bellino-angelo2014

As I said in the summary, even tho crime shows are supposed to be dead serious at least once there must be a comedic episode for tone down the theme. Heck, even in COLUMBO and MURDER SHE WROTE we had at least one so why don't have one in HOMICIDE? Now I can go to the review.

Lewis and Kellerman are sent to Pennsylvania for pick up Rose Halligan (Lily Tomlin, who is much more known in the US than here in Italy) and take her to Baltimore since she killed her husband there. When Lewis and Kellerman leave her alone in the car for a break and return they find her at the house of her husband's mistress after just killing her (the mistress was wearing the hat that Rose's husband gave her as a present once and was enough reason for the murders according to Rose). In the meanwhile at the unit a case investigated by Munch falls apart when Brodie's videotape shows lack of key evidence, and as everyone hopes that Giardello is promoted to Captain instead Roger Gaffney receives the promotion.

The main reason why I didn't gave a higher score mostly fall on Tomlin's character's shoulders. Perhaps it was written that way, perhaps the director said her to act that way but in some moments it was too much and too loud... sort of like Madonna in WHO'S THAT GIRL tho that movie is a comedy so it was expected from Madonna to act that way. For making few examples of this, Rose starts motormouth talking making Lewis and Kellerman see why the other police officers didn't allowed her to talk and after the mistress' murder she drives like crazy passing a red light and crashing to an hydrant. As for the second story it was great and actually more humorous in tone despite it wasn't supposed to thanks to the tape trouble.

So my score for the episode would be: a 4 for the murder story, a 8 to the unit part. And merging it, a 7 is more than adequate considering also the standards for which we are used if we arrived at this point with the show.

After the suspect of the sniper attacks in the previous episode shot himself, there has been a glimpse of another sniper and in fact when this new episode starts the sniper attacks restart forcing the exhausted detectives to return to work including Megan Russert thanks to Giardello's intervention. While Pembleton believes that the new shooter is connected to the first, Russert thinks that it might be a copycat and helps the detectives get a confession from the killer trapping him.

Compared to the first part this is a bit blander because it was obvious that the new sniper was in cahoots with the previous one all the time (also for replacing him after an eventual death and so it happened) but the ending when they manage to trap him makes this conclusion worthwile.

As 1996 starts the newly cleaned board is soon covered with red names when a sniper starts terrorizing Baltimore, 9 people end dead and the unit is put on red alert. In every crime scene there is a game of hangman made of chalk, and this takes the detectives to a suspect that ends up killing himself even tho the house was surrounded by cops. Captain Barnfather demotes Megan Russert from captain to detective because of her poor handling of the case and she doesn't return there until three other people die thanks to the sniper. In the end Pembleton suggests his wife to have surgery for his chronic back pain.

The strong thing of the episode might be the investigation about the sniper that caused havoc on Baltimore on New Year's day tho it will continue in the following episode and I found funny the Jay Leno cameo towards the end which is a satire on how Baltimore residents treat famous people. Another of the many great episodes of the show.