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.

This week, Munch gets away with murder.

Episode 3.16 “Law & Disorder”

(Dir by John McNaughton, originally aired on February 24th, 1995)

This week’s episode of Homicide gets off to a strange start, with a cameo from Chris Noth as Law & Order‘s Detective Mike Logan.  (Logan appeared early in the history of Law & Order, before North became known as the ill-fated Mr. Big on Sex And The City.)  Logan is transporting a prisoner to Baltimore and that prisoner is played by none other than John Waters!  Meeting Pembleton at the Amtrak station, Logan proceeds to bitch about Baltimore.  Pembleton bitches about New York.  Waters comments that Edgar Allan Poe hated New York.  When Pembleton says that Waters will be heading to prison but at least it will be a Baltimore prison, Waters says that’s why he didn’t fight extradition.  It’s a cute scene, though, as I watched it, I was struck by just how better of an actor Andre Braugher was than Chris Noth.  Noth delivered all of his line like a TV actor.  Braughter delivered his dialogue like a poet.

As for the rest of the show, we get several plotlines.  Bayliss is investigating the death of Gordon Pratt but, because Pratt shot Bolander, Felton, and Howard, none of his fellow detectives are that concerned about solving his murder.  Bayliss comes to suspect that it was a homicide detective who shot Pratt.  He asks Pembleton, Lewis, and Munch for their alibis and none of them really have a good one.  Myself, I think it’s pretty obvious that Much shot Pratt.  Munch’s hero-worship of Bolander, his anger after Pratt walked out of the station, all of it pretty much makes him the main suspect.  Lewis, who is still struggling to come to terms with Crosetti’s suicide, seems like he would be more likely to deal with his anger by drinking.  Even if he doesn’t want to admit it, Pembleton is too much of a wannabe Jesuit to do the eye for an eye thing.  Munch, though …. yeah, there’s no way Munch didn’t kill Gordon Pratt.  John Munch is a murderer.  (Okay, to be clear, the show leaves it ambiguous and never outright states that Munch was the killer but it’s still kind of obvious.)

And he gets away with it.  Bayliss tells Giardello that he’s followed-up every lead and that the Pratt case is just going to have remain open and go cold.  “Won’t help your clearance level,” Giardello shrugs.  It’s a decision that’s going to haunt Bayliss but the show suggests that Bayliss sees it as a sort of cosmic justice.  Before announcing that the case is going to go cold, Bayliss has a conversation with Pembleton and, of course, Bayliss brings up the Adena Watson case.  The Arabist got away with killing Adena Watson so Bayliss is going to let someone — Munch, let’s be honest — get away with killing Gordon Pratt.

Munch isn’t just a murder suspect in this episode.  He’s also a laughing-stock as a nude photo of him from his hippie days is the centerpiece of a photography exhibition that’s being put on by an ex-girlfriend (Valerie Perrine).  It was kind of strange, watching the episode go from Much being a suspected murderer to Munch being the comedic relief.  Still, I always enjoy it when the show remembers that Munch is basically a drug-addled survivor of the 60s.

Felton returns to the squad room, cleared for light duty.  He insists on going out to a crime scene with Giardello, leading to Felton stumbling around, making a fool of himself, and then throwing up afterwards.  Giardello informs Felton that he’s not a good detective in his current state but then again, Giardello adds, Felton has never been a good detective.  Ouch!  That’s harsh.  Of course, it’s also true.  As I’ve said before, I would not want sweaty, racist, borderline illiterate Beau Felton investigating the murder of anyone close to me.

Finally, Pembleton and Lewis investigated an apparently random shooting.  Pembleton thought the gunshot came from the projects.  Lewis insisted that the gunshot came from the white side of the neighborhood.  It turned out Lewis was right but Pembleton was unapologetic, saying he would investigate the case the exact same way if he had to do it all over again.  Watching this storyline, I found myself thinking about how black characters on television often feel interchangeable and they rarely have much of a personality beyond being a white person’s idea of what their black best friend might be like.  Homicide featured three prominent black characters — Lewis, Pembleton, and Giardello — and all three of them are portrayed as being unique individuals with their own different ways of viewing the world, the job, and each other.  Even today, when every television show is desperate to make sure everyone knows how “committed to diversity” they are, it’s rare to see a network show like Homicide, where black characters are portrayed as being individuals as opposed to just stereotypes.  This is something for which Homicide definitely deserves a bit more credit.

This was a good episode.  It appears the murder of Gordon Pratt will never be solved.  Of course, we all know Much did it.