want to believe.

The episode tries to pair this with Cox and her relationship with her colleague the diener Jeff McGinn, as someone she trusts, someone's who affable, someone who makes her job fun. The problem is that he's a character we've never seen before on this show and therefore when Matthew Bridgewell reports that the diamond ring is missing, leading to an investigation of someone robbing corpses of jewelry the viewer knows even before Cox suspects who the grave robber is. And as a result there's no real suspense in to what happens and Cox's anger into what follows never real registers the same way Frank and Meldrick's arguing does.

It works better when we see Cox under suspicion. She's angry because in her mind this is a slur on her leadership style and she takes this personally. She clearly doesn't like the implication she did something wrong and she clearly doesn't like being forced to jump at the cops command.

Watching Frank and Lewis spar is fun and fascinating. What makes this episode very interesting is when Frank goes home. He's talking to his wife and he says he feels like he's his old self about everything he's spent the last few months going through. Considering that the viewer has spent the last several months waiting for Frank to be exactly where they were, it almost seems like the writers are subtly acknowledging this – right before they throw us yet another curve.

Mary is talking about Olivia and how she's playing peekaboo and Frank seems almost distracted about this accomplishment. Then Mary says she needs to talk to a marriage counselor and says things haven't felt right between them. When Frank responds to his wife with the same dismissive tone he's basically used to everybody else at work, we're a little stunned.

Homicide has never shied away from how difficult being a detective can be on marriages. Crosetti and Bolander were divorced when we first met them; Felton was in counseling long before his marriage fell apart; Munch has been divorced three times (though we're not sure how many of them had to do with his job at this point) and Kellerman's marriage had collapsed before he joined the unit. The Pembleton marriage has seemed to have been a pillar of stability throughout four seasons and there has never been a point when we thought that it was in trouble because of Frank's job. Indeed when Frank quit in Season 3 Mary told him to go back to work. We believed if their marriage survived all of the difficulties conceiving and seeing how genuinely upset Mary was when her husband suffered the stroke, that it would make things stronger between them.

But throughout Season 5 we've seen far more of Mary Pembleton then we ever have before and we know that Frank has not been a good patient. He took frustration out on her early in the season and though we didn't see it afterwards its clear Mary has been baring the burden to given her remarks to Giardello right before he finally passed the firearms exam. So when Mary expresses her genuine concern and Frank brushes them off so brusquely we're on her side in a way we should not be with terms of Homicide's most popular character.

You get the feeling that it may be an effect of the split between Bayliss and Pembleton that things don't work. Frank is partnered with Meldrick and we know that his marriage is on life support already. Meldrick unloads his frustrations (while driving which we know he sucks at) to tell Lewis that he clearly blames Barbara for their problems and that therapy is a grift, guaranteed to make things two to one against the man. (This is one of those sequences that has not aged well, I'll admit.)

So when Mary shows up at the squad and says she wants to talk to Tim, he's clearly floored by it. When they go into the box for privacy and Mary starts talking almost casually about how much time he spends in the box and at his job compared to at home Bayliss almost immediately wants to defend his partner. When she says that she's asking him to partner with him again it floors him as well as the fact that she says Frank misses him. It's the final lines that floor us. "Being a homicide detective is who he is. I'm just not sure being a homicide detective's wife is who I want to be." Tim has seen this play out so many times before – and given how much he cares for both Frank and Mary he clearly doesn't want to see this happen.

When he's willing to swallow his pride and ask Frank to partner with him again we know how much this costs him. And when Frank throws this back in his face – and just as simply ignores his advice about Mary – it cuts deep. And it doesn't help that Frank goes back home and responds to his wife's decision not to see a counselor with the exact same dismissive tone.  The expression on the two closest people in Frank's life at the end of the episode – who he once called the only people he ever trusted – is identical. One relationship seems torched and for the first time in a long time, we're not sure about the other.

 

 

NOTES FROM THE BOARD

 

'Detective Munch': Munch rhapsodized about his sandwich: "Provolone & onion. Yin and yang. Bland and spicy. Soft and crunch." Brodie, who has brought the order, punctures this: "Only a man with no woman in his life orders extra onion."

This is the first appearance of Danvers since his fiancée was murdered in Blood Wedding. It's been barely a month since the woman he loved the died and he's back at work. The show will never mention Danvers in his relationship to Meryl again, perhaps out of respect, just as likely because its just another case and they've moved on.  Any grieving he's done has taken place offscreen.

Get the DVD:  If you watch the episode on streaming you will hear Trouble on my Mind by Big Willie Horton during the section where they serve the search warrant on Matthew Bridgewell and begin the process. You will not here The Eels 'Guest List' over the radio when McGinn plays at the morgue or 'A Good Girl is Hard to Find' at the Waterfront when Frank and Meldrick are discussing the case with Lewis. I don't think any of this detracts from the episode in this case.

Hey, Isn't That…Glenn Fitzgerald who plays the title diener had already appeared in Manny and Lo and Flirting with Disaster when he made his appearance in this episode. That same year he played Neil Conrad in Ang Lee's The Ice Storm and then played Sean in The Sixth Sense. He's worked fairly steadily in TV and film since, most notably playing the Reverend Brian Darling in the critically acclaimed by unfortunately short-lived Dirty Sexy Money. His most significant role was in the independent film Tully, which won multiple nominations for both him and Julianne Nicholson in 2003.