Warning: No naked Baldwin. Curse away, there will be adult language. No one minds.
Previously on NYPD Blue, Fancy sells not-Amway products and then decides not to sell the not-Amway products. Sip thinks he's just not selling to HIM, because if there's one truism on Blue, it's that it's all about Sip, all the time.
In a gritty, gritty, industrial part of town, an abandoned car covered with parking tickets waits forlornly, as abandoned cars do. Wait, abandoned car, wait. Look, look, here comes Di and Kirky with a cute girl in a puffy powder blue vest. Hello, Di and Kirky and girl in powder blue vest. They're on their way home from raving. And who knows where to get the best-post rave doughnuts better than COPS do! Kidding. Kirky holds the raver gal at a distance as Di pops open the trunk - the car belongs to the raver gal's sister. "If she's safe, nothing else bothers me!" She starts freaking out when she sees Di pop the trunk. Look out, she's going into a k-hole! Kidding again. "We don't keep anything in the trunk...oh my god what is that!" There's a body-shaped lump in the trunk. The raver gal bursts into tears. "What's in there! What's in there!" Kirky holds her. The camera waves down to show an ambulance rushing down the road to meet them. Someone should sample that. Kidding. It's really sad, really.
Woosh! The subway brings the credits, which bring the drums, which turn into the dancing dragons in Chinatown!
Ricky and Sip walk into a fancy apartment, with candles burning all over the place. Again, you groan? Hold on - these people don't look snooty or rich. Whew. Oh, and it's a crime scene. A murder. For a change. A man and a woman sit sipping tea, Luciano and his cousin, Ana. Luciano hasn't seen his wife since 9pm last night. He moans, "Poor Mary!" Mmm-hmm. Frank is the beneficiary in the will, and step-dad Luciano "didn't hear him come in last night." He sleeps in a separate room from his wife. The cousin was in her own (different) separate room. "We are cousins," she says, so squelch all those suspicions you may have about these two tea-sipping, comfy-looking Italian cousins. Baldwin and Greg come in and leave to go canvass. The cousins bicker about Frank.
Out in the hall, a weirdly shrunken-looking, beaked-nosed kid opens his apartment door. He's all hard-boiled and shit. His name is Andy so he's like a Mini-Sip. "Murder, huh. It's the son that she doesn't speak to and the husband?" The kid makes a fist-pumping gesture and continues with "anything that moves." Greg and Baldwin just stare like, huh? "How old are you?" Like a pro: "How old do you want me to be?" Strangely, they invite the kid over to look in the crime scene/apartment. Yeah, that happens. Mini-Sip says he'd love to "pop my cherry and see the place I've lived across the hall from for seventeen years." Greg, not as dumb as he looks, says, "So you're at least 17!" Mini-Sip gets this weak zinger in: "Sherlock friggin' Holmes."
Mini-Sip cruises in and sees Sip. They hug each other and start to cry. Twins! Separated at birth? Kidding. Sip says, "What?" and Greg supplies: "That's the neighbor that's at least 17." Mimi-Sip starts striding around and lecturing. "I tried selling her chocolates in 1974. She spit in my eye." Sip asks, "So you dislike her?" Duh. "With a passion." So where were you last night, Mini-Sip? "What are you, a moron?" Sip says that's not a direct answer. Har. "In my apartment!" Sip and Mini-Sip square off and have a staring contest that is so totally stupid it merits neither an anyways or a throat-clearing from Ricky. Ricky just says, "Andy," and they both snap out of it.
Station house. In walks Frank, son of DOA. Fancy's not current with the case, but let's go in the coffee room and blab ANYWAY. Fancy takes down Frank's alibi on a COFFEE FILTER. Frank is a vitamin salesman with Vitaquest (Fancy perks at that) and was out of town at seminars and, "banging chicks." He provides the names and numbers of the chicks. And, "Personally and business-wise, my mother was a miserable bitch. Luciano seemed nice enough." Fancy makes a "Woah" face, then adds that his wife used to sell Vitaquest stuff until she figured out that it was a pyramid scheme. Frank goes, "If it makes you feel any better, the Internet is putting multi-tiered marketing into the toilet." Yay, Internet! Fancy makes an "Aha!" face. Frank leaves, and Fancy is left holding the coffee filter.
