Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life On The Street 4.16 “Stakeout”

Posted on December 7, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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 detectives take over someone else’s house.

Episode 4.16 “Stakeout”

(Dir by John McNaughton, originally aired on March 15th, 1996)

When a young man confesses to helping an older man carry out a series of murders, the Homicide Squad stakes out the older man’s house. Jim True-Frost and Kate Walsh play the owners of the home that the squad takes over. The husband is out of work. The wife has a habit of oversharing. While they try to adjust to having cops hanging out in their living room, the detectives adjust to the idea that Bayliss may be leaving them.

Once again, Bayliss is thinking about leaving Homicide. This has been a recurring theme with Bayliss, ever since he failed to close the Adena Watson case. (In this episode, he mentions that his number one suspect — Risley Tucker — has recently died.) Bayliss’s complaint is that he still feels like he barely knows the other detectives. He mentions that he’s never even been to Pembleton’s house. Pembleton asks if Bayliss is really that surprised that Pembleton might want time to himself when he’s not on the clock. Bayliss talks about how the Vice Squad regularly has barbecues. He talks about the comradery that he felt when he was on the Governor’s security detail. But Homicide tends to attract the misanthropes and the eccentrics.

Of course, Bayliss doesn’t leave Homicide. At the end of the episode, he takes one look at the board and sees that he still has one open case. “I can’t leave until the Lambert case is closed,” Bayliss says while Pembleton smiles.

Giardello, meanwhile, is struggling with the knowledge that his daughter is getting married to a man that he’s never even met. Giardello has been invited to the wedding in San Francisco but he keeps finding excuses not to go. Pembleton finally convinces Giardello that he needs to go to his daughter’s wedding. Unfortunately, when Giardello arrives at the airport, he’s told that all flights have been grounded due to the weather. So, Giardello misses the wedding regardless.

Eventually, the killer returns to his home. He’s a stout man who looks like he should be selling insurance. Bayliss and Pembleton arrest him and the stakeout ends. The husband, who has been out looking for a job, pulls up just as Bayliss and Pembleton are leaving. Life goes on for everyone but the dead.

This episode was okay. I appreciated that it was a return to the character-driven drama of the earlier seasons. The snowy imagery brought a lot of atmosphere to the episode and director John McNaughton (of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer fame) did a good job framing scenes that could have come across as being excessively talky in lesser hands. That said, the husband and the wife were not that interesting and I never really bought the idea that they would pour out all of their marital woes to a bunch of strangers in their living room.

This is my final Homicide review for 2025. Retro Television Reviews is taking a break for the holidays! Homicide will return on January 11th, 2026.

Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life On The Street 4.13 “I’ve Got A Secret”

Posted on November 2, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Ring ring. “Homicide.”

Episode 4.13 “I’ve Got A Secret”

(Dir by Gwen Arner, originally aired on February 2nd, 1996)

This week, almost everyone has a secret.

For example, when Pembleton and Bayliss are called in about a man found dead in his car, they discover that, earlier in the day, he went to a local ER after being shot. The gunshot wound, which was accidental, didn’t kill him. Instead, it was the internal bleeding that the doctor either missed or intentionally ignored. Dr. Kate Wystan (Mimi Kennedy) may come across as being a selfless doctor who has dedicated her life to helping the residents of Baltimore’s most crime-ridden neighborhood but Pembleton and eventually Bayliss come to suspect that her secret is that, because the victim was black and a known criminal, she didn’t give him the same standard of care that she gives to her other patients. Pembleton considers this to be murder, though it sounds more like a case of malpractice than anything else.

Munch spots Kay kissing a man outside of police headquarters and he becomes obsessed with trying to figure out who the man is. He’s always believed that Kay is happy being single and alone. (Uhm, hello? Munch? Remember when she dated Ed Danvers?) Kay’s secret is that apparently she has a life outside of Homicide.

Finally, Lewis and Kellerman spend the entre episode chasing a burly man who is wanted for killing both of his parents. At first, this entire storyline feels almost like a parody of NBC’s request that the series start featuring more action. Lewis and Kellerman spend the entire first half of the episode chasing this guy through allies and pool halls and every time, they fail to catch him. There’s none of the badass heroics that we’ve come to expect from cop shows. Eventually, Lewis reveals that his brother is in a mental institution. When Lewis tries to visit his brother, he’s just turned away. Lewis’s secret is that he actually cares about his brother.

