By Omar G
It's been so long since there was a new episode of Third Watch, that I was starting to lose the threads of reality.
I began to think that Bosco was a happy-go-lucky, great guy.
I hallucinated that Carlos had a brain.
I began to find reasons to respect Kim.
It was sick, and terrible, and made no sense. But reality has returned. Welcome back to Third Watch: The Reckoning.
Previously on The Reckoning: a random, very short selection of clips, maybe 12 seconds worth, showing Bosco telling Ty that police work is "all about the law of averages," Sully telling Faith she's a good cop, Sully bringing cookies to a cute neighbor's house, and Faith coming home to her husband Fred. That's it. According to NBC, if you don't remember what happened all those weeks ago, too bad, suckas! The episode (which should be called The Reckoning if for no other reason than that it's not "A Hero's Rest," which is just an ass title) begins with a slow-motion lottery ball bouncing and spinning through a lottery machine. Bosco, in voice-over, tells us that the week the jackpot was $70 million, lines stretched around the block for people to buy tickets. I really like this disembodied, faceless Bosco. I wish all of his performance was in voice-over. Balls are bouncing. One of them comes through a tube. Bosco says he doesn't believe in luck. The number 35 pops up and down the tube, galvanizing itself with loud, unnecessary sound effects. Right. Loud balls. Got it.
In the station locker room, Sully announces, "Seventy million dollars!" to which Faith replies, "Yeah! Right?" Ty chimes in, too. Bosco bursts in with his plain clothes and says that if he had the power over who lived and who died, the world would be a better place. And there would be no ugly women anymore, right Bosco? Sully contemplates Bosco as God. A goose walks over my grave. Bosco does a John Rocker, complaining that he won't ride the trains with "that garbage" after complaining about traffic. Yokas tells him defensively that she rides the trains. Ty suggests, pretty stupidly, that if Bosco wins the lottery, he can ride a helicopter to work. Because that makes absolute sense. Ty maintains that if you won the lottery, you'd still need something to do, so why not come to work? Faith says sarcastically that she'd love to strap on a bulletproof vest out of boredom. Bosco suddenly announces that the lottery is a scam. Someone comes in and announces roll call and Bosco is suddenly late. "Morons!" he calls after everyone, even though he is the tardy one. That scene was pure setup, but to what end? Oh, I know: to show that Bosco is a breed apart. A nonconformist. A man comfortable with his own prejudices. Damn, it's only the first five minutes and already I need a stiff drink.
At roll call, a glowering young man in uniform is staring everyone down. He looks like a young Jason Bateman crossed with Doogie Howser. I shall call him Sergeant Doogie Bateman. Bosco creeps in and the other man in charge, a short stocky man of the Sully variety, warns "Boscorelli" that it's the fourth time he's been late this month. You know you're in trouble when they call you by your entire last name. Sully says, loudly, that it's actually more like five times. Ty backs him up and says it's been twice this week. Wow, Bosco, you are quite hated. "You people got nothing better to pay attention to?" he asks, in a mannerism that sounds like it was picked up directly from Faith Yokas. Bless her sweet influence. The guy at the front of the room warns Bosco that time he's late a command discipline will go in Bosco's file. The patrol sergeant, Doogie Bateman (real name: Jason Christopher), is introduced and Bosco is taken aback. "Jason Christopher?" he asks. "In the flesh," Faith replies, while leaning back to whisper. Everybody gets up. Faith greets Doogie Bateman. Doogie asks Bosco how he did on his sergeant test. Bosco says he didn't take it. "Well that's probably for the best," Doogie says snidely, and now he has gone from being merely Doogie Bateman to being Doogie McSnidely Bateman. Doogie leaves. Bosco asks what happened and Faith says he needs to patch things up with Doogie. Faith says she wants to go buy a lottery ticket. You and the rest of New York.
Outside on a street corner, Bosco is pacing and complaining. "Come on!" he yells into his radio. Faith is standing in line at a convenience store. She's trying to ignore Bosco's yelling. "I'm not standing out here all day!" Bosco yells. Yokas explains to the people around her, "Jumper. It's very tragic." Ha! Bosco paces around some more. He sees a shady-looking guy named Rudy suddenly steal a bag of oranges from a stand. Bosco clotheslines the guy, making him fall on his head. Bosco grabs him, then adds insult to injury by insulting the guy who just got injured. Bosco cuffs Rudy, pulls him up, and takes him to the squad car. He gathers the oranges (way to protect the public, Bosco!) and calls in the incident. Inside the store, Yokas is second in line. Bosco tells her what happened then insists they leave immediately. Yokas laughs and then gets mad because any other day, Bosco would have just let the guy go. She follows him, and asks what his problem is with her buying lottery tickets. They argue. Inside the car, Rudy is lying down. Bosco tells him to get up. The guy doesn't want to be seen. Faith throws an orange in the air and, oddly, it goes up and comes down in slow motion. The Hell is that supposed to mean? Leave the surreal stuff to Twin Peaks, okay? Rudy finally gets up and then POW! Shot through the head. Blood splatters against the window. Bosco and Yokas spin out of their seats and pull out their guns. Yokas yells into her radio. "Shots fired! Shots fired!" I hear Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta arguing about whether the gun went off or whether they ran over a bump. It's crazy! We go to the opening theme, which I have truly missed.
