Homicide Rewatch: Finnegan's Wake

 

Teleplay by David Mills; story by James Yoshimura & David Simon

Directed By Steve Buscemi

 

Right from the start we know this is going to be a different kind of episode.

It's not just that we're told that the victim is Adena Watson or even the way Frank says: "This is your second chance. Don't screw it up." It's that we see the bloody footprints and that we're indoors. The long time viewer knows because by now we've seen flashbacks of previous times that this is not how Bayliss found Adena Watson.

As everything unravels and given how Frank is acting so calm we realize before Tim does that this is a dream – or honestly a recurring nightmare.  This is a look inside Bayliss's subconscious and given how judgmental and matter of fact Frank is – as well as how he burst out laughing at Tim – we know that this is how at a deep level Tim has always thought about the crime as well as his relationship with Frank. So the true realization comes when Tim tells Frank not only does he know this is a dream but that he's had it before.

It's a measure of how much Bayliss has grown just in the past two seasons that we realize almost with a shock that this is the first time Adena Watson has come up in any form since 'Betrayal' almost a year and a half ago. Tim is still very much the conscience of the unit but he's also one of the most veteran members of the squad by this point and since Season 6 has focused more on his romantic tribulations then anything else you could be forgiven for thinking that Tim might, in fact, have put this whole mess behind him.  That is one of the subtexts of Finnegan's Wake and why, while this episode is primarily centered on Falsone, Bayliss is very much at the core of why it works.

When an old man named William Devlin wanders into the squad and goes to see Bayliss and tells him his father killed Clara Slone in February  1932 Bayliss treats the case like it's a joke and sends Devlin on his way. Then he goes to Giardello and asks him if they find proof of a murder, even if the murderer is long dead, does it count as a clearance. To Bayliss this is just a hypothetical and Giardello assumes it is. It's only when Bayliss mentions that the victim was Clara Sloane that Giardello takes note and tells him that this is the oldest unsolved murder in Baltimore still on the books. Giardello doesn't know the details but then he tells Bayliss that it was a nine or ten year old girl who was sexually molested, then shot in the head with her body dumped in the woods. Bayliss knows that this reminds him of Adena Watson and that leads Giardello to hand the case to Falsone.  Paul doesn't take it seriously, even when Giardello tells him this gives him a chance for a career moment.

When Bayliss mentions this to the rest of the unit – specifically Pembleton and Munch –  and asks why he never heard of this murder the viewer knows even before Frank, with remarkable tact, states the obvious. When he caught Adena Watson and the case never went down, no one had the heart to tell him about it.

  Typically it's Frank who sends Falsone on his way. He wanted to check out the casefile himself and he learns that it's been missing for years. (Also typically he takes Falsone's refusal to do the work on this personally.) He learns all the evidence and the casefile was signed out in 1974 by a Thomas Finnegan. That's when the episode takes flight.

Thomas Finnegan is played by Charles Durning (see Hey, Isn't That…) one of the greatest character actors, if not actors of all time. He's a crotchety old man living with his daughter and the moment Falsone rings his doorbell he starts giving what would be the quintessential guest role in any other show's history but this one.  He knows the moment Falsone shows up exactly why he's here and he immediately demands to become part of the investigation. Falsone, who we know as the get along guy, can barely hold his patience around the older detective the entire episode. He tells Falsone that he's the last person who gave a damn about Clara Slone and that's why he has all the evidence. The parallel between Finnegan and Bayliss is immediate to any viewer and its telling Falsone doesn't seem to have a bit of patience for it.

The parallels made clear when we see Bayliss talking about this as merely a paper clearance whereas Pembleton sees this as Baltimore history, that she's been waiting all this time to be avenged. Bayliss tells Frank about the dream we saw in the opening sequence and he tells us he hasn't had it in a long time. Then he says that now that he knows it and woke up he tells Frank at some level he's all right with what happened now. At that point Munch, of all people, tells him that "We all have that dream," and Bayliss says maybe he's not as screwed up as he thinks. (It's rare for John to admit he has the same feelings about being a murder police as anyone else.) When Frank again being gentle says maybe its good he didn't stay with the Sloane case Tim tells him "That wound has healed."