This was an okay episode. By this point in the series, Homicide had reached the point where it could do an episode where the true enjoyment came less from the storyline and more from just listening to the characters talk to each other. I really didn’t care much about the crimes that they were investigating. Instead, I just enjoyed listening to Pembleton and Bayliss talk and bounce ideas off of each other. They’ve come along way since the day that Bayliss objected to Pembleton’s interrogation technique and Pembleton shouted that he would never have a partner. By the same token, Kellerman and Lewis have their own unique chemistry that is fun to experience. They’re like the sensitive frat cops. As for Munch and Kay, they should just hook up already. It’s obvious to everyone that they’re in love!

Maybe that’s their secret?

Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life On The Street 4.12 “The Hat”

Posted on October 26, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, incompetence reigns.

Episode 4.12 “The Hat”

(Dir by Peter Medak, originally aired on January 19th, 1996)

There’s a running theme in this week’s episode and that theme is incompetence.

With Russert having been demoted all the way back to detective, there is now a captain’s vacancy. The squad room is convinced that Giardello is going to get promoted. For that matter, Giardello is also convinced that he’s going to be promoted. Instead, the promotion goes to Roger Gaffney (Walt MacPherson), the racist martinet former homicide detective who nearly got into a fist fight with Pembleton during the white glove murder investigation.

(Giardello, for all of his strengths, has never played the political game as well as those around him.)

Munch thinks that a lawyer who he arrested for murder is going to be convicted. However, it turns out that the video that Brodie shot at the crime scene shows that a key piece of evidence was mishandled. Munch tells Brodie to erase the tape. Brodie refuses to tamper with evidence. (“It’s illegal,” he says.) As a result, the murderer walks free. And while it’s true that Brodie’s refusal to erase the tape did lead to an guilty man walking, it’s also true that it wouldn’t have been a problem if the cops on the scene hadn’t screwed up in the first place.

Finally, Lewis and Kellerman are sent to Pennsylvania to pick up Rose Halligan (Lily Tomlin), a woman suspected of murdering her husband in Baltimore. Lewis and Kellerman are supposed to go straight to Pennsylvania and then come right back to Maryland, without making any unnecessary stops. Instead, they screw up. Kellerman decides to stop off at a run-down amusement park that he remembers from his childhood. Later, Lewis and Kellerman stop off at a diner so they can get some dinner. When Rose excuses herself to go to the restroom, they not only remove her handcuffs but they also allow her to go unaccompanied. Needless to say, Rose escapes, makes her way back to Baltimore, and stabs her husband’s mistress to death before getting Lewis and Kellerman track her down.

Lily Tomlin was this episode’s big guest star, for better or worse. Sometimes, when a big name appears on a television show, it becomes obvious that there wasn’t anyone around who was willing to tell them that they were overacting just a bit and that would certainly seem to be the case here. Rose is a music teacher so this episode really tests one’s tolerance for Lily Tomlin singing opera. That said, Tomlin was quietly effective at the end of the episode, sitting out on a porch while her former friend lay dead in the house. Rose says she was returning her friend’s hate and, indeed, the dead woman in wearing the hat that Rose wore throughout almost the entire episode.

All said, I enjoyed this episode. Lewis and Kellerman may be incompetent but they’re still entertaining to watch. As for the hated Roger Gaffney getting the job that Giardello deserved …. well, isn’t that always the way?

Retro Television Review: Law and Order 6.13 “Charm City” and Homicide 4.11 “For God And Country”

Posted on October 19, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Homicide crosses over with Law & Order.

Law & Order 6.13 “Charm City”

(Dir by Ed Sherin, originally aired on February 7th, 1996)

Homicide 4.11 “For God and Country”

(Dir by Ed Sherin, originally aired on February 9th, 1996)

This week, we have a two-part cross-over between Law & Order and Homicide.

