Homicide Rewatch: Blood Ties, Part 3

 

Teleplay by Anya Epstein & David Simon ; story by Tom Fontana, Julie Martin and James Yoshimura

Directed by Mark Pellington

 

The conclusion of Blood Ties is critical for multiple reasons. The most basic is the conclusion of the investigation into Melia Brierre's murder, how it reveals the rot at the center of the Wilson family and how while it reveals the killer there is no closure. The 'B-Plot'  is as important because it gives us a sense that Georgia Rae Mahoney is just as bloodthirsty as her brother and more importantly, for the first time we get a sense just how the Mahoney's have been able to get away with their criminal enterprise for so long. And most importantly it concludes by rounding out the three new series regulars for Homicide and establishing them in a way that the show really has done as good a job with since it introduced Kellerman two years ago.

The open scene where Frank and Mary at home watching Felix and Regina Wilson being interviewed about their shock at Melia's murder is fascinating because of many subtleties. Even in the 1990s Americans were used to the idea of wealthy people who were related to suspicious deaths going on TV and making clear how shocked they were and how determined they were to the killer be brought to justice.(During 1997 we were seeing in regard to the parents of Jon Benet Ramsey, something that will be referred more directly later this season.) The difference is something incredible subtle – both the married couple on TV and the one watching at home are African-American. And just as has happened many times race is not mentioned once by anyone involved.

The second is something subtler. It's clear that the estrangement between Frank and Mary did teach him where to place his values. When Frank said that robbery was relaxing at the start of the season Tim mocked it. But here we see that he was being sincere: he could keep regular hours and get home to his (very pregnant) wife and daughter. It's clear Frank still loves the job but it's just as clear he loves his family as much and this undercurrent will be referred to more often in his final season on Homicide then it ever has before, even as he kisses her goodbye and heads off to work. There's also the fact that Mary is asking him about his job and he's sharing in a way we've never seen before in their interactions: he's clearly talking with her now.  And she knows that when he says he wants to play hooky he really wants to go back to work.

Ballard's discussion of the press in regard to the Wilson murder doesn't seem to bother Frank and we know at the end of the day it only matters in his ability to his job. Bonfather calling everybody on the carpet only bothers him slightly more – though I wonder if he experiences some schadenfreude seeing that Ballard and Gharty who earlier this week the bosses were singing their praises to the press are called on the carpet as well.  It's when Barnfather starts attacking Giardello because of his friendship to the Wilsons that Frank speaks up. (Interesting that Barnfather is the first person outside of Gharty who actually brings up the idea that the department is protecting the family because of their wealth and race. We know all too well under other circumstances he'd be the first to do that and he has.) But it's clear despite their own posturing about Wilson's affairs Frank and Al aren't pretending they don't have to do this. Pembleton makes it clear they have to investigate the Wilsons; Giardello authorizes warrants for the blood and hair of Felix and Hal Wilson. Nevertheless he's still trying to put his hands on the scale, going to see Regina 'as a friend' and telling her that by calling the attorneys they've done the worst possible thing. Al saying he can't control what happens and protect them is fairly upsetting.

He's actually taken off the hook when Regina tells him that it was her instinct to call the lawyers. She talks about the bad old days when black men were railroaded into false confessions – something that was much closer and more frequent when Al and Regina were much younger (even if the consequences were far more often more immediate and mortal then the 1990s or today) and even though Al tries to assure her otherwise, he himself knows differently. Regina tells him that she has one job and he has another.

When the detectives talk with Danvers he helps them find a way for a search warrant but its trickier for blood and hair.  They also find a way by using fingerprints and figuring that will lead them to blood and hair. If the prints from the Wilson women are there it's meaningful because they're not supposed to be in the men's room (Gharty) and if they happen to be Felix and Hal, it might be enough probable cause for blood and hair on Hal (Ballard) This leads to the search of the Wilson home and its telling just how quickly the sympathies of the Wilsons have turned. Thea, who seemed so sympathetic to Melia for two episodes, is so outraged by the invasion of the cops that she actually says: "This is all her fault. I wish I'd never brought that bitch here! Everything was perfect before she came!" If nothing else this basically shows that black liberal guilt only goes as far as white liberal guilt: when it hurts you personally, you're just as much a bigot.

Eventually Bayliss finds love letters in the house that are unsigned from Hal to Melia. Frank shows it to Giardello and the detectives all gathered, agreed that theirs a motive in this house. Finally Al tells Frank to go to the Wilson house, alone. He tells him to go in soft – "but if you see any opening at all, take your best shot."

The scene at the Wilson home is basically what the entire story has been building towards.  The fiction of having Frank talk to Hal if nothing they say is admissible in court is clearly unrealistic but the viewer lets that go because we get the truth – and though we don't know witness one of the first examples of an actor who will dominate television in the 21^st century.

