Retro Televison Review: Homicide: Life on The Street 4.9 “Sniper, Part Two”

Posted on October 5, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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, the sniper shootings continue.

Episode 4.9 “Sniper, Part Two”

(Dir by Darnell Martin, originally aired on January 12th, 1996)

Despite the suicide of William Mariner, people in Baltimore are still falling victim to a sniper who attacks every eight hours. All of the detectives, many of whom have just returned home from spending several sleepless days and nights investigating the first sniper, are called back in. At first, Pembleton and Bayliss suspect that Mariner must have had an accomplice. However, when a strange young man named Alex Robey (David Eigenberg) just happens to be at the scene of two separate shootings, it becomes clear that the second sniper is just a copycat who is looking for attention.

It’s quite a contrast between William Mariner, who lived in an upper class neighborhood and who died without revealing his motivations, and Alex Robey, who lives in a rowhouse and who reveals that he was obsessed with Mariner’s crimes. It’s a reminder that some murderers are easier to figure out than others. The detectives will never know what caused Mariner to snap. But Robey? Robey’s just desperate for attention.

Recently demoted Megan Russert works with the Squad, despite Barnfather ordering Giardello to keep her away from the case. (Wisely, Giardello ignores Barnfather.) By pretending to be sympathetic to his resentment over being treated as a “nobody,” Russert plays a key role in Robey eventually confessing to being the sniper. The episode makes it clear that Russert is going to become the latest member of the Homicide squad. That’s fine but I do sometimes wish that this show could introduce a new detective without having them miraculously solve the big case. This season started with Kellerman displaying detective skills that he has not displayed in any episode since. This week, it was Russert’s turn to suddenly be the greatest detective this side of Frank Pembleton. It makes me miss the relative realism of the earlier seasons, where even the best detectives sometimes struggled. Bayliss failing to close the case of Adena Watson was one of the defining events of Homicide’s first season. If Adena had died during the fourth season, there’s no way the Arraber would have gotten away with it.

With Alex Robey confessing to being the second sniper, it looks like maybe the people of Baltimore are actually going to break from being shot at people on rooftops. Good for them, they deserve a break.

Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life on the Street 4.8 “Sniper, Part One”

Posted on September 28, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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

This week, a sniper terrorized Baltimore.

Episode 4.8 “Sniper, Part One”

(Dir by Jean de Segonzac, originally aired on January 5th, 1996)

This week, Bayliss investigates a red ball!

Actually, the case turns out to be a red ball within a red ball!

And then it turns into a third red ball!

A red ball is a term used for a case that is going to draw a lot of media attention and which is going to result in pressure from the guys in command. It’s an actual term, one that was introduced in the David Simon book that served as the inspiration for Homicide. I’m pretty sure that the term was also used in The Wire, though perhaps not as much as it was used in Homicide.

It’s hard not to notice that, starting with the third season, there have been a lot of red balls on Homicide. If one were to judge solely based on seasons 3 and 4, one might be justified in thinking that Baltimore was the serial killer capitol of the world. That’s not really a complaint because most of the red ball episodes have been pretty entertaining. Still, it’s very much a contrast to the first two seasons, where the emphasis was always put on gritty realism and the recurring theme was that, outside of the Homicide detectives, the media didn’t really care about the majority of the murders taking place in Baltimore because the victims were almost always minorities in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods.

This latest red ball involves a sniper who is gunning down people at random and leaving behind a hangman game at each location. He’s trying to figure out a 9-letter word. It’s an odd motivation but serial killers are odd people. Bayliss, who is suffering from back pain and popping muscle relaxants like candy, gets the case because, as he continually reminds us, he was the one who answered the phone. (Somehow, Bayliss does manage to get through the investigation without bringing up Adena Watson.)

While Bayliss tries to find a killer who shoots people at random, Russet deals with the brass. Colonel Barnfather, who was originally quite enthusiastic about promoting her, now suddenly hates her and the episode ends with Russert getting demoted back down to being a detective. (So, I guess that Giardello’s homicide squat will be getting a new investigator.) Russert’s demotion felt like it came out of nowhere but, from a dramatic point of view, it made sense. This show already has Giardello as the beloved boss. It didn’t also need Russert in the role.

