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.
The detectives leave the room, and Baldwin tells them that the DOA was a pimp and they traced the last call made from his cell to a Stella Kensington. Kensington is one of the nastiest neighborhoods in Philly, and yes, that is saying something. People say someone has a "Kensington smile," which is the same as "summer teeth." You know, some are there, some are not. If I have to explain anymore, you're just not gritty enough to be reading this. Stop now. Or, go ahead, you may learn something. So Di and Ricky huddle up, Sip notices, and hollers at Baldwin to get Tommy over here with those security tapes already. Then he goes to the can. Ricky follows. As Sip pees, they have a little chat about how everyone knows Di and Ricky are doing it, and Ricky doesn't care who knows, because he doesn't want to stop loving Di. Sip just wants everyone to be happy -- or, just Ricky and Di should be happy. Ricky says he didn't know Bobby and so doesn't feel like he's betraying him. But is he betraying Sip? Sip just wants Ricky and Di to be happy. They're both getting laid, they had better be happy. I mean, that's all that matters, right?
Ricky and Sip make calls trying to track down a court jester costume, and in walks a pretty little lady. By "little," I mean about 3' 7". It's Stella Kensington. She has all her teeth. She asks John for Baldwin and John gasps, backs away, and flees into the bathroom. Everyone else just does a double take. Jesus, she's just SHORT. She asks Baldwin what John's problem is, and he says he was just going to ask her that.
Interrogation room. Medavoy and Baldwin face Stella, whose feet swing way above the floor. Medavoy clears his throat and asks if she "needs a phone book or something." Bwa! Comedy! She tells him to kiss her ass. Nice. Baldwin says they know Mike is her pimp, and that the call he made to her last night is the last call he's ever going to make. Stella seems shocked and says he just called to say he was going to a poker game at the hotel, and to call another one of Mike's girls for more details. Medavoy asks her if she works regularly and she says seductively, "booked solid." Sparks fly. Baldwin asks the other girl's name (it's Brenda Martin) and Medavoy asks if she's a midget, too. Stella ruffles and says, "It's 'little person,' asshole." Medavoy says, "Like I'm supposed to know that." Stella snaps back with, "You're not so tall yourself." BWA HA HA! Stella should be writing for MBTV. Brenda is a "big girl, blonde hair." They let Stella go. Medavoy watches her thoughtfully and when the door closes behind her, wheels around to tell Baldwin about the "midget" he knew in high school that helped kick-start his puberty. Baldwin says, "Yeah, huh." Are men ever not horny? Jesus. Medavoy reminisces and drools, until Baldwin asks him if he would ever "go there." He says he would "give it a whirl." Baldwin pats him and splits. Medavoy then sees Stella has left her scarf, so he takes it, wraps it around his face and inhales deeply of Stella's scent…just kidding. He brings it to John, who takes it as gingerly as he would handle something really, really gross and icky, like a midget's scarf…oh, damn.
In walks Tommy the hotel dick with the security tapes, employee and Mardi Gras guest lists, and the hotel's fancy lawyer. He asks for a settlement "ASAP," because of the "P.R. jackpot the rape and murder brought (the hotel). Could be a nice windfall for these poor people." Oh, gross. So, Sip and Di are really sensitive with Bev and her creepy brother, and the gross lawyer offers them $500,000! Dude, that's a lot of clams. Bev asks Di what she thinks; Di says she can't say either way. The creepy brother asks how they make this happen, and the lawyer says he has a car waiting. They jump up to go, and thank the Blue squad for "being there." But this so is not the end of the investigation, you understand.
Cut to Di and Sip watching the hotel security tapes. Sip says there are a lot of "freaks" there. It looks a lot tamer than those Girls Gone Wild tapes, but whatever. Ricky says they have the last three calls made from Bev's room: one was to an insurance agent in Queens. Ricky is on it. He leaves, and Di has a squishy chat with Sip about her banging Ricky. Sip gets all kinds of uncomfortable. Di wonders if Sip is okay with her putting it to little Ricky and all. Sip trots out his "as long as everybody's happy" bit. Di says she feels bad "afterwards." But not before and during? "It's been almost two years since Bobby passed and I'm more screwed up now than I was then." More screwed up than when you were an alcoholic bum? Yeah, right. Sip says maybe Di is "waking up now," and Di says, "It'll always be unfair, him leaving that soon." Oh, Di. Life is never fair. Sip pats her arm. Di squeezes back tears. Commercial.