On Law & Order, things start in New York City. A chemical attack on a subway train leaves 20 people dead. Because the train was specifically heading into Harlem and all of the victims were black, it is suspected that the attack was racially motivated. In Baltimore, Frank Pembleton and Tim Bayliss hear about the attack and are reminded of a similar attack on a black church, which occurred five years prior. Pembleton was the primary on the church attack. He and Bayliss head to New York City, where they meet and quickly get on the nerves of Detectives Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Rey Curtis (Benjamin Bratt).

Pembleton’s investigation uncovers that a man from Baltimore, Brian Egan (Kevin Geer), not only had access to the chemicals used in both attacks but also that’s he currently in New York. When Briscoe and Curtis arrest Egan and fail to get him to confess, Pembleton asks for permission to interrogate him. Pembleton, being Pembleton, rather easily gets Egan to confess to having committed the church bombing. However, before getting the confession, Pembleton pretends not to hear Egan say that he no longer wants to continue talking. In typical Law & Order (if not Homicide) fashion, the confession is tossed out.

Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) and Claire Kincaid (Jill Hennessy) still get their conviction. (And Claire gets an admirer in the form of Tim Bayliss.) However, it’s obvious that Egan was not working alone. Egan says that he will never name names.

That changes when his wife is murdered and his teenage son goes missing. Homicide opens with Bayliss investigating the poisoning of Egan’s wife. He and Pembleton eventually track down Egan’s son and they get him to admit that he saw his uncle, former NSA agent Col. Alexander Rausch (J.K. Simmons), murder his mother. Because Brian Egan has said that he’ll only reveal the truth of the conspiracy if his son is brought to New York, Briscoe and Curtis show up in Baltimore.

While Curtis, Bayliss, and Pembleton track down Colonel Rausch, Briscoe hangs out with Munch. Their friendly banter goes south as soon as Briscoe mentions that he once knew a Gwen Munch in New York. Gwen is John Munch’s ex-wife and John is not happy when he finds out that Briscoe slept with Gwen. John Munch spends the rest of the episode drinking heavily. Stanley Bolander would not approve.

As for Col. Rausch, he is captured and he turns out to be a smug snake. (He’s played by J.K. Simmons, after all.) Pembleton wants to see Rausch prosecuted for the church bombing and he especially wants to see racist Rausch publicly humiliated. New York, however, wants to prosecute him for the subway attack. Claire comes down to Baltimore and gets a judge to agree that Rausch should first be sent to New York.

Rausch doesn’t care. He has a heart condition so he simply stops taking his heart pills and then drops dead while waiting for the train to take him to the Big Apple. The episodes ends with Pembleton sobbing as he realizes Rausch will never be humiliated at a trial. The New York cops shrug and say, “Sorry, Frank.”

I enjoyed this crossover quite a bit. It was interesting to see two police dramas, each with a very different style, come together to tell one big story. As Homicide always celebrated the lengths that Pembleton would go to get a confession in the Box, it was amusing to see what would actually happen to one of those confessions if it was brought to court. Jack McCoy is not at all amused by Pembleton’s tactics. Meanwhile, Briscoe, Curtis, and Claire was allowed to loosen up a bit when they went to Homicide and I enjoyed watching them shed their “just-the-facts” personas. If the Law & Order episode was ultimately superior to the the Homicide episode, that’s just because the Law & Order episode featured an actual mystery to be solved whereas the Homicide episode occasionally felt as if it was padded out a bit. On Homicide, it was obvious that Colonel Rausch was guilty and, from the minute he started to cough during the interrogation, it was easy to guess what his ultimate fate would be.

(I also have to say that it was interesting to compare this episode of Law & Order to watch Law & Order has become today. How this show went from featuring McCoy confidently doing his job to Nolan Price essentially begging his co-counsel, on a weekly basis, to actually do her job is something that is worth considering.)

Overall, this was a good crossover. For those who want to watch it, the Law & Order episode is available on Hulu and Disney+ while Homicide can be found on Peacock and Tubi.

Retro Televison Review: Homicide: Life on The Street 4.9 “Sniper, Part Two”

Posted on October 5, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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.

Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life on the Street 4.8 “Sniper, Part One”

Posted on September 28, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sundays, Lisa will be reviewing Homicide: Life On The Street, which aired from 1993 to 1999, on NBC! It can be viewed on Peacock.

