Homicide Rewatch: Baby It's You (Law And Order Crossover)

 

 Written by Jorge Zamacona (both shows)

Directed by Ed Sherin (both shows)

 

Given the immense ratings for 1996's crossover with Law & Order, it made sense that NBC had demanded a sequel as possible. However Dick Wolf and Tom Fontana waited two years in order to avoid the logistical challenges that had burdened them the first time.

Last time Universal had insisted that the Law & Order episode be self-contained for the purposes of syndication. This time, however, Wolf made it very clear that this had to be a two-part story told across two shows. (Wolf would continue this pattern as the Law & Order spin-offs became more prominent and would do the same with his Chicago series at a more intense level, eventually having them take place on a single night.

Once again Zamacona and Sherin reprised their duties from the previous crossover and this time they chose to do several things differently. The first, and most obvious, was to keep things within Law & Order's format of ripping stories from the headlines. In this case the murder of teenage model Brittany Janaway is very much modeled on the Jon Benet Ramsey killings that had happened just a few months earlier in 1997.

While this would seem to be out of kilter with Homicide's formula the very nature of the way Janaway was killed – toxic shock from the result of being sexually assaulted days earlier – is one of the darkest stories that Law & Order did in its original run. (It would be much more fitting with the Special Victims Unit spinoff that came within two years – more on the direct link later.) This is a theme that was very keeping with the kind of stories Homicide viewers had become used to: death of a child was very much in the milieu. And considering that the crossover is doing much about the sexualization of teenage girls in the media the episode has, if anything, improved with age with the themes involved.

Unlike the first crossover the Law & Order episode takes its time bringing Baltimore in the picture. The episode shows Brittany dying and being worked on by her father Steven. Instantly the detectives are suspicious: why did her father take to her to his office rather then the ER?  And they're shocked to learn that while the pictures make her look like she's in her twenties, she's only fourteen. (She's been doing this since she was seven years old; this was clearly as direct a reference to the real life JonBenet as the writers wanted to get it.) Van Buren and the detectives never thought this was possible when they saw her pictures on billboards and its clear there's some kind of cutting.  The detectives are unsettled from the start how sexualized these girls are: when they interview one of the models they are stunned to learn she's in eighth grade and not in college.

It's not until the first act is over when they learn just how horrible her death was. She had been undergone a horrible rape and it took two weeks for the toxic shock to kill her. Immediately afterwards they go outside to eat and the media has gathered who knows details of the death that the M.E. just told the detectives about.  Here the show makes its first major shift from the last crossover: Jack McCoy shows way ahead of schedule and is angry about the leaks. When Van Buren makes it clear the leaks might very well have come from the Janaways who might know the investigation is coming around to them, the episode starts taking the turn not unlike the one we saw in the Blood Ties trilogy. The media has swarmed the penthouse that Janaways live in and they are far more hostile then they were in Baltimore. Briscoe and Curtis demonstrate that they are New York cops shouting and maligning the media circus in a way you think that Pembleton himself might tip his hat too. And by the time they get inside the Janaways have lawyered up with the wonderfully sleazy Leslie Drake.  He makes it clear that they are not allowed to talk to the parents unless they are given 24 hours' notice and without him present. He oozes with hypocrisy, saying that the Janaways lost their daughter and that should take precedent over finding out who might have killed her.

Its not until the first interview with the Janaways that Baltimore even gets brought up: the Janaways lived there until two years ago and they still have a residence there. Critically they were last there two weeks ago when the assault took place. Only then does the idea of calling Baltimore come up – and that when things get entertaining.

The second brilliant idea is to change which detectives are front and center. One of the best parts of the crossover was the banter between Munch and Briscoe so the detectives decide to call Munch. It made sense to put Bayliss and Pembleton front and center in the first crossover: they're essentially the stars of the show. But because there was so much combativeness with Frank essentially acting like a prick the whole way through it made the first part difficult to enjoy and overshadowed Law & Order's involvement in the second part.

