Deserves A Life Sentence

Bill Lawrence has always been one of the most criminally undervalued showrunners of the new Golden Age of Television. He began the millennium with the awe-inspiring Scrubs, a comedy series following a hospital intern played by Zach Braff. Brilliantly mixing comedy and poigniancy,  it is probably the closest my generation will ever get to MASH, even if it did stick around a bit too long. Lawrence followed that with the series Cougar Town, a comedy with a title so awful he spent many opening sequences making fun of it. Featuring Courtney Cox as a forty-ish divorcee finding love with a younger man, it managed to delight those few people who saw it. He also developed a wonderful business-centered single-camera series Ground Floor for TBS that was canceled very prematurely.

And now, he returns to his darker days with Life Sentence, yet another whimsical CW series centered around a charming female lead.  Lucy Hale plays Stella Abbott, a twenty-three year woman who at the age of fifteen was diagnosed with cancer. Her family spent the next eight years doing everything in their power to make her last days wonderful. In her twenties, she went to Paris to find her last love, and met Wes, a transplanted Brit, and they had a whirlwind romance that ended with them getting married. The series opens with her preparing for her living funeral. And then... the last treatment works. And she's cured.

This would seem to be the happy ending she'd been looking for, and you can imagine a dozen Hollywood rom-coms ending this way. Unfortunately, this is where things immediately fall apart. For starters, her ultra-supportive family now no longer can paper over the cracks they've been hiding because of Stella's disease. Her parents are about to divorce, because her mother has been having an affair. With Stella's godmother. Understandably, Dad (Dylan Walsh) is not taking it well. Her brother Aiden (Jayson Blair) has spent the last few years selling medication to soccer moms and sleeping with them, and now has knocked one up. Her sister Elizabeth abandoned her lifelong dream of becoming a writer to follow a job she hates because someone needed to make money.

And that's just her family's problem. When you get cancer at fifteen, you pretty much don't consider your education, so Stella doesn't have much of a career in front of her. (She's working as a barista, and she sucks at it.) She's now trying to build a life with her new husband, who she married without considering they'd have a future. Now that they do, they have consider getting kids. And Stella is trying desperately to fix her families problems but its not looking like it will be anywhere near as easy as curing her cancer.

If I'd made this series sound too dark, its not. Like Jane The Virgin and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, this series gladly settles into a whimsical style that is delightful. Just as in Scrubs, Stella narrates the series and has many of the fantasy and flashback sequences that made that same show so delightful. I never had much use for Lucy Hale (or Pretty Little Liars, for that matter) but performance and delivery is so charming that I can understand why so many people find her appealing, and the rest of the cast is as good.

Bill Lawrence has, as I mentioned, created a great many delightful series. What he has yet to do is create a truly successful show. Even when Scrubs was immediately after Friends, he couldn't get 10 million viewers to watch it, and Cougar Town's numbers were so low, it had to hop from ABC to TBS mid-run. The early numbers for Life Sentence are not promising, either; its barely getting a million viewers, and I don't expect things to get much better when Empire returns from its hiatus. The CW has always had more patience for keeping even the lowest rated of its series on the air then even some of the more prominent basic cable providers. I really hope this show gets that same kind of patience, because much like its plucky heroine, I want this show to live and thrive.

My score:4.25 stars.

Homicide Episode Guide: Baby, It's You

A Homicide/Law & Order crossover

Written by Jorge Zamacona

Directed by Ed Sherin

Considering the  ratings that the first Law and Order/Homicide crossover generated (they were among the best ratings in either shows history), it seems only natural that NBC wanted a sequel. The fact that the producers of both shows (Tom Fontana and Dick Wolf) waited so long explains how many obstacles there were in filming the first one. (Indeed, things could have gotten even more complicated considering that both producers considered including ER in the mix. It’s a good thing the show declined; filming in two different cities is hard enough, adding Hollywood would have probably made things all but impossible) A critical decision was reached when Wolf managed to agree that the  story be a two-part tale told across both shows, rather then two separate self-contained stories. In other words, to understand the whole story, viewers had to watch both shows. (This led to syndication problems that would not be resolved until 2004, when TNT aired both episodes on its network)