This week, a sniper terrorized Baltimore.

Episode 4.8 “Sniper, Part One”

(Dir by Jean de Segonzac, originally aired on January 5th, 1996)

This week, Bayliss investigates a red ball!

Actually, the case turns out to be a red ball within a red ball!

And then it turns into a third red ball!

A red ball is a term used for a case that is going to draw a lot of media attention and which is going to result in pressure from the guys in command. It’s an actual term, one that was introduced in the David Simon book that served as the inspiration for Homicide. I’m pretty sure that the term was also used in The Wire, though perhaps not as much as it was used in Homicide.

It’s hard not to notice that, starting with the third season, there have been a lot of red balls on Homicide. If one were to judge solely based on seasons 3 and 4, one might be justified in thinking that Baltimore was the serial killer capitol of the world. That’s not really a complaint because most of the red ball episodes have been pretty entertaining. Still, it’s very much a contrast to the first two seasons, where the emphasis was always put on gritty realism and the recurring theme was that, outside of the Homicide detectives, the media didn’t really care about the majority of the murders taking place in Baltimore because the victims were almost always minorities in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods.

This latest red ball involves a sniper who is gunning down people at random and leaving behind a hangman game at each location. He’s trying to figure out a 9-letter word. It’s an odd motivation but serial killers are odd people. Bayliss, who is suffering from back pain and popping muscle relaxants like candy, gets the case because, as he continually reminds us, he was the one who answered the phone. (Somehow, Bayliss does manage to get through the investigation without bringing up Adena Watson.)

While Bayliss tries to find a killer who shoots people at random, Russet deals with the brass. Colonel Barnfather, who was originally quite enthusiastic about promoting her, now suddenly hates her and the episode ends with Russert getting demoted back down to being a detective. (So, I guess that Giardello’s homicide squat will be getting a new investigator.) Russert’s demotion felt like it came out of nowhere but, from a dramatic point of view, it made sense. This show already has Giardello as the beloved boss. It didn’t also need Russert in the role.

As for the killer, he is tracked down by his signature on the receipt that he signed when he purchased his chalk. He turns out to be a nervous insurance agent who has a big house in the suburbs and who is playing a hangman game in his study. When Bayliss attempts to negotiate with him and asks him to leave the study, the insurance agent asks for a letter. “Uhmm …. B,” Bayliss says. B turns out to be just the letter that was needed and the insurance agent promptly shoots himself in the head.

The word that he was trying to come up with turns out to be Eromitlab. Look at in a mirror.

This was a good episode, even if it did sometimes go a bit over the top with everyone shouting, “We’ve got a red ball!” and the nonstop montages of the detectives swarming the streets of Baltimore. I’ve really grown to love Kyle Secor’s performance as Tim Bayliss and this episode featured Bayliss at his loopy best. For an episode about a serial sniper who ended up killing eight people, there was a rather odd sense of humor running through it. This is an episode that started with Jay Leno coming in the Waterfront Bar. (Munch tells Bayliss that Leno is probably sick of people treating him like he’s famous so they decide to ignore him until Leno gets mad and leaves the bar.) When the first shooting is called in, the phone rings several times before anyone is able to answer, leading to Munch to question whether a murder has actually occurred if no one answers the phone. Bayliss obsesses on his upcoming back surgery. “Its says a possible side effect is death!” Bayliss exclaims, looking over the information about the operation. Meanwhile, Brodie gets on everyone’s nerves with his big video camera.

Ominously, this episode with a second sniper climbing up to the roof of the building. The red balls continue.

Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life On The Street 4.7 “Thrill of the Kill”

Posted on September 21, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Homicide explores the theory that, when it comes to twins, there’s always an evil one.

Episode 4.7 “Thrill of the Kill”

(Dir by Tim Hunter, originally aired on November 10th, 1995)

Pembleton and Bayliss are working with the FBI to try tack down Newton Dell (Jeffrey Donovan), a Florida man who the FBI believes has committed a series of murders up and down the interstate. He’s in Maryland now, driving a stolen truck. Pembleton and Bayliss are able to catch him, though not before three murders have been committed in their jurisdiction. However, in the Box, Newton insists that he was not the murderer. He says that the murderer was someone who was traveling with him but he refuses to give out the name. He says he can’t betray the murderer. Even when it’s pointed out that his fingerprints were found at the crime scenes, Newton insists that that the murderer wasn’t him.