This is good because it gives a chance to put the underutilized Richard Belzer at the front of a story and his discomfort is about the fact that Lennie slept with his first ex-wife. Al's reaction is to get over it and adds: "How do you know I didn't sleep with her?"  So Munch then makes the decision to call in Falsone, another brilliant move as Jon Seda gets a chance to be at the front of a story for the first time since the series premiere.

By this point the detectives at the precinct are essentially being bullied by the Janaways at  every level: Drake shows up with a profiler and a letter from the mayor demanded they listen and when they don't Drake goes on the news deriding them and posting a $250,000 reward to deluge the department with cranks. When McCoy confronts him with what he's doing Drake makes it clear he doesn't care about how much work the police have to do and he follows that up with a TV report deriding McCoy with the Janaways playing the heartbroken parents about the suspect involved. McCoy then subpoenas the Janaways essentially putting up a gag order. We have no idea if they'd have followed it because by that point we've actually got a suspect.

Munch and Falsone are making progress; they find a cranky neighbor who tells them of a report of a suspicious character around the time the Janaways were last here. They manage to track down the cab that picked him up, learn that he came from Penn Station (Baltimore's, not New York's) was wearing a Mets cap and not long after he dropped him off he saw the young man running away. By the time Briscoe hears of this one of the Janway's staff has come in, says she thinks she knows who did it and doesn't want the reward. She thinks its Johnny Ramirez, the son of an old babysitter who quit because Johnny was spending too much time looking at Brittany in a creepy way. The mother doesn't believe he did this – a look inside the young man's apartment makes us think otherwise – but he said:  "they were using her to make money."

By that time Danvers brings Munch and Falsone in. In a few short sentences he makes clear what we already know but because the crime might well have taken place in Baltimore he wants them to go to New York and extradite Ramirez. This is the third brilliant part of the crossover: it puts Zeljko Ivanek in a far more prominent role then he usually gets and we get to see him a courtroom, a place he rarely shows up. Much of his scenes in the second part are with McCoy and the fact that Ivanek can hold his own with a man who was already one of the greatest actors of all time makes you wish he'd had more to do during the series.

It's a sign of how much easier Munch and Falsone are to get along with that where Frank was aggressive about his present Munch just jokes about it: "I'm looking for a good piece of brisket. Can't find any in Baltimore." Munch is far less strident about it and he's willing to just sit at the desk and eat takeout. They joke about the suspect, Falsone asks Curtis about his kids and his ethnic makeup and he talks about his own.  And the camaraderie works: he and Briscoe figure out that Johnny might end up where they buried Brittany and while it takes a while, he does show up.

The interrogation sequence near the end is superb. Falsone takes the bad cop approach, Curtis divine, Munch and Briscoe almost fatherly. And eventually they get the truth: Johnny was there but as a witness. He saw somebody going at her – her dad's car was there. The final scene of the crossover suggests the idea that its clear Jack never wanted to think: Steven Janaway raped his daughter to death. The last lines of the first part are delivered by Emil Skoda: "You're about to look into a very dark corner of the human heart. Bring a shovel." He's not wrong – but he's not right either.

The episode begins with Ross and McCoy interviewing Johnny whose testimony is still too vague to be a good case against Steven Janaway. Ross suggests punting into Baltimore but McCoy says possession is nine-tenths of the law. And when the detectives go to pick him up the Janaways are gone and Drake is being his usually cheerful self. Munch actually gets him to admit they went back to Baltimore.

Back in Baltimore the first thing Frank says when he recognizes Curtis and Briscoe is to say: "Has Charon set his minions from beyond the river Styx?" He then shares with Falsone every detail of what happened last year, making clear that he still holds the two of them responsible for Rausch dropping dead just as he went back into their custody.  Giardello is annoyed that two of his detectives have been in New York for so long and he seems less happy to see Briscoe and Curtis then before. Updated Falsone and Curtis get a search warrant for the house while Giardello tells Munch "as unseemly as it may be, go with Briscoe" to the hospital where Janaway has privileges.  The difference is made clear from last time immediately: Falsone makes it very clear that he doesn't care where Janaway fries.