So Di, Ricky, and Sip invite Jim, the insurance guy, into an interrogation room for a chat. He's all bug-eyed and nervous. He knew Bev in high school. They had an affair that "damn near broke up [his] marriage." And, it turns out, he had sex with Bev in her hotel room the same afternoon she was attacked. But he's married, and please don't tell his wife. Can he go now? No? Oh, shit. Does he know Bev's brother? Jim calls him "kind of a slime-ball" and says he has problems with drugs and has AIDS now from "shooting up or something." Do you see where this is going? Jim is a patsy, a sperm donor.
Medavoy and Baldwin go to meet Brenda, the big blonde, at a restaurant. She's like Camryn-Manheim-sized, and is wearing a black silk kimono jacket, long blue nails, and has a great purse. The wardrobe on these specialty hookers is great, really. Brenda says she wants to help find her pimp's killer since Mike was good to her. She gives them a name -- Johnny Dumont -- and a place to find him. She says Mike had specialty acts in his stable, including "grannies" and "amputees." She starts to tell Medavoy a story and Baldwin says that they have enough details. Aww.
Interrogation room. Sip and Di ask Bev why she didn't tell them about having sex with Jim. Oh, was she supposed to do that? Gee. Dang.
Di and Sip come out and Ricky says the creepy brother just left with a check for $700,000! "He dicked them up two hundred grand?" Yes, he did. We see the corruption. The brother has three arrests, debt, and Bev has debt, too. But what about the horrible beating she suffered? They decide to call in the girlfriend she took the trip with, who's been babysitting her daughter.
Ricky asks if Di is okay. Di says she just needs air. Ricky says he wants to help. Di says he can't now. He is so getting dumped.
Baldwin and Medavoy have Johnny in an interrogation room. They show him the tape of checking into the room where the murder took place. Johnny gives up a naked guy, Tony, who killed Mike dead. "They went at it like two hurricanes." Johnny acts out the brutality for them. Baldwin produces the ring that Johnny used to cut off Mike's pinky finger. "He was already dead, what did he need the ring for?" And what did we need this storyline for? Snoozers.
Di, Sip, and Ricky interrogate Bev's girlfriend. She hasn't heard that Bev screwed Jimmy yesterday, and she thought they settled for fifty grand, not seven hundred. She turns on them faster than milk left in the Las Vegas sun at noon in August. The Blue squad goes to call the DA.
Enter Stella, to get her scarf. John stammers and shakes and chases out after her, confessing silently until she asks, "Iittle people issues?" She's way understanding. What the fuck is this anyway? Isn't John supposed to be nice? She says, "I make my living off of being wrong." Baldwin and Medavoy come out and she gives Medavoy her card, in case he has any more questions or wants to make mad, sweet love to her sometime. He blushes. John thanks her. Whatever.
Sip, Ricky, and Di are interrogating Bev again. Valerie, the new ADA, who was on Model's Inc., NOT Baywatch (thank you trusty board posters), is there too. Bev denies it up and down, but finally cops to the fact that her creepy brother beat her up to get the settlement. "He wanted to see the world before he died." Gross, gross. Di says, "Shame on you." Really.
Station house. Ricky is grossed out that a brother beat his own sister like that. Baldwin and Medavoy have the second perp for the murder locked up. Tommy the hotel dick sends over a basket of hotel soaps and shampoos, which is definitely chintzy as a thank-you gift. Sip curses him out. Medavoy asks for a shoehorn, if one's there. Comedy, maybe. Relief, no. Enter the creepy brother. Sip arrests him, Ricky says he's resisting the urge to beat him, and creepy brother says, "Go ahead. Beat me. Beat me bloody." Cause he has AIDS, see, and he wants revenge. Jesus.
Di's roof. She and Ricky are looking at the view. She dumps him. He's very understanding, and practically dances away. She looks tearily at Bobby's bird coop and a pigeon flies in, cocks its head at her, and then flies off. What the fuck is that supposed to be, symbolism or something? I need a bigger sign, okay? Maybe a sunbeam through a massive clouds head, or a hallelujah chorus? Give me a break, we didn't all go to Harvard.