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.
It’s Christmas in Baltimore.
Episode 6.8 “All Is Bright”
(Dir by Matt Reeves, originally aired on December 12th, 1997)
It’s the holidays! Falsone (ugh) is still talking about suing to get custody of his kids. (Seriously, Falsone — either do it or shut up about it. We already had to go through this crap with Felton a few seasons ago.) Lewis and Kellerman are worrying about whether or not Georgia Rae has footage of Kellerman executing Luther Mahoney. Bayliss is suddenly making out with Cox at the Christmas party. Well, why shouldn’t he? It’s impossible to go in a bar or even a shop in Baltimore without running into Dr. Cox.
Meanwhile, Gharty and Ballard are investigating the murder of man in a laundromat. Someone beat him to death and poured bleach down his throat. It turns out that the man was HIV+ and he infected a woman named Rita (the great Kathryne Erbe). Rita is now visibly sick and dying while the man who infected her wasn’t showing any signs of being sick at all. Rita’s guilt is never really in question. The issue is that Ballard feels sorry for Rita and understands her anger while the older and more-traditionally minded Gharty sees her as just being another murderer. It’s a pretty simple story but Callie Thorne and Peter Gerety sold it. The fact that Gharty is obviously in love with Ballard adds a whole other level of meaning to their scenes together.
Speaking of love, Munch’s ex-wife Gwen (Carol Kane) showed up at the bar and recruited Munch to help with her mother’s funeral. Only real-life author Peter Maas showed up for the ceremony. Munch, of course, asked Gwen about Lennie Briscoe. Belzer and Kane were a great team. I’m a bit disappointed that there was apparently never a Munch/Gwen spin-off.
Watching Gharty and Ballard provided a needed relief from all of the Falsone-centered episodes that I’ve had to sit through recently. This was a simple episode but a good one.