‘Baby, It’s You’ was a far different animal than the previous crossover. Unlike the previous story, it continued a practice of Law & Order  of adapting stories from the shows headlines--- in this case, the murder of JonBenet Ramsey. The show begins with the suspicious death of Brittany Janaway, a fourteen-year old supermodel. It appears as if Brittany has died from toxic shock brought on by what appears to be a vicious sexual assault. Lennie Briscoe and Rey Curtis try to investigate the death while under a huge amount of media attention, brought on by the death and the parents of the deceased. From the beginning, the investigation is compromised by a series of leaks to the press, amplified by the suspicious behavior of the Janaways themselves. They and their attorney Leslie Drake (memorably played by the master of disreputable characters Dan Hedaya) do everything in their power to turn attention away from them, including the offer of $250,000 reward for information, and the private hiring of a criminal profiler. All of this seems to be a way of keeping the attention of them, which only adds to their suspicion.

Eventually, the trail leads to Baltimore, another city the Janaways call home.  This time, instead of trying to bypass the PD, Briscoe calls Munch and asks him for assistance, tracking a lead. Munch isn’t wild about helping the cop who slept with his ex, but he is a lot more congenial then the single-minded Pembleton. He and Falsone investigate and learn that Brittany may have been raped in Baltimore and that a suspect (the son of a former babysitter)  was there that day. Showing an asperity we don’t normally associate with him, Ed Danvers sends the detectives to New York to interrogate him, and if necessary, extradite him. This time around the atmosphere is a lot more comfortable than it was in ‘Charm City’, as Munch and Falsone are on their best behavior. The mystery increases when the suspect says that he followed her to the Janaway house in Baltimore and saw her being raped by someone--- he doesn’t know who.

When the story changes series, the Janways have fled the media circus that they helped incite and returned to Baltimore. It quickly becomes clear that Dr. Janaway is under suspicion for literally raping his daughter to death. For the first time in a very long time, Homicide  focuses its energy on points of law. Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) wants jurisdiction over the case because of depraved indifference by the father.  Danvers wants to prosecute in Baltimore because the crime fits the pattern of felony-murder. The court makes a split-ruling--- the case is tried in Baltimore, but McCoy is allowed to co-chair the prosecution.

The episode focuses on Zeljko Ivanek for the first time this season, and seeing him in action with McCoy is a vivid contrast on how both shows regard the D.A. McCoy is a relentless, righteous and zealous prosecutor, willing to twist the law in order to punish the guilty--- not unlike Pembleton in some cases. (In several episodes of Law & Order, we have seen McCoy bend, if not completely break the law, to get a conviction and it has had repercussions) Danvers, on the other hand, is level-headed and professional. He wants to win, not punish. If he can avoid the risks of a trial, he will do so in order to see that some justice is carried out. Danvers is more pedestrian but also more realistic a character than McCoy in that regard. Watching the two of them interact is new territory for Homicide and it gives Ivanek some good screen time.

In essence, this episode is more like Law & Order than Homicide. To the extent that Homicide is involved, it focuses on Ivanek, Jon Seda, and Richard Belzer—and since we don’t see a lot of Ivanek or Belzer normally, it’s a welcome change.

The major twist comes when the defendant reveals that he had an alibi for the time of the murder--- he was having an encounter with a woman he was having an affair with for the past ten years.  Unfortunately, the action from this episode starts falling afterwards. Through interrogations it is reveal that Mrs. Janaway sexually abused her daughter regularly and was responsible for the assault that killed her. Problem is, we haven’t had so much as an inkling of this so far and we don’t get any real explanation as to why she did it. This is like a lot of Homicide but in this case the build-up has been so great it’s a disappointment to just get this.

