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, Kellerman and Lewis head to a motel.

Episode 4.10 “Full Moon”

(Directed by Leslie Libman and Larry Williams, originally aired on April 5th, 1996)

If you go back and look over my reviews of Homicide, you might notice that the dates don’t always add up.  Last week’s episode aired at the start of January of 1996.  This week’s episode aired in April.  That’s because, when this show originally aired on NBC, the network did not adhere to the production order.  For instance, the show’s producers intended for Blue Moon to be the 10th episode of season 4.  NBC, however, decided to air it later in the season, as the 17th episode..  For the purposes of these reviews, I am following the production order as opposed to NBC’s order.

(Production order is also the order the was used when Homicide was released on DVD,)

As for this episode, it’s a bit of a change of pace.  For one thing, the episode centers on Lewis and Kellerman, with some assistance from John Munch.  The rest of the squad goes unseen as Lewis and Kellerman investigate a murder at a cheap motel on the outskirts of the Baltimore city limits.  As a result, the vibe of this episode is a bit less intense than the Pembleton/Bayliss episodes.  Lewis and Kellerman were far different detectives from Pembleton and Bayliss.  Whereas Pembleton and, at times, Bayliss often seemed to be on a holy crusade, Lewis and Kellerman were just doing their job.

That works for this episode, which is really more of a mood piece than a typical detective show.  An ex-con is shot and killed at a motel.  Lewis and Kellerman investigate the crime and meet the collection of eccentrics who work and live at the motel.  A large family of illegal immigrants lives in one small room.  A prostitute swims naked in the pool.  (Of course, Kellerman finds time to talk to her.)  The motel night clerk is studying for a better life.  The Reverend Horton Heat appears as a preacher.  The victim’s next door neighbor is an ex-con who stays at the motel because it feels like a prison.  This episode is full of slow and moody images and it’s far more of an examination of life on the fringes than a standard episode of Homicide.

Lewis does talk about his youth, growing up in the projects of Baltimore.  At the end of the show, he watches as the apartment building where he grew up is destroyed by controlled demolition.  The watching crowd cheers.  Lewis says, “Wow,” and then grabs a brick.  Meanwhile, the desperate characters at the motel go on with their eccentric lives.

This episode was a welcome change-of-pace, a noirish mood piece that showcased the teamwork of Clark Johnson and Reed Diamond as Lewis and Kellerman.  After the intensity of the sniper storyline, it was nice to just sit under the moon and watch things unfold.