NYPD Blue, Season 2, Episode 16, "UnAmerican Graffiti" Written by Leonard Gardner Directed by Joe Ann Fogle PLOT ONE: TAG! YOU'RE IT Sip and Simone are investigating the murder of a young Puerto Rican male who was beaten to death in Little Italy. The victim, one Carlos Herrera, turns out to have been a "tagger" (that's "graffiti artist" to you and me) who happened to create some of his works of art a bit too close to a restaurant owned by the Mob. An eyewitness who says she saw two Italians matching the descriptions of the killers chasing a Puerto Rican earlier that day calls in, and two suspects are brought in - and quickly lawyered up by their Mafia boss (they're both dishwashers at his restaurant). Unfortunately, all of the eyewitnesses to the murder itself start backing out under pressure from the mob - all except for Walter, an artist specializing in "negative space" who's either too naive or too lost in his own world to realize the danger he's placing himself in by testifying. Eventually, Andy and Bobby feel obligated to clue Walter in, suggesting that he book himself into a hotel until the Grand Jury hearing, and that he start looking for a new apartment in another part of the city. It finally dawns on Walter that his good deed is not allowing him to go unpunished, as he laments, "Maybe I can get a place in Brooklyn..." PLOT TWO: MEDAVOY'S NO HOCKEY PUCK Harold, Donna's hunky ex who used to play for the Rangers, comes into the 15 to report that his car has been repeatedly vandalized. Though Greg is on duty, Donna quickly (and wisely) steers Harold over to James' desk, where he's told that his case has a "low solveability level." Greg decides to join the conversation, which doesn't bother Harold, but which definitely bothers Donna. Later in the day, she even starts to accuse Greg of slashing Harold's tires. Hurt by the comment, and desperate to get back into Donna's good graces, Greg decides to stake out Harold's bar in his off-duty time in hopes of catching the real vandal. James joins his partner on this very unofficial stakeout, but eventually has to beg off out of exhaustion. The next morning, Greg looks like hell from being up all night, but his sacrifice was not without a reward - he spotted the vandal and called in a sector car to bust him. Harold is grateful (turns out the vandal was a belligerent hockey fan that Harold decked back in his playing days), but Donna is confused - she's mad at Greg for an abundance of reasons, and here he goes and commits such an unselfish act. Eventually, she decides that she needs some time alone, and tells Lt. Fancy that she's going to make use of her accumulated vacation time. When she tells Greg, he reacts kindly and calmly, telling her that he loves her no matter where she is, but after Donna has gone and James comes looking for him, it's obvious how much this hurts him - he practically begs James to keep him from running after her. PLOT THREE: SYLVIA'S SEMI-DARK SECRET In the middle of the murder investigation, Andy bumps into Sylvia in the squadroom, and she tells him that she had her purse snatched. She seems overly upset, especially given her usual street smarts and the fact that she was unharmed - she even insists on having the apartment locks changed since the thief has her keys. Eventually, she reveals the truth to Andy - back in law school, she had her purse snatched as well, only that time, the thief proceeded to rape her, too, and this latest crime has brought all the old memories flooding back. Andy comforts her, telling her that he loves her. The next day, as they meet for lunch, Sylvia seems much better as a result of going to see a rape counselor - she even suggests to Andy that he check out a support group for boyfriends/husbands of women who've been raped. He agrees, and when she thanks him for standing by her, he shrugs it off - where else would he have been? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This episode was an interesting one; for the first fifteen minutes, I was growing more and more frustrated, convinced that I would never see another good episode of NYPD Blue again. The plot development that "magically" (in pure dramatic terms) brought the two killers into the stationhouse was particularly galling - it was as if the writers were saying, "We're not even going to pretend to show any part of the investigative process, since all we care about is the interrogation." But then a miraculous thing happened - the episode started to get better and better, to the point where I turned off my TV at 11 pm with a very big smile on my face. Blue may not be back for good, but by God, it was back *tonight*. This wasn't a perfect episode by any means, but it still had a lot of great moments and performances, as well as a little tweaking of the standard formula. Two things in particular impressed me: the performance of the actor who played Walter, and the