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, we discover why Steve Crosetti has not come back to work.

Episode 3.4 “Crosetti”

(Dir by Whitney Ransick, originally aired on December 2nd, 1994)

Detective Steve Crosetti has yet to return from a week-long vacation in Atlantic City.  When Giardello asks Lewis where Crosetti is, Lewis lies and says that he has the flu.  In truth, Lewis hasn’t heard from Crosetti but he remains convinced that his partner will soon return and will once again be annoying him with all of his theories about Abraham Lincoln.

Meanwhile, Bolander and Munch are called to the harbor.  A body has been fished out of the water.  The body has been in the water for a while and, from what we see, its bloated and the skin has turned the purplish color of decay.  Bolander and Munch have no idea who the man is but they see that he’s wearing a lapel pin that identifies him as a member of the Fraternal Order of Policeman.  They check the body for ID….

Lewis is called in Giardello’s office.  Giardello tells Lewis that Steve Crosetti is dead.  His body was found in the harbor.  Bolander is investigating but all signs seem to indicate that Crosetti’s death was a suicide.  Lewis refuses to believe it.  He is convinced that Crosetti was murdered, perhaps by someone he investigated.  Lewis takes out his anger on Bolander and Munch, feeling that they’re attempting to besmirch Crosett’s reputation by even considering the possibility of suicide.

It’s more than just Lewis’s feelings at stake.  If Bolander determines that Crosetti committed suicide, it will make him the fourth Baltimore cop to have committed suicide that year.  The brass says that Crosetti won’t get an honor guard if it’s determined that he committed suicide.  Giardello subtly suggests that Bolander should rule the death of homicide.  Bolander suggests that committing suicide was Crosetti’s final statement.   Who are they to ignore a man’s final statement?

In the end, the toxicology results reveal that Crosetti was drunk when he fell in the harbor, leading to Lewis saying the death was an accident.  Munch then reveals that Crosetti was also taking several anti-depressants at the time of his death and Lewis is finally forced to admit that Crosetti was not murdered.  Crosetti does not get his honor guard, though Pembleton, after spending the whole episode acting as if he didn’t care, puts on his full dress uniform and salutes as Crosetti’s casket passes.

This was an incredibly powerful episode, all the more so because no explanation is given as to what specifically led to Crosetti taking his own life.  The genesis behind the episode was not a happy one.  One of NBC’s conditions for renewing Homicide for a third season was that Jon Polito, who was not considered photogenic enough for television, be written out.  Showrunner Tom Fontana told Polito it would only be a temporary thing and that Crosetti would return once the show had been renewed for a fourth season.  Polito didn’t believe Fontana and went to the press, complaining about how the show was being run.  As a result, Crosetti ended his life.  (Polito and Fontana later ended their feud, allowing Polito to return as a ghost at the end of Homicide: The Movie.)  The show uses Crosetti’s suicide as a way to explore the psychological impact of being a cop as well as the impossibility of truly knowing what’s going on inside anyone’s head.  Only after Crosetti’s suicide has been confirmed can Lewis look back and see certain signs that Crosetti was unhappy.

Wonderfully acted and wonderfully written, this episode is a dark one but, as so often happens with life’s darker moments, there are moments of humor.  Pembleton brags about his parallel parking skills, just to discover that he can’t actually pull out afterwards.  An attempt to buy cookies for Crosetti’s reception leads to a fierce argument between Bayliss and Pembleton, regarding both the price of cookies and whether or not the baker was actually Italian.  We meet Munch’s younger brother, a rather bitter mortician.  When Lewis cleans out Crosetti’s desk, the first thing he pulls out is a yo-yo.  These are small moments but they affirm the humanity of the show’s characters and reminds us that the show and this episode in general is as much about living as it is about dying.

Steve Crosetti, RIP.