Munch and Briscoe hear from one of the doctors that Steven Janaway quit and moved two years earlier when Brittany came in bleeding badly. The father refused to give an explanation. When they talk to the treating nurse she remembers the case: Brittany was brought in with vaginal bleeding and that her father had treated her. Janaway had been adamant that no one breathe a word of it, saying he didn't want his wife to know.

 Falsone and Curtis talk amicably about how much they make: Curtis tells him his wife is the breadwinner in the family while Falsone's clearly blue collar, talking about moonlighting and even putting together  a calendar about the detective of Baltimore. Curtis asks what happened and Falsone jokes: "You've seen the cops in Baltimore?" (This is another subtle joke about how Homicide even in Season Six still wasn't hiring matinee idols for its cast.) When they get to the house they find Maureen Janaway frantically vacuuming her daughter's room. "There goes the crime scene," Falsone said resignedly.

Back at the squad as they bring Maureen Janaway in Falsone now finds another problem. His ex-wife Janine just called and something happened to his three-year old son that she seems inclined to tell him only after the fact. Curtis offers to hold off but Paul is resigned: this has clearly happened before and its too remind him his wife has sole custody. That may be part of the reason then when Falsone and Curtis talk to Janaway he starts getting particularly aggressive when it comes to her denials about her husband in regard to her daughter. And when he's told his son was in the hospital (after taking over  a day to call back) he's furious.

Then again considering where the investigation is, this is understandable. Homicide has frequently probed the depths of pedophilia almost from the beginning of the series but this is the first time it's dealing with the most horrific of subjects: incest.  No wonder Munch is pissed that after his daughter died, Steven felt fine leaving town to play 18 holes.

Briscoe tells Munch during that period: "You wear a badge and you speak for the dead. I think I know you." Perhaps its fitting that the two of them lead the first formal interrogation of Steven Janaway in the box. We haven't seen Munch in the box for a long time and it’s a rare treat to see just how good Richard Belzer is in an interrogation. The two of them start talking about the Janaway marriage and then John asks: "You ever get bored." Munch starts talking about just how much of a sucker's game marriage is (and even though its an act Briscoe mutters 'Now I know I know you.") Briscoe brings up the incident in the ER three years ago and Janaway says: "Why am I here?" The way Munch leads into the Miranda warning is searing while Briscoe slowly presents the facts: the nature of the crime, that the attack took place in Baltimore, Janaways previous actions regarding her condition. "Your daughter was fourteen, but when she dressed up for work, she looked anything like a pubescent teenager," Munch points out. Briscoe finally asks the question: "Did you sexually assault your daughter?" This finally provokes a emotional reaction from Janaway. When he denies it Munch whispers: "We think you did." Despite everything Munch and Briscoe say he says with the first sign of emotion: "Then prove it."

In New York McCoy intends to go to Baltimore to claim jurisdiction. Ross points out Danvers will argue felony murder – which is a solid argument. Jack says he's going to redefine the crime: arguing its depraved indifference, that Janaway knew his daughter was bleeding from the assault and did nothing to stop it. Ross mocks the idea but Jack says he's going down, in large part because of everything Drake put him through – and after the last two episodes, its hard to argue it.

When McCoy gets to the courtroom Danvers is deferential but he's actually worried. It doesn't help the judge is Aandahl. The show has a long memory and so does Danvers: two years ago she was the judge who released Rausch into the custody of the New York DA, finding a precedent that led to Rausch's memorable demise.  This time Aandahl tells us she worked for Adam Schiff and is almost girlish, saying that she's a Mets fan. "Adam's a Red Sox fan. After Buckner booted that grounder Adam wouldn't give me the time of day," she giggles.

Then we're back to the kind of argument we often get on Law & Order in pre-trial motions. On that show we're inclined to root for Sam Waterston, this time its harder to tell which side we want to win. Both Danvers and Jack make competent legal arguments.  Danvers, however, manages to negate the argument of depraved indifference by pointing out what we saw in the teaser of the Law and Order episode: he was on his knees performing CPR. Aandahl agrees with that part of it and grants jurisdiction. However she gives Jack a bone and allows him to serve as co-council.  Danvers doesn't have a problem with that and for once, neither does Jack.

