Warning: this recap contains adult language and partial nudity. I was partially nude when I wrote it.
Previously: Diane and Danny got into a snit about him getting into a macho-protection-head-game trip now that he and Diane are doing it. She's not having it. He patronizingly agrees to stop being macho, for now. The clock ticks away on their relationship; I think it's at 14:59.
The formerly moody keyboard music uncloaks itself with a sampled scream, and the camera waves us around a New York City street at night. The mood is gritty -- perhaps too gritty. An ambulance rolls up, and then we're inside a hotel. The elevator doors open and out roll Ricky, Di, and Sip, looking, well, like three-day-old bagels. Tough, hardened. A hotel detective hollers, "Hey, Andy!" Like they're at a picnic, and they do a round of "how's it going," Sip commenting that he and hotel dick, who's name is Tommy, worked together "back when homicide raced chariots." Ha ha, the last time I heard that hoary old chestnut I laughed so hard I fell off my dinosaur and broke my stone underwear. Not. So Tommy leads the Blue squad down the hall towards a woman who was badly beaten, and they pass a group who look like rejects from the Crazy Girls! show at the Rivera, all beaded and feather-head-dressed and scantily clad. Sip looks -- hold on -- uncomfortable with this blatant display of revelry and extravagant costuming, and Tommy goes on to say that the hotel double-booked a Mardi Gras ball and the place is jammed. So, that's going on. Remember what Chekov said: If you see a Mardi Gras ball in the first act, it had better go off in the third. Your play, Mister Bochco. Di says, "Who's that?" and Tommy expositionally provides us with, "The victim's kid." The room looks disheveled; the pillow is almost completely covered in blood. A uniform tells the tale: the woman is there on a three-day "I Love New York" package; when the young daughter, adult brother, and the woman's friend came back from seeing Lion King, they found her beaten and bloody. Di suggests they shield the daughter from this horrific display, and Tommy says the hotel is "booked to capacity." Sip tells him to find a room and get the security tapes. Tommy is like, "This could be my job." Sip says, "It couldn't be any worse." Tommy skedaddles.
The brother comes over, arms folded, and says the dude that beat his sister had a court jester mask on, like in Mardi Gras? Don't they have a ball going on? Yeah, they do. Di goes to ask some questions. The woman, with a bashed-in face, says she has no clue what the race of her attacker could be, and that the worst part was being tied to the bed and knowing her daughter would see her like that. Hey, after Lion King, anything looks good. I KID, I'm a KIDDER. The woman starts to cry and says, "Please don't let my daughter see me like this," and we get the subway train bringing the credits.
Station house. Sip reminds Ricky to check around and see who might have rented out a court jester outfit and to check the security tapes, and Ricky says he was just going to do that. Nag, nag, nag, Sip! Jeez! Ricky says Fancy is taking a computer class and will have "the squad wired -- even money Greg is addicted to chat rooms within a week." Or, our bulletin boards are always open for your ideas and opinions. We want to hear you, Medavoy! Or, whoever else is out there, go ahead, I dare you. But since when do police lieutenants have to be the IT guys? Whatever. Di comes in, and Sip tells her the victim and her creepy brother are still at the hospital, and will come in to make a statement in an hour or so. Plus, some jerk in a court jester outfit was hitting on female guests all night and was told to hit the bricks, but there were five of them around. God, I'm bored. Then, Baldwin walks up and says there was a murder in the same fictitious hotel just last night. Are they connected? Is there any semen from the rape kit? Baldwin goes off, and the credits reveal that Philadelphia's own Buzz Bissinger not only co-produced this episode but also wrote the teleplay. Wow, local guy done good. Well, we'll see how good he is at the end of the episode.
Baldwin enters the hotel room. It's a total wreck. Tommy the hotel dick says, "It's the worst twenty-four hours of my life." Sensitive. Medavoy says, "Full on brawl, no one heard anything?" Stupid Mardi Gras revelers. The murdered guy had his pinky cut off too. Tommy goes off to check on those security tapes and the uniform in the room says the killed guy is a bum, and a pimp, and there's a cell phone in his pocket. Then he hands Medavoy a bag with a severed finger in it, which brings, "Are you giving me the finger, officer?" That doesn't even deserve a groan. Baldwin goes, "White pimp, eh?" And Medavoy is all, "How 'bout that?"
The street is being swept clean of any grit, and we land back at the station house. Di, rocking a black sleeveless turtleneck -- in February, people -- leads the beating victim and her creepy brother into an interrogation room. Di, Ricky, and Sip need a formal statement and are exceedingly gentle. The beating victim -- I'll just call her Bev -- begins: she got a migraine before Lion King and decided to stay in; she went down the hall to get ice, leaving her door open, and the court jester dude was in her room when she got back. Then, the beating and rape took place. She cries, Di comforts her, Ricky and Sip wince. Very gritty.