Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Sundays, I will be reviewing Homicide: Life On The Street, which aired from 1993 to 1999, on NBC!  It  can be viewed on Peacock.

What happened to the diamond ring?

Episode 5.14 “Diener”

(Dir by Kyle Secor, originally aired on January 31st, 1997)

Still on the outs with Bayliss, Pembleton is forced, by order of Giardello, to work with Lewis.  The last time that Pembleton and Lewis worked together, the result was chaos.  Lewis didn’t have any patience for Pembleton’s arrogance and Pembleton obviously didn’t respect Lewis as a detective.  This time, it goes a bit smoother.  Pembleton, thanks to Bayliss, has learned how to work with others and Lewis, having lost Crosetti and seen Kellerman pushed to the edge of suicide, is a bit more sensitive than we’ve seen in the past.

The victim is a rich woman who liked to support struggling art students.  Lewis suspects that the killer was one of the students.  Pembleton suspects that it was the woman’s brother and his suspicions turn out to be correct.  When the woman’s belongings are released by the ME’s office, the brother immediately notices that a diamond ring is missing.  But how did the brother know that his sister was wearing the ring when she died?

As for the diamond ring, it was stolen by Jeff (Glenn Fitzgerald), who works in the morgue.  It turns out that Jeff has been stealing from the dead for a while.  Dr. Cox gets a big scene in which she fires him.  He definitely deserved to be fired and I assume that he will also be going to jail.  That said, the name of this show is Homicide.  It’s not named “Medical Examiner.”  I like Michelle Forbes’s performance as Dr. Cox but it’s still hard not to feel that, at least as far as the fifth season is concerned, the show is sometimes a bit too quick to try to force her into every story.

While Pembleton solved there case, his wife considered leaving him.  Bayliss tried to warn Pembleton but Pembleton shrugged off Bayliss’s comment.  In fact, Pembleton told Bayliss that he’s fine no longer working with him.  I nearly screamed with frustration.  Seriously, you two — work it out!