Finnegan then decides to dress himself up in a coat and makes it clear he intends to go with Falsone to see the case closed. Again it's telling how much of a rookie Paul is. He's never really shown respect to some of the elder statesmen on the squad (save Frank) and it's clear he should show none to a veteran detective. To be fair Finnegan shows him no respect particularly when he says: "There was no need for EYE-talians in the department." The difference is Finnegan has respect for the case and the way he looks at the evidence it's clear the case has haunted him.  He admits he came onto the case in 1944 but he was partnered with Pete  O'Malley, who apparently passed it down to him on his deathbed. Finnegan is apparently a multi-generation detective and has never stopped thinking about the case when he was on the job and for the quarter of a century after it. Falsone is willing to give a little ground when he says how much it matters but he's clearly expecting Al to say no.

The scene in the unit is remarkable because for the first time we're seeing it from the eyes of someone whose been long gone from it but still remembers it.  He walks past an old plaque that has been hanging their for decades and tells Falsone he knows the detective, how he died, was a pallbearer at his funeral and got the man who did it. When he enters the squad he says the phone we've heard for years sounds like flying saucers, admonishes the female detectives for not wearing hats, and is infuriated that Falsone didn't tell him Giardello was 'a colored fellow'. The only detective he seems to have any accord with is Gharty because of his Irishness. He has no use for how Munch and Pembleton don't beat up on suspects like in 'the good old days'.  

Where he does have value is about the case. Finnegan tells Bayliss and Falsone the crime scene no longer exists and tells him that over the years over 200 people have given information on the murder, with even a few people confessing. It's when he begins to give a monologue on how much the case tore Baltimore up, and with all the manpower they put on it the investigation was a circus.  They walk the wreckage of the crime scene and Finnegan tells the whole brutal story. Bystanders stepped all over the place getting the crime scene messed up. The body went to the morgue before anyone could take photos of the scene.  Its when Finnegan tells O'Malley how he lost control from Day One and how he was never the same afterwards that the clearest parallels to Adena Watson become clear.

Finnegan spends the entire investigation talking more to Bayliss then Falsone. Devlin tells them that his father was a heavy drinker, who went to a bootlegger at the edge of the crime scene. One night he came home and said that he'd go to the chair if they found out the day before Sloane's body was found. He didn't say anything else about the murder even on his deathbed.  Finnegan, critically, is the only person who doesn't treat a man who is older then him with disrespect.  But he learns his father owned a gun and before he died he gave it to his other son Charles.  He can barely manage the patience to act as in an undercover operation to find the gun he has and Falsone can barely keep him in check. Bayliss manages to keep cool, says Devlin's story is credible and convinces Giardello to send a diving team. When Falsone tries to push Giardello off Al snaps at him. He knows exactly the kind of cop he is but he was locking up killers before Falsone was even conceived.  He demonstrates it when the divers are going to give up and he gives the kind of spiel about Clara Sloane's people deserving answers. It's a complete lie – the kind the detectives have told to suspects for years -  but somehow this offends Falsone.  Bayliss is more respectful, willing to grant him acquiescence.

In the aftermath Falsone takes Finnegan out to celebrate at an old Irish pub. He can't deal with the bartender being a woman and starts getting hammered. He treats Falsone with increasing disrespect and as he reminisces about the good old days both how detectives use to kill suspects and plant weapons and his increasingly racist language offends everybody about how bad it is that black people and women have taken over the unit. Falsone takes a drunken Finnegan home and he lets him having speaking in some of the most openly bigoted terms disguised as nostalgia, finally calling Falsone a 'punk dago bastard.'

Notably Bayliss is absent, packing up the Watson file no doubt with the intention of taking it with him for future generations the same way Finnegan did with Clara Sloane. The next day Bayliss is looking through the file and finds out that Clara had a little sister. Not long after that Giardello tells Falsone to write the case on the board in blue. They're going to do a press conference and Bayliss decides to tell Finnegan about it.