Still, there are things to admire in this episode. Among them is the chemistry that Lennie Briscoe and Munch share. They have a good rapport and its good to see them doing more than arguing about John’s first wife. (Belzer had a busy week; the same week this crossover aired, he also appeared in an episode of The X-Files) Also interesting is the performance of Seda. He goes after the killer of Brittany Janaway with a  fervor that is on the level of Bayliss. He can be intense, but unlike some of the other detectives he isn’t world-weary enough to believe that a man is capable of raping his daughter to death. (One could see part of the reason Wolf would cast him nearly twenty years later in Chicago P.D.) His talks with McCoy about this are among the better parts of the show. During the course of this episode a minor storyline sets up that he is divorced and has a three year old son. Throughout the season we will see him fight for shared custody of him.

‘Baby It’s You” works better as an episode of Law & Order  than Homicide. We don’t get anywhere near the character stories that we usually get (of the rest of the Homicide cast, only Lewis and Giardello get any significant screen time) and the story’s resolution is unsatisfactory. There’s some good acting from Maureen Anderman and Tom Tammi as the Janaways, but they spend most of the episode as if they are in some kind of fog. The trial is somewhat disjointed and, like most of Homicide’s ventures into  the courtroom, seems out of place despite Ivanek and Waterston’s work. The episode is little more than above average, which makes it the least of the three Law and Order/Homicide crossovers.
Law & Order: 3.75 stars
Homicide: 3.25 stars.
Average: 3.5 stars.

Atlanta: Robbin' Season Review

When Atlanta debuted in the fall of 2016, it was justifiably hailed as one of the most brilliant comedy series to come about in years, and there is a very good reason for that. Donald Glover, the creative force behind it, has always been one of the most incredible comedic and genius force. Painting a world of the African-American just trying to get by on the edge of poverty row, he creating not just some of the more indelible characters and comedic scenarios (in perhaps the most ambitious episode, Glover created a cross between BET and PBS with commercials that satirically pointed out the black experience at a level that not even Saturday Night Live has accomplished), but in getting the most ambitious look at the urban experience since the early days of The Wire.

In one of the great understatements of all time, a lot has changed since then, not the least for Glover himself. He won a fistful of awards from every major critics group in the world, including two Emmys (he was the first African-American to win for directing), and getting cast as the young Lando in the new Han Solo movie. Understandably, it has taken more than a year for Season 2 of Atlanta to get written.  It has been more than worth the way.

Despite the fact that Earn (Glover) has managed to launch a modestly successful rap career for Paper Boi/Alfred (Brian Tyree Henry), this has not translated into huge amounts of money for anyone, least of all Earn. He's still living from couch to couch, still trying to get away from a house arrest, and still trying to get by, which is why he's so delighted to get $4000 in gift cards from a local mall. But things have not getting any easier for this Princeton dropout. He still finds himself in absurd situations, including getting trapped in a house with his uncle, Alligator Man (Katt Williams, and he's called Alligator Man for a very good reason, or in this musical launch party, which says all the right things, but everybody watches him when he's not looking. Things haven't gone much easier for Alfred. He's now so famous that his regular pot dealer decides to rob him (very ineptly) and its becoming harder and harder for him to try and get some actual money to go with his fame, and he is really irritated when his number 1 single gets parroted back to him. Which is always happening.

Season 2 is subtitled Robbin' Season, and there's a legitimate reason. In just the first two episodes, we've seen four separate burglaries, all of which are amusing but also galling in a strange way. As Darius tells Earn in the season premiere: "the closer it gets to Christmas, the more poor people start robbing other people to pay for gifts, which gets them in jail.." and I can't do justice (or print) most of the rest of that sentence. More to the point, there are far darker undertones to everything. At one point, Darius tells Earn the urban legend of 'Florida Man', an apocryphal story of the man from Florida capable of the most horrible crimes and atrocities, whose sole purpose is 'to stop black people from moving to Florida, and registering to vote." The fact that every black man in Atlanta knows who he is would seem to just make you wonder. And in the first episode, Earn got a gold-plated gun from his uncle "which you're going to need if you're in the rap game." Which makes you wonder: did Earn ever read Chekhov?

