Scott William Winters – 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, season 5 comes to a close.

Episode 5.22 “Strangers And Other Partners”

(Dir by Kenneth Fink, originally aired on May 16th, 1997)

It’s all hands on deck as the Homicide squad investigates the murder of Beau Felton. This episode opens with Giardello announcing that Pembleton will be the primary and that they will all be working with Detective Falsone (Jon Seda) of the auto squad and Detective Gharty (Peter Gerety) of Internal Affairs.

“I ain’t working with anyone from IID!” Falsone snaps.

Hey, Falsone — you’re a guest star. Shut up and do what you’re told, you prick.

The fifth season finale is a mess. Some of that is because Beau Felton was never a strong enough a character for his death to have the emotional kick that it’s obviously meant to have. Felton was not Crosetti. Felton wasn’t some sort of beloved icon. Felton was a jerk whose storylines were usually the least interesting of the show’s first three seasons.

An even bigger problem is that the emphasis is not on the detectives who we all know and love but instead on Falsone and Gharty. Falsone and Gharty go from being at each other’s throats to teaming up to use a shared informant to get the evidence they need to go after Felton’s murderer. Peter Gerety does a good job as Gharty. It helps that Gharty has a compelling storyline. He’s a cop that many people have dismissed as being a coward. He’s trying to prove himelf.

Falsone, on the other hand …. seriously, what is the deal with this douchebag? He spends this episodes strutting around in his stupid leather jacket, threatening to beat up people. I get that he’s supposed to be a tough cop but he just comes across like a jackass with anger management issues. It doesn’t help that actor Jon Seda gives a one-note performance in the role.

This whole episode is basically an introduction for Gharty and Falsone. The other Homicide cops are pushed to the side so that these two can grab some legitimacy before becoming regular characters during season 6. Gharty seems like he’ll be an okay addition to the ensemble. Falsone, on the other hand, should be allowed nowhere near a show like Homicide.

While all of that is going on, Kellerman and Cox are both struggling with their drinking. I’m a little bit tired of Kellerman and Cox, to be honest. Kellerman, at least, has a compelling storyline with the Luther Mahoney shooting. Dr. Cox, on the other hand, is starting feel superfluous. No one from the Homicide squad can step into a bar without running into Dr. Cox.

Finally, Pembleton and Mary meet and agree to give their marriage another try. Good.

This episode (and the season) ends with Felton’s murderer still on the run. Giardello announces that the Baltimore police department is instituting a new policy in which detectives will rotate from unit to unit. “In three months,” he tells the detectives, “none of us may be here.”

Season 5 was pretty good so it’s unfortunate that the finale was a mess. The strength of Homicide has always been its ensemble of quirky, flawed, and heart-breakingly human cops. Using the final episode of the season to focus on a one-note character like Paul Falsone almost feels insulting to the rest of the cast.

Next week, we start season 6!

This week, we discover that Daniel Baldwin will not be returning to Homicide.

Episode 5.21 “Partners and Other Strangers”

(Dir by Leslie Libman and Larry Williams, originally aired on May 9th, 1997)

A call to investigate what appears to be a suicide leads Pembleton and Brodie to an isolated house in Baltimore. The dead man has been found with a shotgun in his hands and his face blown apart. It’s not until Pembleton looks at the dead man’s ID that he discovers that the man is former Detective Beau Felton.

Played by Daniel Baldwin, Felton was originally a major character on Homicide. He was the cynical, sweaty detective who had an affair with Megan Russert, a partnership with Kay Howard, and a marriage with a crazy woman who wouldn’t let him see his kids. Felton is the one who Robin Williams yelled at for being an insensitive ass in the Bop Gun episode. As the series progressed and the focus shifted from characters like Felton and Bolander to Pembleton and Bayliss, Felton was given less and less too. Daniel Baldwin was fired from the series at the end of season 3. Felton was said to have been suspended for his rowdy behavior at a convention.

The episode fills us in on what happened to Felton after his suspension. He apparently retired from the force and then stopped returning phone calls. He disappeared and everyone else moved on. At first, the squad room wonders if they could have done anything to prevent Felton’s suicide. Howard and Lewis (who lost his previous partner to suicide and who nearly lost Kellerman to the same thing) are especially hit hard. We get several flashbacks to the episodes that featured Felton and we’re reminded of just how much Daniel Baldwin used to sweat when he was on the show.

Dr. Cox takes a look at the skull fragments and the blood splatter and she realizes that Felton didn’t kill himself. He was shot in the back of the head and then someone tried to make it look like he committed suicide. Pembleton, Howard, and Bayliss are now investigating the murder of Beau Felton and they’re getting some help.

Megan Russert flies in from France to offer up her skills as an investigator. If I remember correctly, Russert was never that good of a detective but it’s nice that she showed up.

Detective Paul Falsone (Jon Seda), from the auto theft squad, says that Felton was working with a notorious group of car thieves. Falsone wants to help the investigation for …. reasons, I guess.

Finally, Detective Stuart Gharty (Peter Gerety) shows up. When we last saw Gharty, he was a decorated cop who was too scared to enter an apartment building to help out one of his fellow officers. Now, Gharty is working for Internal Affairs. He reveals to Giardello that Felton was working undercover and he was helping to uncover a crooked cop in the department. Colonel Barnfather announces that Gharty is going to work with Homicide on the Felton case.

Even if I didn’t already know that Falsone and Gharty are going to become regular characters during season six, it would be obvious from the introductions they’re given in this episode. Peter Gerety, who later played a sympathetic judge on The Wire, is fine in the role of Gharty. But I can already tell that Falsone is going to annoy me. Some of it is because his character is the type of cliche that Homicide has, to this point, avoided. He’s a young rebel who gets results …. HIS WAY! From the minute he shows up, he’s telling Howard and Pembleton how they should conduct their investigation and it’s kind of annoying. I mean, who the Hell is this jerk? As played by Jon Seda, Falsone mumbles the majority of his dialogue and he just doesn’t seem like he belongs on Homicide.

This is a two-parter so we’ll see how the investigation wraps up (or doesn’t) next week. Oddly, I have to admit that Felton’s death didn’t really have the type of emotional impact that the show seemed to think that it would. Unlike the lovably eccentric Crosetti, Felton was never really that interesting of a character. Far more impactful than the squadroom thinking about all of the times Felton acted like a jerk was the scene where Pembleton followed Bayliss to his uncle’s home. Later, Pembleton told Bayliss that he now understood why Bayliss has been missing work. In the past, this would have led to a fight between the two of them but both Bayliss and Pembleton have grown over the season. Pembleton apologizes for following Bayliss. (“I’m a detective. It’s what I do.”) Bayliss opens up about how he’s struggling with the concept of forgiveness. As always, the show’s heart is with Bayliss and Pembleton.

Next week, season 5 comes to an end!