Frank shows the letters and puts them on the table. Hal says he never gave them to her. "Never gave them to who?" Hal is quiet. Then Felix says: "Mind if I have a look?" And then Jeffrey Wright, whose spent much of the last two episodes, seeming like an overprivileged blue blood snatches them from the hand of his father. He says, 'let the detective leave'.  "No" Felix says. Frank asks him about what's happening. Felix is apologetic and Hal is quietly angry. "What are you gonna do, send me to my room?! Cut off my allowance? Take off your belt and give me a good ass-whupping?!" Felix unloads on his son as a privileged whine; Hal calls his father a sanctimonious prick. "You deny me nothing? You deny me everything! I'm a twenty-eight year old man. I don't need you to tell me what to do any more."

You have to be a great actor to be able to trade blows with a man who was already one of the greatest actors of all time. Wright absolutely nails every line out of his mouth, years of resentment being spit out, making it very clear his father has no moral high ground to judge him for his actions. When Felix lifts his son up he makes it clear for the first time despite everything that has happened in the last few days he could never believe his son was capable of murder.  Then James Earl Jones brings all the fire we know he can, saying that he can't let this search continue for an innocent man if the guilt in his house. Finally Hal admits it. Only then does Frank say anything.  Hal said he thought Melia knew how she felt. He came home the day of the benefit by mistake and saw Melia coming out of her father's bedroom. He threatened to fire her and tell the whole family. On the day of the benefit Hal saw Melia on the way to the bathroom, hysterical. He pulled her into the bathroom. "She hurt me. I wanted to hurt her."

Frank then wants to read him his rights. And then Felix tells him no. You have the truth. Melia is dead and he's going to protect his son. When Pembleton brings this to Giardello Danvers is blunt. There's no physical evidence tying Felix to the murder and the love letters are 'entertainment'.  And when Frank wants to hold him in pretrial judgment Danvers tells him its futile.  No matter how long they have the evidence will still be ruled inadmissible. Frank is genuinely angry for the first time – and Danvers says: "it happens all the time."

 

The major story is the murder of a face we saw two episodes ago – Wilkie Collins ("Wilkie, Wilkie, Wilkie" as Meldrick puts it) has been murdered at his home, along with his wife Lydia. Lewis and Falsone are pretty certain that he and his wife have been killed as repercussion for Collins ratting out Junior Bunk and leading to Georgia Rae Mahoney's arrest. They have a witness – though it turns out horribly to be Jack, the terrified five year old son who they find locked in the bathroom terrified. This is one of the most disquieting scenes of the aftereffects of the drug war on Baltimore, seeing a terrified child throwing toys as detectives before running into the arms of Falsone.

Lewis knows immediately what this is about and he pushes off the fact that the two of them are in lockup from Falsone. The only difference between the two is how: Lewis wants to shake the trees of the Mahoney family, Falsone thinks its better they find the shooter first. Giardello says the latter and also says they should talk to Jack. Falsone thinks that Jack heard everything and is told by Giardello to be gentle. When Falsone says: "Aren't I always?" the viewer is inclined to laugh it off because of what we've seen of him to this point. This is the first time we see Falsone's layers.

The series then does one of its most unsettling cuts in a long time showing Lewis as he walks Jack through the squad room. While he tries to strike up a rapport with the kid we see the world from his perspective and see just how much it terrifies him as he begins to spiral first figuratively and then literally, finally seeing and hearing what the murders looked like from his point of view.  Finally when he is screaming and crying Falsone embraces him and offers to leave – and the way Jack says "I wanna go home" will absolutely break the heart of even the most hardened TV viewer.

Falsone then takes Jack to a playground and tries to talk to him with a combination  of awkwardness and genuine affection, trying to get him to open up. Finally when he starts going down the slide and Jack tells him its not a police care that he sees an opening. When Jack can tell the model Cavalier he's driving Paul gives a genuine smile. "I happen to know a little something about automobiles myself." There's something sweet about how Paul gets Jack to smile by showing him how to hotwire a car – as well as the fact that his father taught him how to do the same thing. (It's not clear if Falsone's father was a criminal himself but it would explain a lot.) That's what gets Jack to admit what happened to his parents and Paul is sympathetic, telling him the truth he would any scared witness but in the language a five year old can understand. He gets him to tell him that the man knew his father and that he called them the night his parents were killed. This leads them to the answering machine, which Jack says has the voice of the man who killed his parents.

And its here that the first cut comes deep to the detectives, particularly Lewis and Stivers. Because they know the voice and so does the viewer, though we could be forgiven for forgetting.  Its Detective Robert Castleman who worked narcotics. We met him back in The Damage Done which was our first official introduction to Luther Mahoney. (And now that we know that he was on Luther's payroll since 1993 we have every reason to believe he might have had a role in making sure all the people who were killed in the drug war that started this whole mess ended up not having any attachment to his boss.)