Luciano, led up the stairs by Sip, hugs Frank as passionately he would as a jug of Chianti. Ana bleats, "I need tea!" They are split up into separate rooms, with Ricky promising to fetch tea. I want some too.
Fancy knows Frank didn't do it. He reads off the coffee filter, "...he was banging two women." Sip looks at the filter too. That is one fascinating coffee filter. Sip relays that the DOA owned some property, according to "some jug-ears, pain-in-the-balls midget." Fancy relays that Frank was also selling vitamins, or something. Sip gets suspicious-faced faster than my mom did when I was a kid, and asks, "Weren't those the vitamins you were selling that made Medavoy sick?" Oh no, that was food poisoning, says Fancy. "What was the big flare-up about that?" Don't you remember, Sip? It was all about you. "That was you taking umbrage when I didn't sell it to you. ANYWAYS, that was five or six years ago." Sip gets all squinty and says he remembers now. Hoo boy.
The Filter, a better actor than Elizabeth Berkley, is now in the coffee room. Fancy tells Ricky to cross Frank off the list of suspects, and also the idea that it was a professional job. Sip says, "If that was a contract, I want to hire that hitter when I need a murder." Great, ha ha, you're just kidding, right? Gulp. They decide to talk to the "poor-relation cousin." Ricky cracks, "I know you'll hate to make that midget wait." Yes, it's true, Sip hates to let them stew, unless, you know, he'd rather let them know that he hates them, he really really hates them. Woo! (End rhyming) Sip then relays all the perceived slights about Fancy-and-the-Vitaquest-incident, which doesn't even earn an anyways from Ricky. Sip, trying to be ominous and foreboding says about Fancy, "There's a side of him you haven't seen yet." You mean his ass, right? Sip then says to "keep the filter for the fives." I hope that coffee filter got his SAG card after this. I'll have to look on the IMDB. Wing, can you put the coffee filter on Fametracker? Thanks.
Di and Kirky convene in Fancy's office. The girl had come in to report her sister missing, who was then found dead, shot and stuffed in the trunk and sexually abused. The car was wiped clean of fingerprints. A stumper of a case. No leads. Except for this Marcus guy...
Kirky and Di knock knock knock on apartment 3-E. A black man answers. It's Marcus. Did he grab a girl's ass in a car wash three days ago? Uh, no, he sniffs. Three days ago he was in the hospital. He invites them in and resumes his spot in front of the TV. Kirky asks, "Wanna do us a solid? Come with us." Marcus doesn't know..."I was about to watch my show." Then later he's gonna post about it on the MBTV boards. Di asks, "Pretty please?" Marcus, sucker, agrees. I hope he has a VCR.
Gritty, gritty street scenes unfold like so much laundry: A bus, a man in a wheelchair, the station house. Ricky and Sip are talking to Cousin Ana. They tell her Frank has a good alibi, and does she think Luciano killed his wife. She's not talking. Ricky and Sip say they can take her reticence in a certain way and she says they can take it like that. Whatever.
Luciano thinks it was Frank. It wasn't, say Ricky and Sip. "Eef no Frank, who?" Sip says, "I dunno. Who would benefit from the will?" Luciano says, "Must be me. Aah! Please, I need to crap." Please, take this page of the script to wipe your ass with, Luciano.
Bathroom. Ally comes out of a stall, sees Ricky, Sip and Luciano, and runs back in to flush herself down the toilet. Fish uses his remote and the flush is successful. John just keeps peeing at the urinal. Luciano says, "When I got to crap, my brain goes away." Oh, boy. Luciano goes in a stall and Sip stage-whispers to Ricky, "This guy is as about as Italian as Chef Boy Ar Dee, and I'm about to do something about it." Wait -- The Chef is NOT Italian? thing you're going to tell me Velveeta isn't real cheese! John runs out of the bathroom. Sip goes, "The time you hear that guy talk, it won't be in an Italian accent, and you can take that to the bank." Ricky leaves.