As for the killer, he is tracked down by his signature on the receipt that he signed when he purchased his chalk. He turns out to be a nervous insurance agent who has a big house in the suburbs and who is playing a hangman game in his study. When Bayliss attempts to negotiate with him and asks him to leave the study, the insurance agent asks for a letter. “Uhmm …. B,” Bayliss says. B turns out to be just the letter that was needed and the insurance agent promptly shoots himself in the head.

The word that he was trying to come up with turns out to be Eromitlab. Look at in a mirror.

This was a good episode, even if it did sometimes go a bit over the top with everyone shouting, “We’ve got a red ball!” and the nonstop montages of the detectives swarming the streets of Baltimore. I’ve really grown to love Kyle Secor’s performance as Tim Bayliss and this episode featured Bayliss at his loopy best. For an episode about a serial sniper who ended up killing eight people, there was a rather odd sense of humor running through it. This is an episode that started with Jay Leno coming in the Waterfront Bar. (Munch tells Bayliss that Leno is probably sick of people treating him like he’s famous so they decide to ignore him until Leno gets mad and leaves the bar.) When the first shooting is called in, the phone rings several times before anyone is able to answer, leading to Munch to question whether a murder has actually occurred if no one answers the phone. Bayliss obsesses on his upcoming back surgery. “Its says a possible side effect is death!” Bayliss exclaims, looking over the information about the operation. Meanwhile, Brodie gets on everyone’s nerves with his big video camera.

Ominously, this episode with a second sniper climbing up to the roof of the building. The red balls continue.

Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life On The Street 3.14 “Dead End”

Posted on June 22, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the elusive Glenn Holton is captured but is really the shooter? Read on and find out!

Episode 3.13 “Dead End”

(Dir by Whitney Ransick, originally aired on February 3rd, 1995)

There’s a truly remarkable moment in this week’s episode of Homicide.

Glenn Holton (Steve Hofvendahl) has finally been arrested and is sitting in the Box. Holton is the pedophile who is suspected of murdering a child. Last week, Felton, Bolander, and Howard were all shot while trying to serve a warrant for his arrest. Bayliss and Pembleton are interviewing him, attempting to get him to confess to shooting the detectives.

At first, Holton is adamant that he did not shoot anyone. But as Pembleton and Bayliss shout at him and tell him about all the things that are going to happen to him as a sex offender in prison, Holton’s demeanor starts to change. He becomes desperate and confused and suddenly, he confesses to shooting the detectives. The only problem is that the story Holton comes up with doesn’t match the facts of the case. He claims that he shot the detectives on the roof of his apartment building. He claims they were coming at him. When asked what type of gun he used, Holton says it was just some gun that he bought on the street. The more Holton talks, the more obvious it becomes that, while he did murder the child, he didn’t shoot the detectives.

It’s an interesting scene because it shows just how easy it could be to get a false confession out of a suspect. It’s left ambiguous as to whether or not Holton was lying because he preferred to be sent to prison for shooting a cop instead of killing a kid or if maybe Holton actually had deluded himself into thinking he was the shooter. If Bayliss and Pembleton hadn’t asked him follow-up questions about the shooting, Holton probably would have been charged with the shooting. He did, after all, confess.

Holton’s going to jail for murder but the shooter is still out there. Who fired the gun? I suspect I know, just because next week’s episode features a special guest star. But we’ll talk about that next week!

The interrogation scene was the highlight of this week’s episode. Still, I enjoyed the scenes of Munch working with Bolander’s ex-partner Mitch and struggling to hide his jealousy. (Bolander is always complaining that Mitch was a far better partner than Munch.) I was a bit less interested in this week’s Russert plot. Megan was told to investigate whether or not Giardello was at fault for the detectives going to the wrong apartment. She discovered Giardello did approve and initial the warrant without double-checking the address. Giardello was prepared to take the blame but Russet instead lied and claimed that, because of budget cuts, she and Giardello were both often rushed into signing things without getting a chance to fully examine them. I’m not sure that’s a particularly good excuse but it worked.

At the hospital, Howard woke up from her coma. Bolander is still in his coma and was not present during this episode. (From what I’ve read, Ned Beatty was apparently not happy with the whole shooting storyling, feeling that it went against the realism that was supposed to be Homicide’s calling card.) Lewis and Felton had a heart-to-heart about what it’s like to lose one’s partner. It was an effective scene, even if Felton has become a bit of a one-note character.

This was a good episode and a marked improvement on last week. I look forward to seeing how things conclude (or if they even do conclude) in the next episode.