After Jack identifies Castleman as the shooter he asks: "Is he going to jail?" Falsone says succinctly. "You bet he is." Castleman ended up at sex crimes because of the rotation and he's perfectly open at first, saying Wilkie Collins was a quasi-informant for Luther. He doesn't seem to know how Wilkie ended up dead and that he hasn't talked to him. This is our first time seeing Falsone interrogating a homicide suspect and we can see the righteous anger when he brings it out on a dirty cop who calls Collins 'scum'. Lewis holds back for a bit but then makes it very clear he wants him to make a deal. Castleman folds like a cheap suit and says Georgia Rae said if Castleman didn't kill Collins he'd out him. Falsone and Lewis want to go after Georgia Rae immediately but Giardello says that won't work without corroborating evidence. Meldrick's reaction is telling but Al says: "If it were Luther would you say the same thing?" He tells them not to worry; Georgia Rae isn't going anywhere. He's wrong but we won't know that for a bit.

The biggest stuff we learn about Falsone at the end. Lewis talks about Falsone getting married and having kids of his own. Falsone takes out his wallet. Daniel three years old. He mentions that he and his wife had an ugly divorce and the two of them would never be in the same room if it wasn't for Daniel.

The final scenes between Al and Regina are heartbreaking as we learn that the two of them were childhood friends. The Wilsons have decided to leave Baltimore, all of it behind. Regina seems more concerned about her family then the law; Al, however, now realizes the truth. Frank goes to see Hal to understand why. Frank quotes Bob Dylan's The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll. "Two hotels, two black servants, two privileged young men whose parents raised them not to deny them anything." Felix says. Frank the detective's response is simpler. "Two senseless deaths." Frank, who spent the first two episodes excusing everything the Wilsons did, makes it very clear he feels contempt for not only what Hal did but how the father is more than willing to cover it up.

And the most important scene comes when Ballard tries to make amends with Frank.  Ballard asks Frank to look at her "not through me". And then Frank turns a Pembleton glare on her. "How's that?" Ballard defends her turf and makes it clear she's not going to run away. That means she wants to keeps things civil. Frank says: "I agree."  Ballard thinks that's it.

And then Frank says something that in five seasons we've never heard Frank say, not even to Bayliss. "You were right. Your instincts were dead on. Mine, for once, were not." For Frank Pembleton to admit this is pretty close to the pope saying he is fallible. Even Ballard wasn't expecting that.  The fact that Giardello admits as much to Frank in the final scene, that Frank has made it clear that he's notified the San Diego police that Hal Wilson will kill again, is almost anticlimactic compared to this simple revelation.

There is new blood in the unit. And they clearly know what they're doing.

 

 

 

NOTES FROM THE BOARD

Mahoney PTSD: Kellerman goes to the morgue for a write up on the Elefante murder.  Julianna asks him about the Mahoney shooting and Georgia Rae and Kellerman makes it clear that she's a psycho and insane. When Cox says Falsone was asking about the shooting and that she might have let her guard down on the autopsy because they were sleeping together Kellerman's immediate reaction is to accuse her of sleeping with Falsone now.  Cox becomes cold in a way towards Kellerman in a way we've never seen before and the two leave in a huff.  Later Falsone shows up in the bar where Cox is drinking. She tells him that everything about the Mahoney shooting was clean on paper, mentions what happened with Mike but before she can say anything else she shuts up. "Vino makes me chatty." .

Get the DVD: During the search of the Wilson home, Lauren Hoffman's 'Strange Man' is used with incredible power.

Hey, Isn't That…Jeffrey Wright is one of the greatest actors of my generation. Just the year prior to Homicide's release he'd made an impression in the title role of Basquiat but he was still relatively unknown that it was easy to get him to play Hal. He'd appeared on TV quite a but before, most notably as Sidney Bichet in the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. He spent a while working in independent movies such as Woody Allen's Celebrity, Crime and Punishment in Suburbia and Peoples Hernandez in Shaft. Then in 2001 he appeared as Martin Luther King in Boycott on HBO and with that appearance one of the greatest collaborations between network and actor began.

In 2003 he played Belize and Mr. Lies in the groundbreaking HBO adaptation of Angels in America which swept all four acting awards, along with Best Mini-Series, Best Director and Best Teleplay. Wright would win his first Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in a Limited Series. He has since been nominated for four more acting Emmys all of them in conjunction with HBO, three for Westworld, one for Best Actor in a Drama, two for Best Supporting Actor and Best Guest Actor in The Last of Us. In between he has starred in Emmy winning and nominated HBO movies such as Lackawanna Blues, Confirmation and OG and played Valentin Narcisse in the final two seasons of Boardwalk Empire. He will recreate his role of Isaac Dixon in the third season of The Last of Us…that is if he has time off from playing Henry Ogletree in Showtime's The Agency.

He has been part of two of the most famous franchises, playing Felix Wright in the Daniel Craig bond movies and Beetee in The Hunger Games. He's starred in the work of Jim Jarmusch and Wes Anderson, most recently in The Phoenician Scheme. He finally got his first Oscar nomination for playing Thelonious 'Monk' Ellison in American Fiction. Oh and he'll be recreating the most recent incarnation of Commissioner James Gordon in The Batman II. Did I mention he also has received two Emmy nominations for his voiceover work in What If?