A hotsy-totsy Italian babe introduces herself to Ricky. She's Theresa the maid. She's Luciano's alibi. He was with her when the wife was murdered.
Sip KICKS the door with all his strength. Luciano lets loose with a torrent of -- eww, not that -- curses. In Italian. Out in the office Theresa says, "That's Luciano! Are they beating heem?"
Medavoy comes out of the stall in a hurry and runs to the sink. Sip says, as sheepishly as he can, "When this guy is done, will you bring him out?" Medavoy says, "Sure, anything for you." Because it's all about Sip!
Sip meets the dishy Theresa, Luciano's alibi. Hello, baby. She stammers, "He was weeth me, protecting my reputation." No, when he was with you that was the OPPOSITE of protecting your reputation. Him LYING was protecting your reputation. Stupid furriners. And, "He knows notheeng about Mary." I hated that movie. She leaves and Ricky suggests that take this new tidbit to Ana. Sip groans, "This is a quagmire." John, reading my mind, makes a perfectly blank "I-don't-care" face. You expressed it, man.
Marcus is in the pokey with Jill and Kirky. He's clear from three days ago, but not last night, when the girl was murdered and stuffed in a trunk! Whoops! Marcus says, "I wasn't even groping no one. You shot me through the grease to get me in here?" Di goes, "A little." Marcus is okay with that! "As long as we straight with each other." He doesn't even mind if they bring in more detectives! "The truth is my protector." Whatever!
Add Baldwin and Greg to the mix. After writing where he was, Marcus says, "I haven't written that much since high school. I probably didn't even write that much IN high school." Oh, how depressing. "Okay, who's driving me home?" Not so fast. Kirky shows him a Polaroid of the dead girl. "I don't know that girl!" He rises from his char but Baldwin places his hand on Marcus' shoulder and gently forces him back down. Just your prints were on the car, Marcus. And they have DNA. AND, the rape proves the murder was pre-meditated. For that he'll get "the needle." Marcus turns to Baldwin and says he has "a little problem with the pipe." Di asks, "So you were crazy when you did this?" Because they know he did it. Marcus says, "The sex come after the girl die. I didn't do it, but I know it. I was an eyewitness. In my cracked-out insanity, I never lifted a hand against her." Oh, BOY.
Sip and Ricky and Fancy blab about their murder case. Fancy asks, "Where are we?" Sip says, "Where we are." Sip thinks Luciano did it. Fancy asks why. Sip goes, "You think I'm gonna find that out in here?"
Ricky and Sip tell Ana about their feelings. "Oh god!" Then, about Theresa. "What does Luciano say?" Then, "Deed I do eet? Deed I do eet?" Sip says, "Everyone wants Luciano...it's Theresa he wants to be throwing humps into, and he made you a patsy!" Ana freaks out. "NO! I need more tea! Leave me alone!"
Ricky and Sip go see Luciano. "Ay, it's the beeg noise-a man!" Sip says, "All he needs is an accordion and a squeaky little monkey." And all Sip needs is Edith Bunker and an easy chair! They say Ana did it. "Ana? Noooo." Ana, YES. They mention conspiracy laws. Luciano doesn't get it. "I tell her don't do eet...I don't kees and talk." They mention statutes and he says, "Statute liberdad!" This episode sucks. SUCKS.
Ricky enters. He brought tea for Ana. She basically confesses. "Does he say I deed eet? She calls me a dumb dago. I'm-a take-a her garden tools and BRAIN her. But I can't do eet. I can't-a do eet! He says don't. I love you so much! I take you to Napoli if she was dead!" Sip encourages her to remember differently. Ricky adds that, "different doesn't mean lie." "No! No!" Then Ricky says just lie. "NO! I weel do the time, and when I get out, this leetle fling with Theresa...what do I do. Write?"
Baldwin's in the bathroom with Marcus. Marcus is peeing. There are a lot of bathroom scenes in this episode. Perhaps that means this episode is really SHITTY. Because Baldwin is so charismatic, Marcus says he'll just confess if he can get a temporary insanity thing. Okay? Okay.
