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, Torello finally tracks down Homan.

Episode 1.12 “Hide and Go Thief”

(Dir by Francis Delia, originally aired on December 12th, 1986)

In Chicago, an unnamed gunman (Paul Guilfoyle) has taken a woman (Lorraine Bracco) hostage and has barricaded himself in a hotel room.  He wants to get on television and he figures that holding a hostage and firing a machine gun out the window is the best way to do it.  The members of the Major Crimes Unit are in the street, ducking behind squad cars whenever the gunman starts firing on them.

It’s definitely a major situation but Torello is more interested in going to Gary, Indiana than exchanging gunfire in Chicago.  Frank Homan (Ted Levine), a former member of Luca’s crew, has been discovered  working as a cook in a Gary diner.  Everyone in Gary knows Frank as “Mike Torello.”  The real Torello is determined to arrest Frank and hopefully use him to take down Luca.  Torello abandons the hostage situation, drives down to Gary, and captures Homan at work.

Finally, some good news for the real Mike Torello, right?  Well, not quite.  After Homan is arrested, U.S. Attorney Harry Brietel (Ray Sharkey) takes custody of him.  Brietel has political ambitions and taking down gangster Manny Weisbord would be a good way for him to make a name for himself.  When Homan is interrogated by Brietel, Homan lies.  He says that he’s never heard of Manny Weisbord.  But, Homan says, he has information that will take down Luca, Phil Bartoli, and a crooked cop.  In exchange for a light sentence and entry into the witness protection program, Homan is willing to testify that Mike Torello is on the take.  Brietel is intrigued.  Fighting police corruption is guaranteed to generate even better press than taking down an actual mobster.

Meanwhile, back in Chicago, Torello rejoins the MCU at the hostage situation.  (Apparently, the gunman has been awake and firing out of his hotel window for two and a half days straight.  One gets the feeling that perhaps it’s wise not to give too much thought to the logistics of this episode’s timeline.)  In a well-shot, slow-motion scene, Torello and his men storm the hotel room and shoot the gunman dead.  The hostage survives.

Significantly, neither the gunman nor the hostage are given names in this episode.  Indeed, Paul Guilfoyle is credited as playing “Deranged Gunman.”  That’s because the gunman and the hostage are really only there to show just how obsessed Torello has become with Luca.  When it comes to destroying Luca and his fledgling criminal empire, all else can wait, even saving an innocent woman from an armed lunatic.

I usually don’t enjoy watching anything that involves a hostage situation because it always seems to lead to the same predictable narrative beats.  Fortunately, this episode avoided most of the usual cliches by making the gunman a total nutcase who never stopped firing his weapon.  The scene where Torello and his men storm the hotel room was stylish enough to verge on being surreal.  As for the Homan plotline, both Ted Levine and Ray Sharkey provided strong performances and I’m looking forward to seeing how Luca and Torello react to being betrayed by the same guy.

All in all, this was a good episode.