The warning this week is only for adult language. AGAIN. Isn't it almost sweeps? It might behoove you to give up a little skin once in a while, ABC. It's what the people want.
"Previously" on NYPD Blue, Martinez passed the sergeant's test. Everyone was bummed that he's leaving. Don corralled Kirky by whining, "I can't do time." Denby asked Di to deal with Kirky to give Don a break. Di asked Kirky to help. Di kissed Denby to help Kirky? Make Ricky jealous? I have no idea why she kissed him.
In the station house, Ricky is on the phone, playing Good Cop, while Sip grumbles, totally occupying the role of Bad Cop. "Ballistics made a match on your gun, Tommy. Well, even a broken clock is right twice a day." I love Ricky as Good Cop. Fancy comes in and asks, "Is this about your DOA last night?" Sip makes a jerking-off gesture and starts ragging on Tommy, a detective with whom he worked six years ago. Martinez comes in with his arms full of boxes and overhears. Ricky continues on the phone: "Well, if you don't think you can contribute..." After hanging up, Ricky says, "He said we can go it alone." Sip snarks out and Martinez, all halfway down memory lane, asks, "Tommy Colanallo? That must have been six years ago we worked on that case." Suddenly, the sound of crickets chirping fills the office. A big tumbleweed blows across the room. Then the silence lifts and Medavoy says, "Sergeant Martinez!" Diane, all Fonzie-esqe, says "Ayy!" Martinez says, "Not until tomorrow," and, "Anyways." Ricky and Sip leave the office and talk about the farewell party for Martinez at Paddy O'Furnitures tomorrow at 7 PM. Ricky says, "Hell yeah! Greg's picking up the tab!" Medavoy is like, "Yeah right."
Woosh! Bloosh! Boom boom go the drums! The synthesizer is the sound of the city weeping!
After some establishing shots of the rainy, gritty city, we land at the station house, where Di is pouring herself some coffee. Kirky sidles up and asks how it went with the task-force guy, Denby. Di shudders involuntarily, then relays the info she got from him in her little game of truth and smooch. Kirby doesn't have to tell Denby anything, because the D.A. already has all the info he needs to prosecute the drug dealers for whom Don was muling. "The task-force guy can't even believe they gave Don a deal," says Di. Kirky sees that Di has a case of the icks and asks, "You didn't drink with him?" Di starts a song and dance and says, "I told him I got off watching him drink." Oh, eww. "It got a little messy there at the end," she adds. "Nothing fifty gallons of Lavoris won't cure." Kirky says thanks, gives Di a peck on the cheek, and they squeeze each other's arms, which is something friends do, so knock off all the lesbian speculation, okay? Go watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer if you want to see some guaranteed lesbian action on TV, or maybe reruns of Roseanne.
More rain is washing away the grit of the city, and we come across Ricky and Sip bullying a young black guy, Ray, who works at a hardware store. It seems that two years ago the same gun that killed the DOA last night also shot Ray. He was labeled "unco-operative" by the cops who worked his case, so Sip is threatening to come around and harass Ray at work until he gives something up on the guy that shot him. Ray is just a working schlub, and snaps, "Don't be demonstrative." Hee. Ricky points out that perhaps Ray was not unable to identify his shooter, but was, rather, unwilling to do so. Sip, bad cop to the hilt, says, "We could give less of a rat's ass about you getting fired," and says that the same gun is now linked to a murder. Ray wisely says, "That gun's probably changed hands more than a $20 bill." Sip notes that some people get attached to their handguns. Ray gives up the guy who shot him, Jason Wiggins, "but I heard he's cleaned up his act. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go kiss my manager's ass." He then pronounces himself "citizen of the week," and shoots them a look as he splits. Go Ray!
After a wicked keyboard solo, we jump to the pokey where Sip and Ricky have already hauled in Jason Wiggins. He's sitting there with a look of slight scorn on his face as Sip and Ricky talk about him like he isn't there. I'm trying to dig Sip's lingo; it's something about how Jason wouldn't stand out in the street during an earthquake, but would instead run to the shelter of a building, "where concrete could land on his big dopey head." Jason has heard enough if this and yells, "I ain't in your circus no kind of way!" "Circus"? I thought it was an earthquake. Ricky locks him up and Sip yells, "Don't ever find yourself in a herd of earring-wearing ostriches...running around in the center ring...cracking a whip an inch from your nose!" No, I'm not following either. Ricky makes a "whoa" face and, out in the hall, Sip starts grumbling "Stupid arrogant...he's gonna find himself...."
Suddenly a woman approaches John's desk. It's Mrs. Wiggins, Jason's mom. She collars Ricky and Sip and tells them that he was home all evening, and if he had gone out, there's no way she wouldn't have heard him leave. "I want my son released!" she yells. Ricky looks concerned and says that they "have some wiggle room" on this case. Mrs. Wiggins says passionately, "My son has been in trouble before; I'm not blind to that. I'm a single working mom and I lost him to the streets. Can I talk to him?" Ricky says, "Let's all talk," and takes he into the pokey.
