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.

Oh my God, this episode….

Episode 4.22 “Work Related”

(Dir by Jean de Segonzac, originally aired on May 17th, 1996)

At first, the fourth season finale of Homicide: Life On The Street feels like a typical episode of Homicide.

Lewis, having just returned from his honeymoon, obsesses on a case in which a man was killed by a bowling ball dropped from an overpass.  Kellerman doesn’t feel that the case can be solved.  The murder was just too random.  Lewis, however, refuses to let it go.  As Kellerman soon deduces, Lewis doesn’t want to go home because he and his new wife are already fighting.

Meanwhile, Bayliss is frustrated by Pembleton’s refusal to act like a sentimental new father.  While Bayliss talks about the wonder of life, Pembleton coldly talks about how expensive it’s going to be to raise a child.  It’s the typical Bayliss/Pembleton dynamic.  Bayliss wants his partner to open up.  Pembleton wants to keep things strictly business.  Bayliss wants to find the deeper meaning of every event.  Pembleton wants to remain rational and focused on doing his job.  They’re both spiritual men, in their way.  It’s just that Bayliss is a seeker whereas Pembleton is a man on a mission.

Bayliss and Pembleton investigate a shooting at a fast food restaurant.  It doesn’t take much of an investigation to realize that the shooter was a recently fired employee and that his accomplice was a friend who still worked there.  When Pembleton and Bayliss get the friend into the box, it seems like it’s going to be an easy investigation.

That’s until Pembleton suddenly yells out, grabs his head, and has a violent seizure.  He collapses into the lap of a venal defense attorney who quickly shoves Pembleton away.  Pembleton is rushed to the hospital.  He’s had a stroke.  The rest of the Homicide squad sees a comatose Pembleton lying in bed.  But the viewer has seen the inside of Pembleton’s mind, where Pembleton is currently lying in a coffin and screaming to be released.

Agck!

I knew this episode was coming.  Ever since I started reviewing Homicide, people have told me about the stroke episode.  That said, it still took me by surprise when Pembleton collapsed.  Pembleton has always been the strongest character on the show, the one who never lost control and whose mind could unravel any alibi and solve any mystery.  Pembleton crashing to the ground, helpless and unable to speak, was not easy to witness.  Andre Braugher was a great actor and he proved it in this episode.

That was how the fourth season ended, with Pembleton lying in a hospital bed and Giardello trying to keep the squad focused on doing their job while Bayliss — poor Bayliss! — found himself once again trying to understand the cruelty of fate.  It was powerful, it was disturbing, it was sad, and I think it was the type of thing that only a show as good as Homicide could have pulled off.

Next week, we begin season 5.  I’m almost scared to see what happens.