Atlanta is a dark, urban series disguised as a comedy, much in the same way Get Out was a study of race relations disguised (albeit brilliantly) as a horror film.  Even if your not its intended audience (and I can assure you that I'm not) you will find yourself laughing (and wincing) at some of the touchstones in life that resonate. And all of this makes you wonder, this all seems to have taken place in the Obama era.  What happens when Robbin Season ends? More importantly, who's going to fire that gun?

My score: 4.5 stars,

One, Two, Three Anti-Heroines: Good Girls Review

About six months ago, I wrote a series of articles for this website in which I argued about the lack of female leads of series who could be as dark as Tony Soprano or Walter White. Now, I find myself more than a little surprised to see a series that has not one, but three female leads with the possibility to be real anti-heroines. Even more astonishing, the series is on NBC, which has been undergoing a creative and popular resurgence over the past couple of years (thank you, This is Us). But is Good Girls really at that level, or is trying to be a pale imitation?

The series focuses on three Michigan women who are all struggling with interior problems nearly as big. Beth (Christina Hendricks) is a forty-ish housewife with four kids, who just found out that not only is her car-dealer husband cheating on her with a woman half his age, he's mortgaged their house to pay bad loans.  Annie, her younger sister, (Mae Whitman) is barely scraping buy at her minimum wage job at a grocery store, trying to support her child, and her much richer ex (Zach Gilford) is suing her for custody. And Ruby (Retta) actually has a happy marriage and a daughter who loves her. Unfortunately, she has a kidney disease, and needs treatment and they have no insurance.

When all of these events form a perfect storm, the three woman team to rob Annie's grocery store just to get $30, 000 to pay their bills. Unfortunately, the grocery store is under the management of drug dealers who are using it to launder money. So, there's more than ten times that when they get there. And when the drug dealers find out who robbed them, they want their money back with interest.

This may not seem like the easiest plot for a series, but then again, neither did the Pilot for Breaking Bad. What makes Good Girls a little harder to see working is the fact that none of the three women seem willing to go 'all in' yet. At the end of the pilot, Annie's boss at the mini-mart tried to blackmail her, then got drunk, and tried to rape her. Beth then pointed a gun at him, and he seemed to get killed. Everything got set up so that he was probably going to be their first dead body. Except it turned out that Beth and Anne had grabbed him, and hogtied him in a playset. Eventually, they let him go, and arrange things so that he might end up charged as a sex offender should he ever talk about what happened to him. But it's clear that the showrunners still seem to be hedging their bets a little. When the drug dealers prepare to execute the three of them, Beth frantically talks them out of it by telling them: "We're good people! And when good people get killed like this, people pay attention!) They still seem to be holding to that.

I am, however, more inclined to give this series a little more latitude because of my utter confidence in the leads. All three actresses have done some truly remarkable work in the second Golden Age, and I am particularly glad to see Whitman, who has been a tremendous actress for nearly twenty years (!) , finally playing an actual adult. The women are more easily relatable than so many of male antiheroes, which may be good for the series run. Will Good Girls continue to work? I'm not sure. But it does represent a step in the right direction, and these actresses are very good at their jobs.

My score: 3.5 stars.

Homicide Episode Guide: The Subway

Written by James Yoshimura

Directed by Gary Fleder

Perhaps because the producers of Homicide  thought that they were being viewed by the executives at NBC as a ‘dead letter’, they would feature in season 6 a sizable number of stories that highlight living people who had been ‘murdered’--- just not cold yet. And not in the same way Sean Garrabrek  in ‘A Doll’s Eyes’ was either--- these people were still fighting and alive.  Many of these episodes would be moving, but few would be as powerful as the first one written but was ultimately shown out of order --- ‘The Subway’. Indeed, this show is not only one of the most compelling of the season, but one of the best episodes in series history.