It's that last scene that finally ties it together. Bayliss is the only detective who has treated Finnegan with complete respect all the way through and he does so here.  He tells him about Margaret Putnam, where she lives and asks if he wants to come with her to give him the news. Finnegan finally tells the truth about why he can't just let this go. John Devlin did get away with murder and Finnegan never got him to answer for what he did.  And Bayliss talks about the Araber and how now that he's dead he'll never be able to let it go. "Did I come face to face with absolute evil and have him in my reach – and let him go?"  Finnegan's reaction is notably less mean-spirited and almost funny and when he calls Bayliss a pain in the ass, it's almost with admiration. He invites Bayliss into the house to get his coat.

The episode ends with Falsone getting the press conference while Bayliss and Finnegan go to Margaret Putnam's house. And for the first time something like a genuine smile crosses Finnegan's face. In the final moments we see him playing solitaire but also at peace while the press conferences plays in the background. And Bayliss watches at home, inscrutable as always. It's a moment of peace for Season Six and a rare happy ending…right before the climax.

 

NOTES FROM THE BOARD

Charles Durning was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama for his performance in this episode. Steve Buscemi was nominated for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Dramatic Series – Night by the DGA for this episode. Mills. This episode was nominated by the WGA for Episodic Drama, the third nominated episode for 1999.

I was curious so you should know that Nothing Sacred, which I talked about earlier, won in this category. As for Directorial achievement it went to Paris Barclay for NYPD Blue in the classic episodes Hearts and Souls in which Bobby Simone passed away. Much as I'd like to argue I really can't with either.

Mahoney PTSD: Finnegan remembers that Kellerman was responsible for shooting Luther Mahoney and congratulates him. "He's you in fifty years," Falsone jokes. Actually he's Finnegan right now.

'Detective Munch' Asked about the Clara Sloane case Munch says that it's an old legend. Bolander used to talk about it. He also has the best reaction to Finnegan's presence after a confession goes wrong:

Finnegan: "You give him a taste of the old phone book?"

Munch: "We haven't used the phone book since 1996."

Clearly John remembers this from Bolander's day.

Slone's name is written in blue. The last time we saw a case written in blue was Eugene Elwin's way back in Heartbeat.  At the time it stayed that way even though the case was open. We'll see other names on the board in blue in the final season but only when the case is closed.

The anecdote Finnegan relates about dropping the knife after shooting the dealer is, like many others, taken from Simon's book right up to the dealer identifying his own knife. Law and Order would actually use a similar anecdote in its first season.

Hey, Isn't That…A legendary actor Charles Durning's film resume alone would serve as iconic. He had critical roles in such iconic films as The Sting, Billy Wilder's remake of The Front Page, Dog Day Afternoon, An Enemy of the People, The Muppet Movie (Doc Hopper) When A Stranger Calls even before his two Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actor in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and Mel Brooks' To Be Or Not to Be in 1982 and 1983. In TV Movies he would play Stephen Douglas, Commissioner Oswald in Attica, Casey Stengel, Pope John XXIII and John Honey Fitz Fitzgerald, JFK's grandfather. I'm now just going to deal with his TV work which is also formidable.

He had a regular role in the short-lived series The Cop and the Kid in 1975 and starred in almost every major TV series from the 1970s that involved cops: Barnaby Jones, Hawaii Five-O, Cannon. He played Oscar Poole in the 1985 series Eye to Eye. Then in 1990 he played Dr. Harlan Elldridge on the Emmy nominated 1990s TV comedy Evening Shade for which he received two Emmy nominations. He would play Justice Henry Hoskins in the  short-lived 2002 drama First Monday and would narrate the short-lived (unfortunately) CBS drama Now and Again. He played Tommy's Dad for all seven seasons of Rescue Me for 30 episodes. Oh and he played Santa Claus in five different movies.

In addition to his nomination for that in Homicide he received nine Emmy nominations in his long career, including for his work in Rescue Me for playing Tommy Gavin's father in 2008. He would receive the lifetime achievement award from SAG-AFTRA in 2008.

And that's before you consider Durning was one of the most prolific theater actors appearing in the original cast of Jason Miller's That Championship Season, Shakespeare and Glengarry Glen Ross. Yon author had the great privilege of seeing him play Matthew Brady against George C. Scott in the 1997 revival of Inherit The Wind and he was magnificent. He passed away on Christmas Eve 2012 at 89, gone but never to be forgotten.