Bayliss thinks that Newton is trying to set up a insanity defense. Pembleton doesn’t care. His job is to catch people who commit murder and, as far as he’s concerned, he’s done just that. Besides, Newton Dell’s story doesn’t make any sense. Why would his fingerprints be all over the crime scene if he wasn’t the killer? Why has every witness provided a description that roughly fits Newton Dell?

Strangely, neither man seems to remember that Munch earlier mentioned that Newton Dell has a twin brother.

Yes, you read that correctly. This week, Homicide — a show that started off as a very realistic and gritty crime drama — present us with a murderous twin!

Miles Dell calls the department and lets them know that he can’t let his brother go to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Soon, all of the cops are pulling up outside of a convenience store. Miles (also played by Jeffrey Donovan) is waiting for them. In the store, a dead clerk is sprawled out on the floor. So, that’s another murder that occurred because Pembleton and Bayliss somehow overlooked the evil twin theory!

The entire tone of this episode feels different from every episode that preceded it. With this episode, we hear the tortured inner thoughts of Miles Dell, we get some random slow motion, and we finally get an ending that is so over the top that it feels like a dry run for CSI or Criminal Minds. Yes, Bayliss and Pembleton do have their usual philosophical debates about the nature of evil. This is definitely a Homicide episode. However, it’s also a Homicide episode that shamelessly embraces the melodrama. There’s not a subtle moment to be found in this episode. It’s a weirdly entertaining episode but it’s still somewhat jarring to watch. This is one of those episodes that was obviously made to keep NBC happy. One need only compare it to something like Doll’s Eyes to see how different this episode was from what came before it.

Again, it’s an entertainingly trashy episode. Bayliss and Pembleton are enjoyable to listen to. Jeffrey Donovan was entertainingly over-the-top as both Newton and Miles. That said, I hope this episode was just a one-off and not a sign of what’s waiting for me over the rest of the season 4.

Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life on the Street 4.6 “Hate Crimes”

Posted on September 14, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Lewis solves a cold case.

Episode 4.6 “Hate Crimes”

(Dir by Peter Weller, originally aired on November 17th, 1995)

On the eve of Thanksgiving, a young man is killed outside of a gay night club. Bayliss and Pembleton are investigating. All of the witnesses say that the man was jumped by a group of skinheads. While Pembleton, as usual, is set on capturing the guilty party, Bayliss is uncomfortable about the what he assumes to have been the victim’s identity.

Bayliss is a homophobe? Really?

I guess this development doesn’t come totally out-of-nowhere. There was an earlier episode where Bayliss was clearly uncomfortable dealing with an S&M-themed murder so he does have a history of getting weirded out by anything that goes against what he considers to be the straight and the conventional. At the same time, it’s kind of hard to feel that Bayliss is often just whatever the writers need him to be at the moment. For this episode, Pembleton needed a homophobe to deal with. And, since Felton and Bolander are no longer on the show, the job fell to Bayliss, even though Bayliss — even at his most awkward and uncomfortable — has never been presented as being prejudiced before. For me, it’s hard not to feel that the episode would have been even more interesting if it was Pembleton — self-righteous, faith-struggling, Jesuit-trained Pembleton — was uncomfortable with the victim’s identity and if, for once, Bayliss could have been the tolerant one. Pembleton’s a great character but occasionally, it’s hard not to feel that he’s almost too flawless.

That said, this storyline features a brilliant twist. When Pembleton and Bayliss talk to the victim’s father (the great Terry O’Quinn), they ask him if he knew that his son was gay. The father gets angry at them, says that if his son was gay then he deserved to die, and then kicks them out of the house. Later, Bayliss and Pembleton learn that the victim was not gay. Instead, the skinheads assumed he was gay and attacked him because he was outside of the nightclub. Bayliss and Pembleton return to the victim’s father and tells him that his son wasn’t gay. Only then does the victim’s father start to cry. For him, his son was not worthy shedding a tear over until he was assured that his son wasn’t gay. Of course, the father doesn’t realize that his prejudice is the same prejudice held by the skinheads who killed his son. He’s stunned to hear his son was killed due to a mistake but it doesn’t occur to him that he rejected his son because he made the same mistake.

