Some thoughts on "The One That Got Away," the March 3 episode of NYPD Blue, after a quick synopsis: --------------------------------------- Andy and Bobby have an unsuccessful day trying to nail Officer Tommy Richardson for murdering his mistress; Diane and Sylvia both return to work, and wind up teaming (with Jill) to outfox a camera thief; Sylvia confronts Andy about his tumor; Medavoy gets a false alarm about Abby's pregnancy; Upstairs John pays a visit to advertise his new computer graphics business ----------------------------------------- (Still noddling around with my reviewing format in this brave new, post-summary world, I shall attempt to discuss this week's episode by topic. Hopefully it won't suck.) -DOWN GOES SIPOWICZ! DOWN GOES SIPOWICZ!: Well, it had to happen sooner or later -- and it probably should've happened sooner than this late -- but it looks like our heroes finally blew one, and in a two-parter, no less. My fears that this was going to be an "Upstairs, Downstairs" retread proved largely groundless (the only parts that evoked it were the scenes with Mike Shannon, but those were pretty necessary in this case, and I liked the moment where Shannon realized he was backing the wrong horse but had to do it anyway). Instead, it turned into a pretty good mystery, proving once again why Milch & Co. should find more excuses to keep perps out of the interview room: when Andy and Bobby can't rely on their gift for interrogation, it spices things up a lot. I especially enjoyed Andy attempting to threaten Richardson in the radio room and failing utterly. ("I had a plan going in; coming out, I don't know what I had.") Again, my only gripe is about Matthew Glave's performance as Jason; ever since I read a comment on the newsgroup that he was doing an impression of French Stewart on "3rd Rock," it became impossible not to see that every time he spoke. Also, if I were a more naive fan, I would say that I want to see a bit of fallout from Andy and Bobby's second investigation of a precinct cop -- even if it's just Shannon, Miller and the others acting surly around them for a few weeks -- but I know we probably won't see any, so I won't get annoyed when it happens. -GIRL POWER: A very solid B-story all around (and a rare non-comic second case), highlighted, as others have noted, by that scene in the observation room where Diane, Jill and Sylvia gang up on the victim and tell him to cut out the macho bullshit, think about his girlfriend and his future, and ID the shooter. That scene would have played very differently with Sipowicz and Simone, since the victim probably would have listened to them more quickly (it's harder to have the "You don't understand" response when you're dealing with two tough-looking guys like Andy and Bobby). Throw in a lot of well-drawn bit parts (I especially liked the bit where Vangie says he wanted to make a movie with the camera while he was holding onto it) and a perp who was actually kind of smart -- or at least thought he was -- and you've got kudos for all involved. -ANDY'S TUMOR: *This* is why the show needs Sharon Lawrence. As much as I love Leo Cohen, you can't do remotely as much with Andy without Sylvia around on a regular basis. Andy's fears don't make a lot of sense -- like he said, his greatest fear is not being there for Sylvia and Theo, so why on earth would he even hesitate to get this treated? -- but having dealt with the Big-C, both in my own family and with friends, I know that common sense often goes right out the window when cancer comes knocking. And Franz and Sharon Lawrence were so good in that last scene that I'm not even going to bother digging into the thesaurus looking for a new superlative for them. They were just *good*. -DOLORES THE DANCER: *This* is why I prefer Smits to Caruso. That scene. You never, in a million years, could've seen that scene (or their memorable "Duke of Earl" duet from a few years ago) between Kelly and Sipowicz because Caruso and Franz didn't have remotely as much chemistry as Smits and Franz. Caruso and Franz were good actors, but they made a lousy team (which is probably why the writers started splitting them up so much in the second half of the first season). Smits and Franz are partners, in every sense of the word, and that's why they can pull off a silent scene like that so brilliantly. I was almost on the floor when Diane came in and "caught" them (and you'll notice that Andy lost his fear of hospitals in a hurry when she came in). Overall, this episode featured the best use of Dolores to date. She's there, she's kind of weird, but she's not really interfering in the storylines, and she and my man Upstairs John played well together. Speaking of which... -WHAT'S UP(STAIRS)?: Ahh, it was so nice to see Bill Brochtrup back where he belongs. Not on Public Morals. Not on Total Security. The man should not be with the farm teams, he should be with Bochco's big-league club. It's a shame he couldn't appear with anyone else this week (though that's just as well if, as I suspect, that scene was just lifted from "Weaver of Hate," where John was originally supposed to appear). The only problem I have with his return is that John has no real story reason to be hanging around the precinct, aside from the fact that the writers and us all like him, and it could start feeling perfunctory to have him around. Then again, I suspect Milch has something up his sleeve here, since he usually doesn't like having useless characters around (note how quickly he wrote Faye Furillo out of Hill Street Blues once he took over). -SPEED 3: MEDAVOY OUT OF CONTROL: Poor Greg. Drives three hours through one of the most traffic-ridden parts of the country (well, at least until he got out of the five boroughs' sphere of influence), only for it to be a false alarm. This was a good bit of put-upon Greg-ness, since it was pretty short and sweet and this is the kind of incident where he would get a bit wacky. I only wonder about that moving violation. I've gotten out of at least one ticket in my life solely because I had a PBA card (for another town) in my wallet. Greg's got a badge, for gosh sakes. Unless, of course, he did something a lot worse than speeding. Hmm... That's it for this extremely late review. I've got a few weeks off (reruns for at least two weeks); hopefully I can be caught up enough on sleep, work and the social life that I can stay up late the next Tuesday there's a new episode. See ya in the funny papers... Alan Sepinwall * e-mail: sepinwal@force.stwing.upenn.edu NYPD Blue page: http://www.stwing.upenn.edu/~sepinwal/nypd.html RANDOM QUOTE: "Porn people are coming! They're running down the halls! You should see it, it's amazing." -Alan Ruck having a good day on "Spin City"