In the previous five seasons, it seemed that Homicide  had looked at grief and shock of murder from every angle imaginable. Turns out they left one out--- the victim.  John Lange leaves for his job one Friday morning, kisses his girlfriend goodbye, enters the subway, walks down the platform--- and falls in front of an oncoming train. He gets pinned between the train and the platform. The pressure of the subway is the only thing keeping his insides from falling out. The instant the pressure is eased, he will die. Without it, he’ll live maybe an hour. Everyone--- the paramedics, the police, and Detective Frank Pembleton---  knows that he’s going to die. 

So does John Lange. He is still conscious, and because his spinal cord has been severed, he doesn’t feel any pain. It therefore comes as a huge shock when Pembleton tries to talk to him about getting his girlfriend down to the subway to say goodbye. We watch him as he realizes what is going to happen, and it is stunning. This is a huge shock, not only for the viewer but for Frank. Like all detectives, he sees the dead, not the death. He may speak for the dead, but he doesn’t speak with the dead. And that’s what Frank does for an hour--- he asks him about next of kin, getting his account of what happened, and finally contemplating the fate of a man who is dying because he chose to ride the subway into work instead of driving in like he does every other day.

It is not easy to watch a man die. Our  relief from this agony comes from the comparatively less grim efforts to find out why Lange fell and trying to reach next of kin. Bayliss spends the hour learning about the man who pushed him is a lunatic who had spent time in an institution for pushing another man in front of a train. Falsone and Lewis get called in on what is ultimately a futile search for Lange’s girlfriend who is jogging by the river and every few minutes we get some release as the detectives make  the effort. The only relief that Lange gets is the ‘one-in-a-million’ chance from the paramedic that he will somehow survive the removal.

But there are no miracles---or relief. This is Homicide. Lange’s death is random and arbitrary. Falsone and Meldrick never locate his girlfriend, so he never gets to say goodbye. Lange succumbs on the platform.  For everyone else--- even the rattled Frank Pembleton--- life must go on. The train starts running. And Lange’s girlfriend jogs by just in time to see the firemen and the paramedics pull away from the station---- leaving with only a cursory look. It is the ultimate ironic twist.

To merely summarize this episode robs it of its power. It is essentially a static scene, yet the emotion and anguish that we see is absolutely unforgettable. This may be Andre Braugher’s finest hour, and considering his body of work, that’s saying a lot. For once, his role is not that of grand inquisitor, but that of caregiver and confessor. He will be the last person that John Lange will ever talk to, and he must keep the victim calm, relate to this man, while keeping his own emotions in check. It is an extraordinary work. Braugher would win his only Emmy this season, and while I don’t know if this was the episode that he submitted for consideration, its hard to imagine a better example of his range and ability.

Just as brilliant is the work of Vincent D’Onofrio  as John Lange. The range and power of his performance is astonishing--- he shows more human emotion in this one hour than he has ever done in almost his entire career as the lead  on Law & Order: Criminal Intent. His work is riveting and absolutely unforgettable. Watching a ‘dead man’ go through the five stages of grief is not something that is easily forgotten and D’Onofrio pulls it out without a hint of overacting. This is the work of an astonishing performer.

‘The Subway’ may be the most famous episode of a remarkable series. The praise from critics bordered on the extraordinary. It received two Emmy nominations---  Best Guest Actor for D’Onofrio and Best Teleplay, plus probably Braugher’s. It would win an unprecedented third Peabody award for the series and an Edgar nomination for best teleplay.   It would later be featured on a PBS episode of ‘Frontline’. But its force and performance are among the greatest of any episode of television that I’ve ever seen. Never has it been more clear that a murder means that a man is dead. For those reasons I consider ‘The Subway’ one of the best episodes of television--- ever.  And even then, it’s only one of five episodes of the series that I consider the highlights of the series. That’s how high the writers and actors of Homicide set the bar.

My score: 5 stars.

