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, Bayliss and Pembleton are partners again and again, they find themselves on two different sides of the same case.

Episode 5.18 “Double Blind”

(Dir by Uli Edel, originally aired on April 11th, 1997)

Where do I put my hate? Tim Bayliss asks his Uncle George (Robert Bornarth) at the end of this week’s episode.

Uncle George is the man who abused Bayliss when he was younger.  The final few minutes of this episode features Bayliss tracking down George to the decrepit house that George calls home.  Stepping aside, Bayliss sees that George is now an old man with a persistent cough.  The messy house is full of empty liquor bottles.  George is a pathetic, frightened old man and it’s obvious that he doesn’t have much longer to live.

Bayliss has just finished investigating the case of a chef who was found shot to death in his home.  It quickly became obvious that the chef was abusive and that he was shot and killed by his teenage daughter (Monica Keena).  Pembleton sees it as justifiable homicide but Bayliss says that it doesn’t matter that the victim was a terrible person.  The fact that he was shot three times (twice after he was already on the ground) proves that it was a deliberate execution.  For once, Bayliss is the one saying that the law is the law while Pembleton is the one worried about the human cost of their investigation.  It’s such a reversal in their usual pattern that Pembleton has to laugh.  And yet, it works.  Having found his previously lost faith, Pembleton now believes that there is more to existence than the letter of the law.  Pembleton also realizes that Bayliss wants to call it a murder because, deep down, he wishes he had done the same thing to his uncle.  The victim’s daughter did what Bayliss could never bring himself to do.

It’s an interesting storyline, featuring great work from Andre Braugher and especially Kyle Secor.  Unfortunately, this episode had a few other plotlines that weren’t quite as interesting.  Kellerman and Cox continued their tentative, emotionally-damaged romance, with Kellerman finally confessing that he was suicidal when Cox last visited him on his boat.  Meanwhile, Lewis supported former patrolman Chris Thormann (Lee Tergesen) when the man who blinded him came up for parole.  The Lewis storyline was a sequel to a first season episode and I appreciated that the show made an effort to maintain continuity.  That said, it just wasn’t that interesting of a story.

Still, that final scene with Bayliss and his uncle was undeniably powerful.  Seriously, what is Bayliss going to do with all of his hate?  There are no easy answers.