John Fiore – Through the Shattered Lens

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, Homicide crosses over with Law & Order.

Law & Order 8.6 “Baby, It’s You”

(Dir by Edwin Sherin, originally aired on November 12th, 1997)

Homicide 6.5 “Baby, It’s You”

(Dir by Edwin Sherin, originally aired on November 14th, 1997)

In New York City, Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Rey Curtis (Benjamin Bratt) find themselves investigating the death of a 14 year-old model named Brittany Janeway. The daughter of plastic surgeon Steven Janeway (Tom Tammi) and his wife Gayle (Maureen Anderman), Brittany died after complaining to her father about abdominal pain. The medical examiner determines that, two weeks before her death, Brittany was sexually assaulted with such severity that it resulted in internal injuries that led to toxic shock.

When the detectives learn that Brittany was in Baltimore two weeks earlier, they call Lt. Giardello and ask if he can send two of his detectives to check on the family’s Maryland home. The job falls to Detective Munch, who is still angry over the fact that Briscoe once slept with his first wife. Munch asks Falsone (ugh!) to accompany him. When Munch and Falsone learn that the son of the Janeways’s New York housekeeper was seen in Baltimore on the night that Brittany was raped, they have a suspect. Danvers sends them to New York with one mission. Arrest the guy and bring him back to Baltimore to stand trial. Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) is not happy about that. Because Brittany died in New York, he feels that it’s his case to prosecute. Because the rape that led to Brittany’s death happened in Baltimore, Danvers claims that it’s his case.

Of course, once the suspect is arrested, it turns out that he wasn’t the perpetrator. Instead, he was a witness. According to him, Brittany had already been raped by the time he arrived at the house. The suspicion immediately shifts to Dr. Janeway. When the doctor is arrested in Baltimore, McCoy heads down to Maryland to argue that the case should be tried in New York. Judge Andahl (Sagan Lewis), who was last seen getting Elijah Wood off of a murder charge, disagrees. However, she allows McCoy to be co-counsel with Danvers.

In a twist that will not surprise anyone who has ever seen an episode of Law & Order, it turns out that Brittany was not assaulted by her father. Instead, she was assaulted by her mother.

The last time Law & Order and Homicide did a cross-over, the emphasis was on Pembleton and Bayliss and their unorthodox interrogation technique running up against McCoy’s need for admissible evidence. This time, when McCoy goes down to Baltimore, he quickly befriends and starts to discuss life with — you guessed it! — Detective Paul Falsone! In fact, Pembleton and Bayliss are barely present in this cross-over. While Munch does get to engage in some fun passive-aggressive banter with Lennie Briscoe, this cross-over is ultimately all about Paul Falsone, the super detective who never makes a mistake.

Good Lord, why? WHY DOES EVERYTHING HAVE TO BE ABOUT FALSONE? Falsone is a boring character. We are five episodes into the sixth season and Falsone has been a major part of four of them. The veteran Homicide actors were pushed to the side so that Jon Seda could wander around and mutter his lines. I get that show was trying to appeal to fans of more action-orientated cop shows with the character of Falsone but, in what I’ve seen so far, Seda has not shown a hint of charisma in the role. The fact that Homicide keeps insisting that Falsone is the greatest detective in the history of detectives does not make the character any more intriguing.

This crossover was a disappointment, The story, which was obviously based on the JonBenet Ramsey case, was sordid simply for the sake of being sordid and the big reveal that the murderer was the mother was not quite the shocking moment that it was bult up to be. Anyone familiar with Law & Order could have guessed who the murderer was going to be. And then, on top of everything else — FALSONE!

This was not a good one.

Remember CODA?

I ask that because this 2021 film often seems to be forgotten about when people discuss the films that have won the Oscar for Best Picture. Indeed, when the Oscar nominations were first announced for that year, many commentators treated the film’s nomination as an afterthought. It was pointed out that CODA only had a total of three nominations, for Picture, Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor. It was expected that Troy Kostur would win Best Supporting Actor but it was also felt that Best Picture would be won by one of the big nominees, like The Power of the Dog, Belfast, or West Side Story.

But, interestingly enough, the momentum began to shift shortly after the nominations were announced. The nomination brought the film to an entirely new audience, all of whom could stream the movie on Apple TV+. The members of the Academy who hadn’t seen the film before the nominations were announced watched the film and many reportedly fell in love with the simple but touching story of a teenage girl who must decide whether to go to music school or to stay at home with her deaf parents and older brother. By the time the Academy Awards were held, CODA had become the new front runner.

How did this happen? A lot of it had to do with the fact that CODA was an unabashedly emotional story, one that was specifically made to bring tears to the eyes of the audience. CODA was more humanistic than the remote and cold Power of the Dog. Whereas both West Side Story and Belfast were obviously made with Oscar glory in mind, the low-budget CODA felt as if it simply wanted to tell a good story. Unlike Dune, CODA was not made to launch a franchise and, unlike King Richard, it was about more than just one performance. Its straight-forward approach provided quite a contrast to the stylized flourishes of Nightmare Alley and Licorice Pizza. (Incidentally, Nightmare Alley and Licorice Pizza were my two favorite films of the year.) It should also be remembered that CODA, like the previous year’s Nomadland, was watched while many people were still hiding their faces behind masks, terrified of catching COVID. It was a time when many people were yearning for something that would just make them feel good.

And whatever else one might say about CODA, it’s definitely a feel good movie. From the wonderful moments when Ruby (Emilia Jones) discovers her love for singing to the slyly humorous and emotionally honest performances of Troy Kostur, Marlee Matlin, and Daniel Durant as Ruby’s parents and brother, CODA is a film that will make you smile and think about the people who you consider to be your family. It’s a sweet movie, one that reminds us that it’s okay to get emotional and that it’s okay to tell people that you love them and that, as an artform, film can be used for something other than just comic book adaptations.

That’s not say it’s a perfect film, of course. Those who complained that CODA had the flat look of a made-for-TV movie were not incorrect and the fact that most people ended up watching the movie on TV (or, in my case, on a laptop) did not help with the issue. As Ruby’s music teacher, Eugenio Derbez gives a rather broad performance that often fells at odd with the more realistic work of the rest of the cast. The film had its flaws but it also made me smile and the end brought real tears to my mismatched eyes and there’s something to be said for that. During a year when many people were still afraid to get close to anyone else, CODA was a film that celebrated love, family, and community.

Did CODA deserve to win Best Picture? Like I said, I would have given the Oscar to either Nightmare Alley or Licorice Pizza but I liked CODA and, looking back, I certainly prefer its positive vibes to the well-made emptiness of Power of the Dog. The low-key CODA is probably destined to join The Artist and Argo as one of the best picture winners that people tend to forget but no matter. It’s a film that holds up well and, in 2021, it was exactly the film that a lot of people needed.