Jason may love his mom but he isn't too happy to see her. He starts yelling, and his mom, thank goodness, starts making even more sense by saying. "Quit acting like you're in charge, 'cause you're not! Tell them who has your gun." Jason doesn't trust the cops. No one is surprised at this. He wants to be sure that if the other guy lies, he won't get prosecuted. Sip promises that he won't. The guy that Justin lent his gun to is named Trey, and lives on Ludlow Street, over the shoe repair shop. Who wants to bet that Trey is yet another black man?
After the ads, we land back at the station house where Denby sits massaging his head. Maybe he's hung over! Hmm. Di comes down the stairs and makes gagging sounds at the sight of him. Denby croaks, "I need some help...I can't remember what happened last night." Di shoots, "You were an asshole." Denby has no argument for this, and lamely asks, "Did you come back to the motel with me?" Di lets out a snort that reads as "you WISH I did," and Denby mumbles, "He's in the wind. Your partner's ex-husband is in the wind. I woke up at 5 AM and he was gone." That fucker! Both of them, I mean -- Denby and Don! Denby guesses that Don will be calling Kirky, and Di snaps, "Is that you locking in on how a prick behaves?" Good one! Then she dismisses him, saying, "I know how to get in touch." Denby squeaks, "For what it's worth, I apologize." Di says, "Nothing is what that's worth." For real!
Di moves into the office where Kirky in on the phone, and in tears. Guess who's calling? No, not a virtual onion. Right! Don! That was fast! Di calls out, Oh Denby, wait, we got Don right here! Just kidding. Kirky's saying, "I'm not going to meet you. You've got me confused with someone else." Di says, "Good for you. You can't get involved." Then the phone rings again, John answers, and starts craning his neck looking at Kirky. Wonder who that is! Di repeats what she said about Kirky's not getting involved, and says that Denby left the door unguarded, allowing Don to escape. Diane's pants burst into flames because she is lying. John comes over and says that the unidentified person who just called is back on the line. Di asks Kirky to get Don to say where he is, but Kirky refuses to take the call and tearfully says, "I can't give him up." WHY NOT!? Just two episodes ago Don was going to end your career, Kirky! Now you're PROTECTING him!? Oh man. I hate Don.
Sip and Ricky are -- guess what! -- hauling in another black man to the pokey. The guy -- Trey, I bet --says, "This is MESSED up," and, "Murder! Y'all looking at me for murder?" Sip, who has barely slipped out of Bad Cop mode for this episode, says, "It is our hope that you killed him because it would make our lives simpler." Trey says, "Who said? Jason? You should be asking Robbie Wiggins questions. That's right. Jason's brother Robbie. Robbie had me rent the gun because he knew Jason wouldn't give it to him." Sip and Ricky shoot looks at each other of the "oh, shit" variety. Then Trey cites "some romantic nonsense" as the cause of the crime: "Some Michael was hassling Latasha," Latasha being Robbie's woman. That's probably where Robbie' hiding out. What a tangled web! Ricky pushes a notepad at Trey and says, "Write down where Latasha lives."
As Sip and Ricky exit, Sip starts grumbling, "Make that woman a promise, now we're going to put her other son away." Ricky still thinks police work should be done, but Sip keeps blabbering, "What, do you have stone tablets off the mountain so that you can tell me how to do my job?" Ricky protests, "Come on, Andy." Sip keeps complaining: "These are prejudiced people, and I don't want some unfortunate coincidences allow them to hold their prejudices against me!" Oh, boo hoo, Sip! A man is dead, and a mother's life will sustain a crushing blow, if one or possibly both of her sons land in jail! You've got it so hard, what with prejudices and all! Here's a tissue! Then Sip sighs heavily (aww!) and goes to face the Mom.
Now, I don't really blame Sip for being scared of her -- any mom can lift a car off her baby or stop a speeding bullet if she needs to, you know what I mean -- it's just his fear and self-pity that disgusts me. And besides, it's because the Wiggins family is BLACK. Like, right, Sip, BLACK people are the prejudiced ones. NO, they aren't. So anyway, Sip goes into the office and the Mom leaps up like she was shot out of a cannon and says peevishly, "What is going ON? You PROMISED me!" Ricky says with a twinge of regret, "There's been a new complication...it's about your other son." Mom Wiggins ages five years on the spot and says, "Robbie -- no! Robbie's outside of that life! No! No no no! Does it have to do with his girlfriend? That Latasha is no good! She's mixed up with some hood named Michael Baylor." Ricky says Michael is the DOA, and Mom Wiggins sits back down catatonically. Sip says weakly, "We're not looking to hurt your family...you have my word on that." Mom Wiggins snaps, "Your word! Well in that case, I got nothing to worry about." Sip and Ricky slink away with their invisible tails between their legs.