fact that I found myself caring about Greg and Donna again. Let's take Walter first. This particular murder case was just as generic as almost every one from this season - hell, the two killers were written almost identically to the two perps in "You Bet Your Life" (ie, one stupid and easily intimidated and one smart enough to keep his mouth shut). And for most of the episode, I found myself asking, "Where are they going with this?" Even the angle of mob intimidation, while not used on Blue before, was fairly old-hat. But then came those last few scenes with Walter, when Bobby and Andy finally decided they had to let him know what he was getting into. And then the range of emotion on Walter's face, as he moved from casual optimism to confusion to apprehension to resignation, was just superb. Yeah, he may only be forced to move to another borough, but the way he described the creative push his apartment gives him was enough to evoke my sympathy. It just wasn't fair that because he was the only one brave enough (or naive enough, depending on your POV) to come forward that he should have to suffer. In fact, I like the fact that nothing overly dramatic happened to Walter (ie, no mob rubout), because it reminded me that sometimes the small tragedies of life can hurt just as much as the big ones. Now, given my current cynicism about the plotting of the show, I'm fairly certain that Walter will be bumped off next week, and I'm not looking forward that the inevitable deed. This is one time where I'd rather see a story stay self-contained. The resolution (for now) of the Greg and Donna storyline was better than it had any right to be, considering how attrocious the two previous episodes with it were. Both Gordon Clapp and Gail O'Grady deserve kudos for giving great performances. Donna has always seemed a bit too-dimensional for my tastes, but for the first time I actually felt sympathy for her. And the scene in the car between Greg and James, particularly that look of desperation in Greg's eyes when he stared at himself in the mirror, was terrific - this is the first time since last year's "Guns'N'Rosaries" that I've actually felt like these two are partners and friends. My one gripe with the plot was that I would've preferred that Greg *didn't* catch the culprit - that his staying up all night was a futile gesture. However, I can't think of any other way for Greg to have gotten back into Donna's good graces, so I'll let it pass. Finally, we have Sylvia's reaction to the purse snatching, which was good, but didn't affect me nearly as much as it could have. Essentially, we saw the whole thing from Andy's perspective. We saw her tell him about the purse-snatching, but not the actual event, which robbed us of a chance to see Sylvia's immediate reaction to it. And we saw Sylvia tell Andy that she had been to a counselor, but we didn't get to see the visit itself, which could've potentially featured some powerful stuff for Sharon Lawrence to play. However, even with what little she had, she was wonderful, and Dennis Franz is about the only actor alive who could have made the final line of the show ("Where else am I gonna be?") not sound maudlin. In all, a good effort - not spectacular by any means, but at this point, I'll settle for good. Let's hope this is the start of a revival and not one last gasp of quality. Shorter takes: -For those of you who were wondering where you've seen the head mobster before, he was one of Robert DeNiro's sidekicks in "Goodfellas" - he's the one who wound up hanging by a meathook in a freezer truck after the Lufthanza heist. -Interesting Names Department: Carlos Herrera (the murder victim) shares his moniker with Carl Herrera, the power forward for the Houston Rockets who absolutely killed the Knicks in the NBA Finals last year. :( -Has anybody heard anything about Gail O'Grady taking some sort of leave of absence from the show? I'd heard she was getting offered a few movie deals, but nothing concrete. -Favorite scene from the episode: Andy, suddenly feeling bad about what he's gotten Walter into, asks him about his painting. It was pretty brief, but packed a wallop. -Another missed opportunity: when Greg and James are talking about relationships in the car, James neglects to bring up his failed pursuit of Lesniak. Just because she's not on the show this week doesn't mean she doesn't exist, guys. -Line of the week: lots have been nominated in other threads in the group already, but I definitely have to go with "Where else am I gonna be?" -Alan Sepinwall -sepinwal@mail.sas.upenn.edu -http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~sepinwal/ RANDOM QUOTE: "I'm sure it feels very real to you." "On August 29th 1997 it's gonna feel pretty fucking real to you too. Anybody not wearing 2 million sunblock is gonna have a real bad day... Get it?" -Earl Boen & Linda Hamilton, "Terminator 2: Judgement Day"