Scott Morgan | 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, 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.

This week …. is the Homicide Unit cursed?

Episode 3.19 “Colors”

(Dir by Peter Medak, originally aired on April 28h, 1995)

A Turkish teenager who is dressed and made up like a member of KISS is lying dead on a front porch. Jim Bayliss (David Morse) claims that the teenager was banging on his door and acting aggressive. He says that he grabbed his gun to protect his family and that he ordered the teenager to get off his porch before he shot him. The teen’s friend, who was standing a few feet away, says that the victim raised his hands before he was shot and that he was only at the house because he was trying to go to a party and got the wrong address.

Pembleton thinks that Jim shot the teenager even though he knew the teen was no longer a threat and because he was angered by the teen’s broken English. It’s true that Jim did once get into a fight in a bar with someone who was visibly Middle Eastern. Jim’s wife mentions that Jim gets annoyed with people who can’t speak English. Pembleton says that Jim is so prejudiced that he doesn’t even think twice about assuming the worse about anyone who isn’t white.

Complicating things is that Jim Bayliss is the cousin of Tim Bayliss.

Tim spends almost the entire episode trying to defend his cousin. He asks Giardello for permission to be in the Box during the interrogation, (Giardello refuses, rightly pointing out that Tim has a conflict of interest.) Later, while watching the interrogation, Tim gets so angry that he breaks a two-way mirror. Oddly, the one thing that Tim doesn’t do is tell his cousin to ask for a lawyer, which would have ended the interrogation before it could even get started. Eventually, Ed Danvers, who we haven’t seen much of this season, takes Jim before a Grand Jury and the Grand Jury declines to indict. Everyone in the courtroom applauds but Tim is left to wonder if Pembleton was correct about his cousin.

At one point, Bolander says that he fears that the Homicide Squad may be cursed and then he lists all of the things that have happened over the course of the third season — Crosetti committed suicide, three detectives were nearly killed in a shooting, Munch opened a bar, and now Bayliss and Pembleton are fighting. Bolander has a point. It’s a bit much, particularly when you compare it to the first two seasons. Homicide took a melodramatic turn during the third season. That doesn’t mean that the show hasn’t been good. The acting continues to be amazing. But it’s still quite a contrast to how the show started.

As for this episode, David Morse kept you guessing as Jim Bayliss. At first, Jim just seems like a harried home owner who wanted to protect his family. As the episode progresses, his anger becomes more and more pronounced until the viewer is left feeling that Jim was destined to eventually shoot someone. That said, this episode was occasionally a bit too much on the nose in its storytelling. It also left unaddressed something that should have been a bigger issue. Should Pembleton have been allowed to investigate the case or lead the interrogation, considering that Tim is his partner? Giardello was rightly concerned about Tim’s conflict of interest but he never addressed the fact that Pembleton potentially had one as well.

Next week, season 3 comes to an end.