The episode then does a time jump that is more common to Law & Order then Homicide; it's about a month later and Jack is at a bar where Falsone is drinking and he buys Jack a drink. This leads to the kind of conversation that, to this point on Law & Order, we rarely got: one of the attorneys getting to share his feelings about a case. Falsone is in a brown study, wondering what kind of person Brittany might have been had she lived.  Jack assures him Janaway will suffer.  Falsone tells the story of a kid he knew growing up who was beaten up regularly by his alcoholic parents who Paul wanted to take care of – and one day he just didn't come to school.  Then he gets to the core of it: how could any man sexually abuse his own child? And then Sam Waterston says something that in his previous four seasons he almost never got a chance to say on Law & Order. He tells how one day he was on vacation, on a beach, and he sees this beautiful looking girl with her back to him. "I started to think, you know what you think when you see a girl that pretty." And then she turned around and it was his daughter. (This is the first time we know Jack even had a child.) "I felt a little sick to my stomach," he tells Paul. "Some people don't have any conscience."

The trial scene is one we rarely get on Homicide. And it's not quite what we're used to in Law & Order. The courtroom is smaller and the crowd noises more clear. It makes clear that Drake is very much the kind of attorney in the courtroom: he's provocative, a gut puncher, ignoring the objections until the judge says otherwise. The trial cuts between the witness McCoy and Danvers put up, regarding the sexual assault in a very Homicide type way.

Drake decides to do something you never thought he'd do. After a very animated conversation he calls Steven Janaway to the stand. He barely gives much of a questioning and then after asking him if he raped and murdered his daughter and Steven says no we're surprised. Jack is baffled by this thinking that they're being set up but Danvers refuses to listen and starts questioning him. Janaway says he was in Baltimore the night of the attack but he wasn't at home – he was in a motel with another woman.  Danvers and Jack are furious – you're required to send alibi notification before a trial and Drake never did. Drake tried to assure them he didn't know a month ago. We have no idea if this was a trick by Drake – it really does seem like the kind of thing he'd pull – but Danvers and McCoy demand a continuance. They get 48 hours.

And the detectives to get to the truth: Janaway was at the hotel where he said he was, even ordered room service. Janaway has been an affair with Dr. Plotkin, a med school colleague for nearly ten years.  So they decide to bring in both Stephen and Maureen in separate cars and separate rooms. "This should not be pleasant or comfortable for either of them," Jack says. And it truly isn't.

For the first time we see the media vultures descend on the Janaways, first the husband, then the wife. Jack is part of the interrogation in one room with Falsone with Steven, Munch and Danvers go in with Maureen.  They are asked if they were good parents. Falsone is particularly cold with Steven "You were out with another broad when she needed you the most." He lays pictures of Brittany on the interrogation room table, demanding to know if he knew what happened to his daughter. Munch shows the same picture to Maureen questioning if she knew about her husband straying.

It is Drake, who seems to have committed to being Steven's lawyer, finally convinces him to answer the question. Jack asks why he risked a trial and possible death sentence. Finally Stephen answers and its almost heartbreaking: "Because I'm guilty." At some level he knew what was happening to his daughter – and that his wife was the one responsible for all of the horrific abuse.

Munch gets to a different point as to motive: Maureen seems to have acted out of jealousy of how her daughter was the attractive one and she never was. That her daughter got all the attention, was so successful and her father paid more attention to her then his wife.  And when the mother admits Munch is furious: "What the hell's the matter with you? You were jealous of your own daughter!"

It's a solution far neater then the one that came in real life (the case remains unsolved even now) but one can't exactly say Homicide took the easy way out. The idea of a father sexually assaulting his own daughter is almost easier to believe and comprehend then a mother doing the exact same thing to her child. It's a horrific crime and Homicide should be applauded for dealing with it, even in this fashion. And full credit throughout must go to Tom Tammi and Maureen Anderman as the Janaways for their work. Both spend the first episode looking frozen and as if their performing and the humanity and pain starts to come out by degrees in the conclusion, particularly in the final interrogation.