More rainy gritty street scenes. Then, back at the office, the phone is ringing (again), and John is protecting Kirky (again), who like a dope, asks to speak to whoever it is. I think it's Don. Kirky gets on the line and says, "Listen to me. 555-0146. Call that number in forty-five minutes. John shoots her a look as Di comes over and says, "That number sounds familiar. Do you want me to go to my place and talk to Don?" No, Kirky "need[s] to see him." OH MY GOD. Fancy cruises by and shoots them a look, as they are all huddled up together. Di goes and GETS HER KEYS and says, "Tell me what your plan is." Besides being totally stupid? That's as far as Kirky got with her plan. Di, wise up to a point, says, "If he runs, they'll reinstate the charges. He'll be a fugitive. He's got a deal -- he may not even have to testify." Kirky, all weepy, says okay. Di continues, "Jill, don't hurt yourself." TOO LATE FOR THAT! Kirky says she won't and they hug and kiss.
Kirky goes up to Fancy and asks for Lost Time. Fancy asks, "Everything all right at home?" Kirky, lying like hell, says yeah and knocks the wood on the door frame. The camera waves down to capture her knocking knuckles perfectly. "Is that okay?" she asks. Fancy looks at her and says yeah. Does he know what's going on? I hope not.
Medavoy enters a little room with bunk beds in it. Martinez is hanging out on the bottom bunk. "Is this where you've been hiding?" and sits down to him. "Yeah," says Martinez, "what'd I miss?" Medavoy says, "Oh, nothing. Composing your speech for tonight?" Martinez says yeah, and that he's "looking forward to it." Being a sergeant, I think. Then they finally say that they'll miss each other. Martinez says, "I'll miss working with you," and Medavoy says, "Don't get me started, pal. Don't get me started." Then they pat each other and look away. I think these two could take a lesson from Di and Kirky on being demonstrative to friends. Those big lugs.
Sip and Ricky are experts at arresting black men by now. As they haul in Robbie, Mom Wiggins ages another five years. They get him in an interrogation room and Ricky starts, "You're in some jackpot now." Sip adds, "We know you shot Michael Baylor," and Ricky continues, "Your job is putting what happened in the right light." See how they work as a team? Robbie starts, "He took the six-month anniversary ring off my girlfriend's finger. I went there to get it back. Sip jumps in with, "You went there packing. Was it self-defensive?" Robbie, practically sighing after every line, says, "I went there to get the ring back." Sigh. "Then he said he was going to rub the ring on his dick and told me what he used to do when he went out with Latasha." Sigh. So what'd you do then, Robbie? "I went after him." Sigh. "I went after him to kick his ass!" All without drawing the gun! What a kid. "I forgot I had the gun until he shot at me. Then I shot at him back." Sigh sigh. Then he took Michael's gun to give back, because if he had used the rental-gun, he was to throw it away and do a buy-out. Jeez, this stuff is complex! But he threw Michael's gun away and gave the rental back. Ricky and Sip leave to check out the dumpster. Oy, to and fro much?
As they leave, Mom Wiggins jumps up and asks, "What did my son say?" Sip says they're going back to the crime scene and that maybe everything is gong to be all right. When Mom Wiggins opens her mouth again, Sip goes, "Shhh!" Ricky and John look at him, dumbfounded. Mom Wiggins looks shocked too and then says, "Don't shush me. What is going to happen to my boys!" Then Sip shushes her again.
Ricky and Sip go down the steps, with Ricky cracking, "You sound like Dr. Evil. Sh." Hee. Knock knock. Who's there? Sh. Sip, way, waay out of the pop-culture loop, says, "Yeah, like that motorcycle lunatic would have any luck of making that woman hear reason." Ha!
Over at Di's place, Kirky is wearing a hole in the carpet until Don comes in. He demands, "Whose place is this? Who's Bobby Simone? Who is he to you?" Oh, I hate Don. Kirky says, "You need to go back to that motel." Don scoffs at this. When she reminds him how she and the boys have been let down by him repeatedly, he says, "well, maybe I'd do better without the holy trinity keeping score." I HATE Don. Then Kirky reminds him that he has a deal and that if he stays on the run he'll be living the life of a skel until they pick him up. Don laughs. What? Does he have a secret bank account or something? No: "If I go back, I'm looking at months in that rat trap until I testify." Well, don't do the crime if you can't do the time, wimp! "Isn't a clean break better?" he asks. Kirky scoffs at this. Don then talks about making a detour to see the guys who set him up. Right! Then he asks, "Did you bring money for me? Sorry, I didn't have time to wrap that question up pretty and buy a card." What a jerk. Kirky says yes! She's got $780! Oh my God! Don gets nice again and says, chucking her under the chin, "Hey, maybe when I land someplace..." Kirky says if he ever calls her again she'll turn him in. Yeah, RIGHT, oh spineless one. Then she starts blaming herself for Don's rotten ways: "Maybe we found each other too young...maybe I put expectations on you that changed you..." Oh, PLEASE. There's a shot of the Shrine to Bobby Di has on the mantle, and Don eyeballs the ring. Don says, "Hey, give the boys my love," kisses Kirky's head, and STEALS BOBBY'S RING! Kirky, all spellbound by Don's stupid kiss, murmurs, "Go away," and he does. Good! I HATE DON.
