Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Mondays, I will be reviewing Crime Story, which ran on NBC from 1986 to 1988.  The entire show can be found on Tubi!

This week, David Abrams gets his time in the spotlight.

Episode 1.6 “Abrams For The Defense”

(Dir by Aaron Lipstadt, originally aired on October 14th, 1986)

In the slums of Chicago, Hector Lincoln (Ving Rhames) strikes his landlord, Sturkowski (Frederick Nuemann), after one of Hector’s children is bitten by one of the rats that roams freely through the apartment building.  Hector is arrested and facing time in prison.  Public defender David Abrams (Stephen Lang) defends Hector in court, claiming that conditions in the slums were so bad that Hector only struck Sturkowski in self-defense.  Helping David to make his case about the conditions in Sturkowski’s building is a crusader reporter named Suzanne Terry (Pam Grier).

This episode was all about showing us who David Abrams is.  David’s father was a mob lawyer but David has no interest in working with people like Ray Luca and Phil Bartoli.  Instead, he wants to defend the poor and the downtrodden.  Torello and Krychek happen to stop by the trail and they’re impressed with David’s passion.  Krychek is disgusted when Sturkowski says that Hector and his family don’t deserve to live a better life.  Who knew that two Chicago cops would be so liberal?

To celebrate Hector’s acquittal, a block party is held.  David is the guest of honor and, for reasons that aren’t really clear, he decides to invite Torello and Krychek to come celebrate with him.  Everyone at the block party is super excited that two cops are hanging out with them.  But then Sturkowski tries to evict the Lincolns and Hector strikes him again.  This time, he kills Sturkowski.  Torello and Krychek promptly arrest Hector as the episode comes to an end.

(And that is why you don’t invite cops to the block party.)

This episode was well-acted, if a bit heavy-handed.  (To a certain extent, it reminded me of those episodes of Miami Vice where Crockett would certainly start talking like an undergrad who had just read about Marx for the first time.)  It certainly allowed us to get to know more about David Abrams and Stephen Lang and Pam Grier had a good deal of chemistry as two people who appear to be poised on pursuing a relationship that was not all that common in 1963 Chicago.  The block party was where the episode kind of lost me, just because I found it hard to believe that Torello and Krychek would not only show up but be treated as the guests of honor despite the fact that most of the people at the party wouldn’t have the slightest idea who they were.  I can understand Abrams being welcomed because Abrams kept Hector out of prison.  But Torello and Krychek are just two random, middle-aged, white cops.

This episode established David Abrams as being a man caught between two different worlds, the law and lawless.  I can’t wait to see what the show does with him.