Rank by Fans: 5^th

Homeland Season 7 Review

In a world where people are now seeing mass conspiracies behind every corner, and where even the most rational explanation of current events sounds like the ravings of a lunatic, its hard to tell whether the return of Homeland is timely or actually behind the curve. Certainly the trailers for Season 7 make it seem like the series is actually back at the right time, but this time, its hard to tell how accurate they are.

When Season 6 ended, President-elect Keane (Elizabeth Marvel) had just survived an assassination attempt headed by the inner-workings of her own intelligence community, an attempt that was only thwarted by the noble sacrifice of Peter  Quinn. But six months later, the country is still in a tailspin. After the initial group of arrests, Keane engaged in a series of arrests of 200 people in the intelligence community, including Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin), who we know was innocent. Enraged by this, Carrie left the government and has spent the last four months, engaging what amounts to a one-woman work against the Keane Administration, trying to get intelligence officers to testify to Congress. But in her efforts to try and take control, she has begun to spin out of control, a fact that in the most recent episode even she has begun to recognize.

What is not clear is just how justified her paranoia is. Yes, the President has been acting, at times, nearly as paranoid as Carrie has been, arresting journalists, demanding the death penalty for the general responsible for the attempt on her life, threatening the Senators on the Intelligence Committee. But is this residual from the assassination attempt? At one point, she memorably states "The last time they tried to overthrow the government was never" , and considering that she wants to remain true to agenda she was putting forth that made the intelligence community so determined to take her out last season,  at times, its hard to blame her for her anger.. It doesn't help matters that her new Chief of Staff (Linus Roche, memorably creepy) can't seem to decide whether he's trying to serve the interests of the country or his own. The real possibility that men do not like the idea of serving any woman, hinted at last season, is now being acted out in full force.

Then there are the bits that seem harder to pin down. When Saul is released along with 'the 200', and named her National Security Adviser, we find ourselves in an even darker place where Brent O'Keefe (Jake Weber) the right-wing correspondent who played a vital role in last year's coup  attempt has been on the run ever since a warrant has been out for his arrest. However, here Howard Gordon actually seems willing to double down, having O'Keefe continue to spout conspiracy theories and hang out with 'real Americans', even though he fails miserably at his attempt to shoot a gun, refers to them to his producer as 'the lunatic fringe', and seems perfectly willing to sacrifices dozens of lives if it means making a point. One can't help but think that this Gordon and company's attempt to retreat from much of the hard right views they seemed to be advocating way back when they were running 24 and well into last season of Homeland.

Some may say the series is becoming behind the curve, and maybe it is, as far as real world relevance. As entertainment value though, I find the current season of Homeland quite intriguing. The ambiguity that was so prevalent throughout the first two seasons, the material that made the series extraordinary when it was firing on all cylinders is back. Carrie Matheson is not, and never will be, Jack Bauer. But in many ways, I don't see that as a bad thing any more. Claire Danes' doubts about her own sanity and how it may be affecting how she deals with her job, and her family, are far more resonant than Jack's one man war on terror. When she finally realizes that she her sanity, which she has fought with for seven seasons and beyond may be a problems, it is emotionally resonant - as is the possibility that she may be right that there's a fly in the Keane Administration. 24, for all its brilliance, far too often saw things in simple black and white. Homeland has always been it best when it went for the gray areas. And as the series goes into what may well be its penultimate season, the fact remains Gordon's perspective of this world is far more accurate than he was before. For that reason, I'll stick with it a little longer.

My score:3.75 stars.

Homicide Episode Guide: Blood Ties, Part 3

Teleplay by Anya Epstein and David Simon;  Story By Tom Fontana, Julie Martin and James Yoshimura

Directed by Mark Pellingham

And so the ‘Blood Ties’ storyline comes to an end with a solution that some of us probably saw coming. The investigation into Melia Brierre’s murder has only taken three days, according to the show’s calendar, but it seems that took a bit of work to get to where we are now.