It's still raining outside. Back in the office, Di takes Kirky over for a coffee and gets her keys back. When she learns that Kirky gave Don money to help him leave town she says, "You could be accessory to felony escape!" Kirky says that if anything happens Di shouldn't say that knew Kirky took her keys. "He wanted to run -- that's what he does. I believe he's gonna be out of my life now." Di says, "I hope that's how it works," and they hug. Di, how about a smack upside Kirky's head? No such luck.
Sip and Ricky come in, John says that Mom Wiggins is using the lavatory, and they run to Fancy's office, free and clear from the disapproving mom. Ricky explains the whole thing about one brother being brought in because his gun was involved in a homicide, and how that brother inadvertently ratted out his little brother, who acted in self-defense and looks like he could get off because the whole family co-operated with the Blue cops. Sip says, "That's what you gotta explain to her. She'll take it better coming from you. She's taken an instant dislike...possible racial component." Oy. Fancy just gets up and strides over to Mom Wiggins and introduces himself. "Arthur Fancy." I love Fancy. Mom Wiggins is understandably in a snit, and says of Sip and Ricky, "Make me wait all this time and don't even have the nerve to tell me themselves...he told me I could trust him. That old bald one." Hee. Fancy explains that her sons will need to be arraigned, but since they all co-operated so well, he doesn't see them doing any jail time. The Mom seems appeased but says, "I can't stand saying goodbye to them." Fancy says he'll say good bye for her. The Mom gets one more shot in: "Tell that old bald one that I hold him accountable," and leaves.
As Fancy returns to his office, Sip asks how it went. "Was she combative?" Fancy says, "No, you stupid white man." Just kidding, he just said no. "She accepts we're going to do our best to keep her sons out of jail," Fancy explains. Sip, idiot, says, "I knew you'd have a better rapport with her." He should have listened to his Learning Jive Lingo! Tapes. Sip, still concerned about how HE looks, asks, "Did she make any derogatory references?" Fancy pauses and says, "She said you were old. And bald." Sip says, "Old!" and Ricky says "Bald!?" Hee hee hee!
Medavoy moves through the office, carrying some of Martinez's boxes. Ooh, his back. Fancy reminds Sip and Ricky to get the proper statements from the Wiggins boys. Oh, and everyone meet at Paddy O'Furniture's at 7 PM, okay?
Some gritty, gritty street scenes later, we land at the bar. Everyone laughing and clinking glasses. Sip has a teeny tiny bottle of Pellegrino. Medavoy gets up to clear his system of "teasing and levity." Then he busts on Martinez's fashion sense and mentions that seven years ago, Martinez was wet behind the ears and now he has a wife and child. Martinez was a "great companion," and as the camera falls on the faces of Sip and Di, which both look somber, Medavoy notes that "not many of us get long-term partners." Aww. Get the double meaning there? Then it's "to Sergeant James Martinez!" and everyone cheers and Medavoy and Martinez hug. Martinez's speech is more optimistic. He wants to keep in touch with everyone -- but then he remembers that he even lost touch with his closest high school buddies after graduation. Oops. Martinez concludes, "Thank God for whoever invented this job!" Would that be criminals or Steven Boccho?
Moody, moody music personifies the gritty gritty streets at night, and we land at a yellow-taped crime scene over which Denby is bumbling. Di comes up and is all, "Why did you page me?" Denby calls her "honey," barf, and Di asks if he is drunk. "I WISH I was drunk," cracks Denby. Oy. He introduces her to the other cop there, who's doing "better 'n this guy!" "This guy" is a charred corpse in a dumpster, with hands, feet, and head all cut off to prevent identification. Di storms off and the other detective says, "You're a good influence on him! This is the longest I've seen this guy upright!" Gross. Anyway, Denby feels the guy in the dumpster is Don. Yay! The only thing that doesn't fit is this ring Denby found on him. Di's face turns to stone and she says, "I want that. Give me the ring, Denby!" Denby, all stupid, says, "So you can give it to your partner?" Yeah yeah. Di grabs the ring and flees the crime scene. If that isn't Don in the dumpster, I am going to BUST.