Homicide Rewatch: Sins of the Father

 

Written by Daryl Lamont Wharton ; story by James Yoshimura & Julie Martin

Directed by Mary Harron

 

Rewatching Homicide nearly thirty years later is often fascinating in terms of the murders our detectives are called into investigate.  More than a few seem like harbingers of future events, some are ripped from the headlines of that period, some – though not many – almost seem anachronistic. Looking at Sins of the Father nearly three decades later  I'm inclined to wonder something different: Someday a murder like this is absolutely going to happen if it hasn't already.

It's fitting that for a drama that was always at the forefront of race in America that the writers choose to deal with America's original sin: slavery itself.  And honestly this could only work if the show had been set in Maryland. This was one of the border states where Confederate and Union sympathizers were side by side, where the bloodiest battle on American soil took place at Sharpsburg, where slavery was one of the states directly affected by the Emancipation Proclamation. None of this is mentioned in the series but it hangs over Sins of the Father like the darkest possible cloud, one that even after 135 years (the episode aired in 1998) can never fully be displaced or ever be truly resolved.

The circumstances of the murder of Martin Ridenour are enough to make both Falsone and Cox say: "Wow." Ridenour is found hanging from the rafters with his hands tied and bruising on him, which makes it clear that this is the most bizarre murder anyone has seen. His cash and all his valuables are still on his person, he's wearing an $800 suit and he's a business partner in a prominent advertising firm. This leads to the usual jokes: "What's he doing hanging around these parts?" "He's fit to be tied" but much of it comes from the two white people. Lewis, who's the secondary on this case, seems somewhat troubled even as he jokes. With good reason. Ridenour was found in one of the poorer black sections of Baltimore, a part of town he has no earthly reason to be in. There's a drug dealer nearby but Ridenour wasn't a customer.    When they reached the mansion the Ridenour called home both Falsone and Lewis are baffled – and when Meldrick sees the very prominent Confederate flag displayed he is understandably upset.

Pamela Ridenour is considerably baffled as to what her husband was doing in West Baltimore and can't come up with a motivation for the murder. When Lewis asked if her husband knew any black people the wife says very quickly he doesn't. Then we learned that Martin traced his family back to the 1790s as a hobby (there was neither Ancestry.com nor Henry Louis Gates in 1998). Falsone is the primary and keeps asking the questions about the present but Meldrick keeps looking at the photos of a woman on a  horse, Martin's great-great-great grandmother who fought for the South and his wife seems proud of it. "Not all southern belles sat on the porch sipping mint juleps." Lewis tries to find out if Martin was part of the Sons of the Confederacy (okay that part seems more foreshadowing) and his wife says she's sorry if the 'history is making you uncomfortable'. Falsone calls him out on this because to him this is a case at the far end of the 20^th century.  Lewis, who has always been less open about race then Pembleton or Giardello, makes it clear he's not used to going into a home in Baltimore and seeing Stonewall Jackson. Falsone actually wants to know if Lewis wants off this case. Falsone actually scores a point when Lewis asks what his great-great-great grandfather was doing during the War Between the States. "Stealing chickens in Palermo." That breaks the tension.

There are financial reasons for Ridenour's murder. He had stolen a couple of prominent accounts that would have netting the firm at least $20 million and given him a considerable commission. Ridenour was an up and comer and there were some junior partners who were pretty upset. They acknowledge it’s a cutthroat business but Ridenour's boss doesn't think they'd actually cut some throats after losing.

Then they go to Cox. After some jokes that aren't jokes "If we have a suspect in custody it's murder, and if the suspect is unknown it’s the worst case of suicide imaginable." Cox gives more details that make the death more troubling. Ridenour was whipped before he was killed. He had his shirt off and at some point he was allowed to put it back on. As Cox points out: "if you were black and this were 1948, we'd call that a lynching." With a white junior executive in 1998, Lewis calls it a mess.

Giardello tells Lewis and Falsone to go back to the crime scene and recanvas, even go up and down a few blocks. He points out for the first time that this murder wasn't random, it was planned.  "Your victim is hanging in a rowhouse for a reason. You just don't know what the reason is." Indeed that recanvas gives them two clues: one from the past, one from the present.

After another discussion with our local drug dealer he says he's going to go down the block and when he comes back he wants to know something he doesn't. After the canvas they find out that not far away is Orchard Street Church, a historic site that was part of the Underground Railroad. Lewis just wants to go in to wash off the stink of the Johnny Reb stuff from yesterday. Once again the episode reminds us of both sides of the Civil War: Abolitionist and Confederacy.