While that was going on, Lewis defied Howard and solved the Erica Chilton case. (During the previous season, Howard was given the Chilton case after Crosetti committed suicide. The since-departed Felton lost a key piece of evidence.) When Erica Chilton’s daughter was brought to the office because she had been having dreams about her mother’s death, Lewis and Kellerman were the two detectives that talked to her. Howard was not happy about this, saying that Lewis should have let her handle the interrogation. Lewis. who has not been happy about Howard getting promoted to sergeant, told her to back off and to stop criticizing his former partner. While the two of them were arguing, Kellerman got the little girl to remember that the murderer was wearing a monogrammed shirt and that his initials with “T.M.” At the time of her murder, Erica was engaged to Tom Marans (Dean Winters).

Howard demanded that Lewis tell her before he interrogated Marans so that she could be in the Box. So, of course, after Lewis and Kellerman tricked Tom into coming down to the station by telling him they needed him to look over some new evidence, Lewis proceeded to interrogate Tom without Howard being there. With help of a new voice analysis machine, Lewis was able to get Tom to confess without much effort. Lewis was also able to get a date with the voice analyst, Debbie Haskell (Allison Smith). Sgt. Howard, meanwhile, got very, very pissed off.

Finally, Brodie (Max Perlich) — the cameraman who helped Lewis and Kellerman out a few episodes ago — got a new job when he was hired to help the Homicide Department film crime scenes. I’m kind of amazed that they didn’t already have someone to do that.

This was a good episode, even if Bayliss’s homophobia did feel a bit forced. While Andre Braugher and Kyle Secor were as great as always, I have to say that Clark Johnson really stole this episode as the cocky and rebellious Meldrick Lewis. Howard is absolutely right about Lewis not treating her with the respect that she deserves. At the same time, Lewis did finally solve the Chilton case. So, maybe they’re even.

Probably not.

Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life On The Street 4.4 “A Doll’s Eyes”

Posted on August 31, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week’s episode made me cry and cry.

Episode 4.4 “A Doll’s Eyes”

(Dir by Kenneth Fink, originally aired on December 1st, 1995)

Here in America, there’s recently been a lot of debate about how much of a problem crime actually is. It’s a bit of an odd debate because much of it is based on telling people to ignore what they’re seeing and experiencing and to instead, just take comfort in abstract statistics and numbers. “Actually,” we’re told, “crime is down from last year,” as if the claim that there’s slightly less of it being reported somehow negates the fact that it exists.

Those who say that crime is not a big deal often forget that crime is not just a matter of statistics and police reports. Crime is something that happens to people. It’s something that scars people. It’s not something that most people can just shrug off. Every crime is different and everyone reacts to being a victim in their own individual way but react, they do. It’s easy to be dismissive of people’s concerns about crime when you’re not the one getting your house broken into or hearing gunshots in the night. It’s easy to say “It was just a mugging,” when you’re not the one getting mugged and losing whatever trust you may have once had in the system. Seth Rogen once tweeted that he didn’t care that his car got broken into because he wasn’t into worrying about possessions. That’s easy to say when you can just buy a new car whenever you feel like it. For someone who can’t and is now stuck with the knowledge that they’re not even safe in their own car, it’s considerably more difficult to be so cavalier. Crime is about more than just statistics and numbers. For those who have been victimized, it’s about loss. It’s about never feeling truly safe or secure again.

This week’s episode of Homicide fellows Pembleton and Bayliss as they investigate a shooting at a mall. A young boy was caught in the crossfire and now, he’s on life support at the hospital. For Pembleton and Bayliss, it starts out as another case. Tracking down the shooters is not difficult. Getting the shooters to confess is not difficult. Pembleton and Bayliss aren’t dealing with master criminals here.

