Props to David E. Kelley, for relinquishing the reins a little, as this is the first episode of Boston Public to air that wasn't written by him. Will that make the show better or worse? Only time will tell. That is, however much time it takes me to recap this episode.
Previously on Boston Public: Milton told Kevin that Louisa asked him out; Louisa told Milton to trust her lovin'; Anthony Heald said he was in love with Lauren; Milton met a saucy Harvard undergrad and bantered with her; Milton told Kevin she could be The One; Milton and The One chatted in his car; Milton and The One had sex; Kevin chastised Milton about the relationship; The One revealed that she's actually a senior at Winslow High, and Milton asked her, "What the hell's going on?"
The Hallway. A kid speeds past Marilyn "Whither My Story Arc" Souter on one of those Razor scooters, and she tells him to slow down. Ooh. Topical. I'm betting we've just seen her entire plot for the episode. (week: Marilyn tells a kid that if he doesn't slow down this time, she'll take his scooter away!) Milton and his paramour, Lisa "My-Fair-Lita" Greer, round the corner. She is trying to convince him to engage in a tryst right there on school grounds, and he says, "Lisa, it's bad enough I'm seeing you outside of school" My, she is persistent, telling him about some secret basement room: "No one ever goes there, and none of the kids even know about it. Come on, Milton, isn't it a little fun being bad?" As he starts to protest, they pass Scott "Anthony Heald" Guber, who returns Lisa's cheery "good morning" with an officious and glowering "good morning" of his own. We follow Guber, who ends up walking side-by-side with Lauren Davis. "Are you doing something new with your hair?" he asks her. She says that, no, she just took a shower in the locker room and it hasn't dried yet. "Plumbing problems at home?" he asks. "No, I come in early a couple days a week to use the gym. I mean, it lacks certain amenities but the price is right." Scarcely are these words out of her mouth, though, then Scott thrusts his nose into her damp mane. And if that sounds dirty, it kind of is, but what does she expect? She knows the guy likes her, and in the course of exchanging three sentences she manages to refer to a shower she just took, calling up images of her all naked and wet (I mean, it did for me, and I'm not even in love with her, like poor Anthony Heald), and then she talks about her frequent trips to the gym, which no doubt got him thinking about what good shape she's infirm musclesgood staminasweatohGODMUSTSNIFFHER HAIR! You see? It's her damn fault.
Chapter Nine
Anyway, so she says, "What was that?" He explains he was just smelling her shampoo: "I detected Tea Tree oil." Or something. Some kind of oil. I'm too lazy to rewind it four times to make out exactly what he says. "Please don't smell me," she says. Then she says, "I can bounce quarters on my ass." I mean, she doesn't, but she might as well, that's how little concern she seems to have for his tender heart. Lauren books, and Anthony Heald seizes a kid in a varsity jacket as he sprints by: "Mr. Robeson," he says, "This is first period, not track practice." Maybe if you gave the kid a Razor scooter, he wouldn't have to run through the halls. Just then, Anthony Heald comes across a police detective, flanked by a couple of officers. "Detective McGill, Boston Police, and you are?" Anthony Heald says, "Scott Guber, Vice-Principal." See, if only he'd said that in the first episode, or the second, or third, I wouldn't have spent weeks trying to figure out for sure what exactly his job was. Anyway, Detective McGill, says, "I'm afraid there's been an armed robbery and shooting in your neighborhood. We have reason to believe that the suspect is somewhere in your school." I can already tell that McGill is going to be shoehorned into that archetype where he's annoying and violent and wants to shoot first, like the FBI guy in a Die Hard movie who comes in and says, "We'll take it from here," and throws Bruce Willis off the job, even though we all know the FBI guy's going to screw it up. Which means we're going to be expected to believe that whoever takes the Bruce Willis role in this paradigm will be better at taking down an armed suspect than a trained police detective, even though it's probably going to be a high-school teacher. I'm guessing Harry Senate. Also, this is Boston, so of course they give the cop an Irish name, right? Harvey Lipschultz appears helpfully at this point, and asks, "Is he black?" Everybody ignores this, including the audience, since we're obviously supposed to think that the suspect is the kid Anthony Heald just grabbed, who was running away from the cops, and that kid was white. Score one for David Kelley, though, because that's an awfully clumsy way of reintroducing Harvey's bigotry, and I chalk that up to someone else having written this episode. "You think he's in the school now?" asks Guber. "Yes," says Detective McGill. Then he downs a pint o' Guinness, does a merry jig, and cries out, "Top o' the mornin' to ye, ya fine gentleman!"
Opening credits. LalalaatwanggooowooowoobanangnangnangChrist, I forgot how unbelievably terrible this music is.
Sanctum Stevenorium. Irish Cop and his cronies are here, as are Steven, Anthony Heald, and, for some reason, The Exposition Fairy. Maybe she's here to take notes on the swiftly executed exposition we're getting from Irish Cop right now: "You're familiar with Bowlies?" Or something, doesn't matter -- whatever it's called, it's a restaurant a couple blocks from the school. "About a half hour ago, the assistant manager was leaving to deposit last night's receipts at the bank. As he got into his car he was approached by a young man with a gun, wearing a Winslow High letterman's jacket." Steven asks if they heard that from the assistant manager, and Irish Cop says no, it was another eyewitness. This turns out to be because the assistant manager is dead. "When the suspect demanded the money, the victim tried to slam the car door shut. Suspect's hand was momentarily caught in the door, he may have been injured. The suspect then managed to pull his hand free. He then proceeded to discharge the weapon through the window." Was he hit? asks Steven. Presumably he means the assistant manager, though the antecedent would be the guy with the gun. "Fatally," says Irish Cop. Why-Do-You-Think-The-Shooter's-Here asks, "Why do you think the shooter's here?" "Because the eyewitness saw him run in this direction," says Irish Cop, looking pensively into the distance. He's thinking, "They're always after me Lucky Charms." Then he goes on, "If he's a student, which we believe he is, it makes sense that he would go some place where he can blend in, feel safe." Irish Cop wants his men to search the premises, and says they've got a perimeter around the building. To illustrate this, or, I suppose, audiate this, if that's a word, we hear a helicopter fly past the window of Steven's office. Principal Steven says he wants to cooperate, but he needs to know more before he can allow any type of search. Irish Cop says he doesn't need permission. And a rivalry for the ages is born. What Steven turns out to mean, though, is not that he needs to know more, but that he thinks Irish Cop is an idiot, because instead of asking for further information, he just says, "Suppose you're right, it is a student. He's in this school, possibly hurt, possibly frightened, possibly armed. What do you think he's going to do if he sees your men swarming all over the place? Someone who pulls a robbery in broad daylight sounds desperate to me." Irish Cop says they won't wear uniforms. Because a bunch of stern-looking strangers peeking into every room won't be suspicious at all, as long as they're not actually wearing badges. Irish Cop also asks for yearbooks, so the eyewitness can look at pictures. Actually, he says, "She may be able to make him." Which is cop lingo, I guess. Then he asks if there's an alert procedure at the school. "Code Red," says Principal Steven. "We sound an alert bell, when the teachers hear it, they know to lock all the doors and windows. Nobody enters or leaves the classrooms until we sound the all-clear." Irish Cop thinks that might be a good idea to try, because he seems to be a moron, so Steven has to point out that if the suspect hears a Code Red he may suspect that the authorities are on to him. Will this scene ever end?