After they leave the church their drug dealer comes back and tells them that a white van was there the night of Ridenour's death. The van has records and notes on it and they trace it to a local business. One of the vans wasn't dropped off until today despite being off on a gig. The driver was Dennis Rigby. The man looked responsible but he was always talking craziness. When they go to the Rigby house they learn the son is a college graduate with honors. He's a virgin in Baltimore, never arrested, never in trouble, no sign he would be near the rowhouses with the drug dealers we just saw.  On an excuse to use the bathroom he checks out the Rigby home – and in Dennis' home finds a shrine to the black power movement with pictures of Malcolm X and Frederic Douglass very prominent. The moment they leave Lewis is certain Rigby is the killer.

In Giardello's office Lewis summarizes his suspicions of what the case is about and you can't blame him for the fact it sounds very much like one of the conspiracy theories his first partner used to go on about. Pembleton has been called in and he initially agrees with Gee: "Money, sex, drugs, that is the unholy trinity." It's fascinating that usually Al and Frank are the ones to talk about race and Meldrick is spinning about history.  Falsone wants to pursue the money angle and Pembleton agrees – until he learns the victims name was Ridenour. This causes Frank to think about an old song his gramma said:

"Hush your mouth, go to sleep. Old Patty Ridenour take you back deep."

In her house Patty Ridenour was one of the great boogeymen of all time – she was a lady bounty hunter, chasing down runaway slaves, shooting them beating them and engaged in horrible acts of cruelty.  And it is that last bit that connects it for Meldrick.

In one of the best montage segments (see on the soundtrack) Meldrick manages to figure out that Rigby knew about Patricia Ridenour, her connection to Martin and what he did. After multiple searches and no sign of Rigby despite having no money, no means of transportation Meldrick knows exactly where to find him. Meldrick starts banging on the wall with his experience from the Underground Railroad knowing what he's going to find –  in a hollowed out section Dennis Rigby is patiently waiting.

Rigby uses the speech of the proud black man, saying he's part of the other 50 percent, black man has been in chains. Rigby seems to believe he is superior to those who have been arrested for possession. Lewis makes it clear it didn't make a difference to Martin Ridenour.  Rigby wants a lawyer but Meldrick convinces him that this was a righteous killing…"it was history reaching out and biting Martin Ridenour in the ass." Giving the setting and nature of the killing Rigby uses a West African saying, "You must study the past."

Patricia Ridenour, in addition to everything else, didn't just hunt slaves but freed blacks. She kidnapped freed blacks, sold them back into slavery and stole their property. His great-great-great-grandfather was born free and education. He used $400 in sailor's wages to buy his own farm before being abducted and sold into slavery by Patty Ridenour. Rigby saw his Martin's name in the paper and did his homework. Dennis stalked him and killed him in  a way "to leave the circle unbroken." He waited in his office with his gun, and after he was in the van he began to beg thinking this was still a robbery. He tied him up and blindfolded him, bullwhipped him on his knees and then he made him get him on the chair, and pulled the blindfold off to make sure that Rigby was the last thing Ridenour saw.

Lewis's response is one of the coldest things Clark Johnson ever said: "You are a sick son of a bitch."  Falsone reminds him: "You killed an innocent man over something his long dead ancestor did to your long dead ancestor." To Rigby this was justifiable because his distant ancestor died in slavery a year before the Civil War ended, hanging himself. Lewis points out Ridenour's death does nothing to atone for what happened to him and Rigby. As Lewis points out all that Rigby has done has start a different vendetta rather then end the old one. And by doing so the Rigby name will end with him.

 

 

The secondary story starts with Frank and Tim meeting for breakfast. The two of them are discussing whether or not to charge an 84 year old woman with murder for a hit and run or send it back to traffic. While this is going on Ballard shows up for breakfast and then Frank, as much as the viewer, is reminded of how Tim has spent his nights. He already questioned him about his dinner with Chris Rawls and when Ballard shows up and the two of them start flirting, Pembleton's even more baffled so he decides to leave. He makes a reference to the case saying: "things are already too complicated."  After that Pembleton asks what's going on between him and Ballard and when Bayliss talks about Laura in terms of 'smoldering', and says he's attracted to her Frank says one of the first casually callous things we've heard: "Who aren't you attracted to?"

At that point we actually get a direct link to the past, way back to the classic episode 'A Many Splendored Thing' and that perfect speech Frank gave to Tim early in their partnership.  It takes Frank a moment to get there and then his first reaction is "So what? You're thinking Ballard in leather?" After taking a moment to say how attractive that fantasy is he reminds Frank of exactly what he told him about being a good murder police. "You Tim Bayliss have a darkness inside of you. You gotta know the uglier, darker side of Tim Bayliss… You gotta love them because they're part of you because they along with your virtues make you who you are." It's interesting that Frank separates this from who he was before his stroke and the writers don't make it clear if Frank genuinely doesn't remember what he said or if he does but doesn't particularly want to be held responsible for Tim's experimentation because it bothers him. Listening to him you think it’s the former.