For the boy’s parents (played, in two heart-breaking performances, by Marcia Gay Harden and Gary Basaraba), the shooting of their son is the moment that their lives stopped. They’re the one who eventually have to make the decision to take their son off of life support. Hearing that their son’s organs were donated and are helping other people provides cold comfort. Their only son is dead and, as this episode make clear, they’re not going to be okay. Some would describe their son as just being another statistic, part of the count of how many people died in Baltimore during any given year. For his parents, he’s Patrick, a 10 year-old who loved dinosaurs and science and whose life was ended because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. When Bayliss runs into the father of a girl who got an organ transplant as the result of the Patrick’s death, the girl’s father muses on how strange it is that one child died so that his girl could live. It’s a powerful moment, one that really captures the humanity at the heart of this show’s best episodes. Patrick’s parents will never recover but his murder has led to other people being saved. Was it worth the cost? The show is smart enough to leave the question for us to ponder.

This episode made me cry. It reminded me a bit of season 2’s Bop Gun, with its mix of the family trying to deal with an unimaginable tragedy while, for Pembleton and Bayliss, it’s another day at work. I would actually say this episode was superior to Bop Gun. Bop Gun tried too hard to wrap things up. A Doll’s Eyes understands that sometimes, this is no way to wrap things up. Life just keeps moving.

Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life on The Street 4.2 “Fire Part Two”

Posted on August 17, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Guest reviewer alert! I’m filling in for Lisa on the Homicide beat this week. Let’s take a look at the second episode of the fourth season.

Episode 4.2 “Fire Part Two”

(Dir by Nick Gomez, originally aired on October 27th, 1995)

Continuing from where the previous episode ended, Pembleton, Bayliss, and Kellerman investigate the second warehouse fire. Another victims has been found burned to a crisp in the fire. Her dental records identify here are Bonnie Nash, a teenage girl. The positioning of her body indicates that, unlike the first victim, she was already dead when the fire was set.

Pembleton continues to dislike Kellerman and gets especially annoyed when Kellerman announces that he’s decided to quit smoking. Bayliss is suffering from a degenerative disc and spends more time complaining about the pain than actually investigating the case. It’s Kellerman who solves the case and tricks chemistry teacher Gavin Robb (Adam Trese) into confessing. While in the box with him, Kellerman plays good cop and even tells Robb that he’s free to leave after Robb denies being the arsonist. As Robb stands, Kellerman whispers, “Why did you kill the dog?”

Without thinking, Robb replies, “I didn’t know it was there.”

(Of course, there was no dog there.)

Realizing his mistake, Robb confesses. Bonnie was one of his students. Having decided to kill her, Robb set the first fire to fool everyone into thinking that there was a serial arsonist on the loose so that the arsonist would be blamed when Bonnie’s body was found in the second fire. The first death was an accident. The death of Bonnie was premeditated. When asked why he killed Bonnie, Robb replies, “That’s my personal business.”

Giardello invites Kellerman to join Homicide. At first, Kellerman refuses because he doesn’t think he’s smart enough to be a member of the murder police. But after visiting his father at his dead-end job in a distillery, Kellerman changes his mind.

Meanwhile, Kay and Munch both study for the sergeant’s exam. Kay makes it to the exam and probably aces it. Munch can’t find his lucky socks and misses it. I would have missed it too. You can’t do anything without the lucky socks.

This episode was an improvement over the previous episode. Last episode, Kellerman came across as being a cliche, the hot-headed cop who has a problem with authority. This episode, Kellerman was more likable and also a lot less cocky. That he’s insecure about whether or not he can keep up with the other homicide detectives makes him a very relatable character. It would have to be intimidating to find yourself suddenly working with someone like Frank Pembleton, who is always portrayed as being the best of the best.

As I mentioned last week, Reed Diamond was originally a controversial addition to the cast. At the time, many critics said the show was selling out by casting an actor who didn’t look like Ned Beatty or Jon Polito. Reed Diamond and Mike Kellerman would both prove themselves, leaving little doubt that they belonged. Later, Homicide would make some bad casting decisions. (Five word: Jon Seda as Paul Falsone.) But Reed Diamond, with this episode, steps up and shows that he can keep up with the rest of the squad.