The episode only stutters a bit at the end: Falsone coming to Jack McCoy asking if he can pursue shared custody seems a bit off, and the scene where he comes to the Janaway home to give his daughter's things to the grieving father smacks of awkwardness: it really doesn't seem like the kind of thing either show would do, particularly the way the father lets him off the hook. But it's a small problem to go with what is overall a superb two-parter, dealing with a grim subject and not blinking once.

 

 

 

NOTES FROM THE BOARD

 

'Detective Munch': Munch gets to give as much as he ridden on. When Briscoe says we know him he says: "The one whose ex-wife I slept with?" Told he has to be more specific, he says: "The mediocre pool player." At the cemetery Briscoe mentions Gwen's flower preferences and John says: "I have no interest in anything about that little tart. (Ah but later this season.) He actually seems interested if Mark Twain and Walt Whitman are buried at that cemetery. "Better them then me," Briscoe says. As the Homicide parts begins Falsone says: "I can't prove it but I'm pretty sure that in a previous life Briscoe and Munch were married."

Perhaps the best line from Munch comes when they're at the club Steven Janaway's at. "We're a couple of Jewish cops; you think we have a chance of joining this country club?" It's rare for John to use his religion to make a sarcastic comment and you can tell how nervous it makes the club pro. Good for John. Briscoe seems to like the idea. When they say they want to wait he assures him: "Oh, he won't try to convert anybody. Trust me."

On The Soundtrack: On the streaming you will hear Meredith Brooks: "What Would Happen" as the detectives interview the hotel staff trying to prove Steven Janaway's alibi. On the DVD you will hear Blind Faith's classic: "Can't Find My Way Home" but honestly that song really doesn't seem to go with the final minutes when its used and the replacement that they get is much more fitting.

Oops! Sam Waterston's name is spelled 'Sam Waterson' on the credits sequence on Homicide.

There's also an interesting contradiction in Law & Order. In Baby It's You, J.K. Simmons appears as Emil Skoda, who by Season Eight had become the psychiatric consultant. But as everyone who watched the last crossover remembers in 'For God & Country" Skoda played Emil Rausch. Couldn't be helped.

This crossover was originally planned to be even more ambitious. At one point Wolf and Fontana considered bringing ER by that point NBC's biggest hit into the crossover. Fortunately John Wells and the producers turned them down. God knows how it would have worked. (Though it would have been fun to see George Clooney talking with Briscoe and Munch.)

Hey, Isn't That…Dan Hedaya is one of the most accomplished character actors in history. He began his career playing Herbie on the TV soap Ryan's Hope in 1975. He appeared in many films and TV shows during the 1970s and 1980s and ending up playing Joseph Keuhnelian on St. Elsewhere during Season 2. He also played Ralph in the first Season of Hill Street Blues. He was cast as Nick Tortelli in the failed Cheers spin-off The Tortellis. He'd actually appeared in Law and Order in Season three as a Lieutenant who framed a suspect for murder. (Somehow Lennie Briscoe didn't see the similarity five years later.)  His most critically acclaimed films were Blood Simple, The Addams Family, Searching For Bobby Fischer, Cher's Father in Clueless and Jeff Rabin, who has a famously messy office in The Usual Suspects. Known for his resemblance to Richard Nixon, he appeared in two films about the 37^th President Oliver Stone's Nixon in which he played Trini Cardoza and the sly parody Dick in which he played the President.

After this episode he went on to play Herb Spivak on ER, another attorney who is a wealthy corporate attorney in Season 4 and by Season 11 is operating out of a van. Other TV appearances of not include Joey Legs on FX's Lucky, the recurring role of Don on Yes, Dear, Father Frank on the sadly too short lived The Book of Daniel and Barney Frank on the TV Film Too Big to Fail. He has made appearances on Blue Bloods and Gotham. His last major film to date was on the Amazon film Influenced