But if actions define a man more then words we get a different version in a conversation with Gharty the next time we see Frank. Gharty says the old lady got the 'gas pedal confused with the brake – kind of like Bayliss." Then Gharty starts implying he hears things about Bayliss. Pembleton plays dumb and asks for Gharty to 'indulge him'. After being told Bayliss is a 'switch hitter' (arguably the nicest euphemism you could get away with in 1990s network TV) Pembleton smiles for a moment and then tells Gharty: "I hear he's interested in Ballard…What do you make of that?" The wide grin on Gharty's face freezes and suddenly he starts getting very scared. "So if Bayliss is swinging from both sides of the plate, where's your partner?" Gharty gets defensive and to his feet while Frank remains remarkably calm. "You look kind of pissed." Then he asks Gharty to come around the table. At that moment Giardello shows his face. Immediately after he leaves Pembleton knocks the water he was drinking over the table and Gharty's paper. The lines are drawn. Regardless of his own issues Frank has made it clear that his partner's off limits when it comes to these rumors. Since by this point viewers knew Andre Braugher was planning to leave the question was raised: how will this be handled when Frank is no longer there for his partner on this?

We get a sense of this when Gharty tracks down Ballard rather frantic and is alarmed by how quickly she seems to have fallen under Tim's charms. When she says strange the first word out of Gharty's mouth is 'queer' while Ballard says 'thoughtful'. Gharty isn't wrong when he says that it's not good to get involved with another detective. (Indeed he's actually foreshadowing a controversial storyline involving Ballard in the final season.) The problem is Gharty, while right about things becoming 'part of the permanent record', might be overcorrecting. Ballard assures him its professional and he moves on. Of course he doesn't know how the episode ends with Ballard and Bayliss at an art gallery, looking at 'contemporary primitive art'. We will later learn this is their first date.

Pembleton and Bayliss are trying to figure out if an old lady driving late at night who killed a man accidentally mistook for the accelerator for the brake. Miss Nichols comes in with a lawyer and cookies to the detectives. The woman practically implores Bayliss not to send him to jail and she does seem to get away with it. They decide to revoke her license because you can't charge an 84 year old lady with murder. This is the contrast to the alternating justice system: a white lady can get away with killing an innocent man but a black man can't.

At the end of the episode Falsone and Lewis are chewing over the murder. Meldrick, rarely philosophical, is upset that somehow America can't apologize for slavery. (I seriously doubt he'd consider the fact that Juneteenth is now a federal holiday good enough.) "We had slavery in this country for over 400 years. As long as we got a memory of it, black or white, we ain't never gonna get past it." And the sad truth is, he's absolutely right.  No matter what Falsone says – and we know it's true – Lewis just refuses to hear it.

And the thing watching the final images where Patty Ridenour beats a slave and Martin Ridenour is beaten to death I just know this will happen someday. An African-American is going to use 23 and Me or some other site to research his history. Then he's going to look at his white boss or the owner of a company in his neighborhood or hell, maybe his next door neighbor. And this scenario is absolutely going to play out.

And thirty years after this episode we still won't have an idea of how to move on.

 

NOTES FROM THE BOARD

'Detective Munch': His big moment comes when he and Kellerman are looking at the car driven by the old woman who was responsible for an auto fatality "Little old lady from Pasadena," he uses the old spiel of what was one used to sell used cars.

On The DVD: The montage where the search of the Rigby home takes place is scored to the classic 'Sinnerman' recorded by the Nina Simone Group.

Mary Harron, who directed this episode, was known in 1996 for directing the classic independent film I Shot Andy Warhol. She would eventually direct episodes of OZ, The L Word and Six Feet Under. She would later  write and  directed the underground classic American Psycho, the Notorious Bettie Page, The Moth Diaries Her most famous work in the age of streaming was Alias Grace for Netflix and the horror miniseries The Expecting for Quibi.

A scene that was cut from this episode took place in the gallery where Ballard and Bayliss are. While talking with Ballard Bayliss eyes stray to a gay couple. At this point in the series the producers were still ambivalent as to how they wanted to take this story so Bayliss would be pushed to the background for the next few episodes, focusing on other characters. The show would deal with it indirectly a few more times this season but it was clear NBC was uncomfortable with it. Perhaps after greenlighting Will & Grace that fall the network would have less trouble with the idea of Bayliss exploring his sexuality and they'd deal with it more directly in the final season.

Kellerman mentions Juliana to Bayliss at one point but Tim fobs him off. They'll deal with it directly later this season but Mike's going to have more pressing problems starting in the next episode.