Maybe it’s because Frank has been unusually obstinate in his belief that the Wilson family was not responsible for Melia’s death. It’s  clear that he has been blindsided by the accomplishments of the Wilson’s and doesn’t want to believe they’re guilty. This is very human behavior, which probably surprised fans who had come to view Pembleton as a ‘supercop’. But Frank is enough of a person so that when he realizes his error, he is willing to pursue the truth to the end and damn the cost.

So when a search of the Wilson household reveals a cache of love-letters by Hal to Melia, he moves in, albeit in a  more subtle fashion then what he normally get from Frank. (Felix Wilson allows him to question Hal by saying that they will answer questions only if he doesn’t read them their Miranda rights. This seems more of a plot device than we usually get, but we forgive the writers because of the scene which follows). The truth comes out—Hal was in love with Melia, and three days ago he returned home to see her walking out of her father’s room.  Angry, he threatened to reveal the affair to his mother. The night of the benefit Melia came to the hotel to beg him not to and in a fury he slammed her head against the wall. 

Essentially what we have is a variation on an old story. The major variable is that the Wilson’s are black. But even learning of his sons actions Felix Wilson goes to extreme lengths to protect his son.  He doesn’t even have to try that hard. There is no physical evidence, the love letters aren’t damaging enough, and the confession is inadmissible. Hal Wilson walks away, literally. The next day the Wilson’s begin the process of leaving Baltimore, their good work for the city forgotten, the family in shambles.  Like many Homicides (especially the multi-part arcs) we get a resolution but there is no justice.

What remains is the characters reaction and we get a good measure of that. Braugher shows that he can still bring home the bacon even when he underplays thins as he does here. We also get something even rarer. When the case is finished, Ballard makes an effort to make peace with Frank for all the head-butting they did over the case.  Frank concedes that Ballard’s instincts were correct while his were not, an action akin to the Vatican admitting the infallibility of the Pope. We also see some fine work by Yaphet Kotto. For Giardello, this case is a lot harder as he watches  a life-long friendship disintegrate and we can see the pain. But in the end, he shows he’s pure police. When Regina Wilson confides she should have asked for help, he admits that he would have been wrong to give it to her. The Wilson have perpetuated a miscarriage of justice; this supersedes all the good work they have done in the past.

Past actions also come back to haunt another investigation. Wilkie Collins, the drug supplier who gave up Junior Bunk to Falsone and Lewis two days ago, is murdered along with his wife.  The killer left someone behind, though--- the Collins’ son. Again the spotlight shifts to Falsone, as he gently tries to learn what the child saw--- or more appropriately, what he heard. And it’s a honey. The killer is a former narcotics detective (one we met very briefly in ‘The Damage Done’ two seasons ago) who has been on the Mahoney payroll for years. Again we see the reach of the Mahoney family. Georgia Rae has been in pre-trial lock up for the past few days, yet somehow managed to call in a hit from jail.  Unfortunately, despite Gee’s assurance that Georgia isn’t going any where, she hasn’t begun to work her poison on the squad.

The Mahoney shooting continues to have ripples. Now Luther’s autopsy is troubling Cox as she thinks she was influenced by the fact that she was sleeping with Kellerman at the time. When she floats this question by her ex, he gets incredibly nasty and its clearly unnerving for her.

This is a good but not brilliant conclusion to the story arc. For one thing, the ending of the Brierre investigation is rather weak. For another, the writers continue to  focus more on some characters than others. Though Gharty and Bayliss are investigating the Wilson’s, they barely make an impression and except for one scene we don’t see Munch and Kellerman at all. The problem with balance continues to manifest itself.

Because of the fine performances by Braugher and Seda, as well as some excellent turns by James Earl Jones and Jeffrey Wright, ‘Blood Ties, Part Three’ is a good episode. The acting is good enough to get past the fact that this we’ve seen this kind of story done on other police dramas (though not with this particular angle).  It was a good arc, but considering how Homicide  handled to other three-part storylines we’ve come to expect a bit more from them.

My Score: 4.2 stars.