Cut to Marcus confessin': "You ever get the feelin' you're watching yourself? You ever see that Julia Roberts movie when she's a maid and the guy has a split personality that only comes out at night?" Greg asks, "You SAW that movie?" Yeah - I didn't think ANYONE saw that movie! Marcus explains: "I am a Julia Roberts FREAK." Must be. Di says - say it with her now, people: "ANYWAYS...." Marcus explains that, with his crack habit and all, it "would be a waste of the taxpayers money to lock me up for fifteen months...could I get a diversion program?" Silence. A siren sounds in the distance. A giant tumbleweed blows through the pokey. Greg pushes the pad toward Marcus.
Ricky and Sip are talking with Luciano. Aren't they BORED yet? Ana confessed, they say. Luciano gets theatrical and clutches his chest. "Ana!" Sip growls, "You can grab your chest all you want, we saw Sanford & Son." Oh, 'Lizabeth! I'm coming to join ya! Hee. Luciano just asks, "Who is Sanford's son?" You can go now. "Ana gotta stay?" Yes, Ana gotta stay. Sip growls some more: "I wanna see you do your Ernio Pinza impression without your teeth." Luciano, clueless to the end, says, "Ernio Pinza! Some enchanted eve-niiing....you will see a strangeerrrrr...you weel see a strangeeerrr, across a crowded rooooom." I hate this episode.
John's at his desk. The powder blue vest-wearing sister comes in. She's all upset because her sister is dead. John tells her he thinks they've arrested someone. She cries. "Sorry for your loss," says John. Baldwin and Marcus come out of the bathroom and see the girl. Safely in the locker room, Marcus says to Baldwin, "That's the girl! She's alive!" Baldwin explains that she is the dead girl's TWIN. OH, says Marcus. "He wants me to earn my miracle." What? Stupid episode.
Night. Ricky and Sip are doing paperwork. Sip, racist as can be, says, "I hate the cagey dago getting away with it." WHATEVER. Fancy decides to hold off signing on the report, leaving it open for more work. Mini-Sip comes in. "You guys wanna buy some chawklit? $500 worth, cause you know you ain't dealing wit no rat." No, just a midget extortionist. "So it was Ana, huh? You got this on Luciano." Sip, all salty, says, "What do you got?" "I got chawklit!" Ricky says he'll take 'em, and Mini-Sip says, "He poisoned his wife back in Napoli. Slow-acting arsenic. A little everyday in her pastaccini." How does he know all this? Theresa told him. "She's got a torment of conscience. I am her true confessor. Dig the body up, you'll see. Plus, he's taking her back to Napoli, extraditing himself back to the country of his first crime." Sip asks, "How old are you anyway?" How old is this fucking bit? The midget is "sick of people asking (him) this today! 27. As God made me." Sip rolls his chair over and gets some chawklit for Theo. Mini-Sip says he also has original Mets memorabilia for sale. As if anyone cares.
Greg and Baldwin are preparing for their now-habitual evening run. Baldwin is not naked. Greg is rolling around on the floor, performing calisthenics that must have been popular when Sip was a boy. Where's Jack LaLane with a giant medicine ball when you need him? Greg, or the "Mutt" in this now-tiresome Mutt and Jeff combination, is blathering on. "Understand me, Baldwin, the slightest whiff of practical jokes and our partnership is history." Baldwin hides the bucket of pig's blood under the bench and says yes. "Practical joking is the downfall of humanity." Baldwin lets the farm animals out of Greg's locker and shoos them away. A cow moos softly, disappointed. Greg tries to bring up the bathroom incident and Baldwin, master of subtlety, tries to change the subject. "How much weight have you lost?" Ah, vanity, thy name is (fill in name of any actor here). The answer to how much weight Greg has lost is three and three-quarter pounds, or, not noticeable. Greg straps a white terrycloth headband on and says, "Let's not discuss practical jokes or their ramifications the entire run." I guess that means we can't discuss that hideous headband. Greg jogs out the door with a sign that says, "KICK ME HARD" taped to his back. Baldwin follows. He is still not naked. Stupid episode.