NBC is incessantly playing the most annoying Golden Globes commercial that could ever be. The only semi-compelling moment is when Courtney Love's boob almost falls out of her ripped black dress. And it's only compelling in that Courtney Love exposing her boob to the world is one of the signs of the Apocalypse.
Back to the slow-motion, sound-effect producing lotto machine. This time, the 37 ball appears, as if the entire state of the world depended on it. Boom! Crash! BOOM! Crap!
Scene of the shooting: Kim and Bobby are examining the car. Bobby says it must have been a large-caliber weapon, because after all, he's a ballistics expert. He asks whether Yokas and Bosco are okay. "I will be after my ass unpuckers," Yokas says, in what may be the most brilliant line ever uttered on this show. They speculate on who could have killed Rudy Granger. Doogie Bateman arrives and tells Sully, who is examining the shot-at squad car, to get lost. Sully approaches Bosco and Yokas and says, "Wow." As in, "Wow, so glad it wasn't me." Ty says, "Sorry," on his way out, as in, "Sorry it was you and not Doogie." Doogie Bateman bitches out Yokas and Bosco over the "phantom shooter" and asks Bosco how he knew that Boscorelli was going to be his first problem. "Like I asked for this?" Bosco says. Yokas, who addressed Doogie as "Jason," also gets ranked out for not saluting and for calling him "Jason" out on the street. Yokas salutes and says, "Yes, sir." Doogie McSnidely Bateman has morphed into Doogie Tightass Bateman. Yokas explains to a black woman standing nearby that they all used to work together. "It was a misunderstanding," Bosco says. Yokas looks shaken. She wipes blood off of Bosco's face with a napkin, kid-style. I'm surprised she didn't lick the napkin first. "You should have just let me buy the ticket," she says.
In a squad car, Ty is speculating on how much happiness a mere lottery ticket could buy. Got Faust? Sully, meanwhile, is stewing over the young Sergeant Doogie Bateman. Sully feels he (Sully) is being treated like a first-year rookie. Aw, poor Sully. (I should have that phrase on a computer macro.) "I've got shirts older than that stiff-necked little son of a bitch!" Sully bellows. Sully and Ty do that not-at-all-cute thing where each of them is talking about different things and not listening to each other. Ty goes on about how he'd like to buy an island in the Caribbean if he won the lottery. Sully bellows some more, actually working in the not-at-all-overused phrase, "I'm too old for this crap!" Ty asks Sully if he's ever been to Jamaica. Rum punch. Half-naked women. Sully asks again about Doogie Bateman. Ty tells Sully he's not invited to the island when Ty wins the lottery. I think Sully would have been voted off Survivor pretty quickly. But he would probably do well on Temptation Island given his already repressive nature.
At the station, Yokas and Bosco are reclaiming possessions that were taken after the shooting. Yokas bitches that her memo book is ruined. Bosco says he's not throwing away his Kel-Light. He's had it since they started. Ewww. It's all covered in blood and probably brain matter. Somebody call Harvey Keitel and get some under-the-sink cleaning products. The black woman who was at the scene after the shooting, and who seems to be able to miraculously appear to interject wisdom and exposition into every scene, asks if Bosco and Yokas noticed a guy on a bicycle during the shooting. She says a witness saw a guy on a bicycle. Yokas lets slip that they didn't see anything because they hit the deck so fast. Bosco corrects her by making it sound like they were trying to secure the scene from behind the squad car's gas pedal. Wise Black Woman asks why anyone would have wanted to kill Rudy. Well, maybe because he was a crotchety, withered guy who probably killed a bunch of people as a Navy Seal. Oh, wait, she's talking about Rudy from Third Watch not Survivor Rudy. Got it. Yokas says Rudy was pretty insignificant as criminals go. Now that's just sad. You work your whole life to be a reputable criminal, and some cop calls you "insignificant" after you die. Sad, people. Yokas gets called away to an incident with shots fired at police. They take off.
Sully bolts out of his car and pushes gathered people around to get through. Two cops are lying on the ground. One of them, Marty, is shot in the chest, but alive. Sully tends to him. Ty tries to help another guy who looks like he's been shot in the neck. "Stay with me," Ty tells him. The cop with the neck wound asks for Marty, even though he can barely breathe. Sully says they have to take the bodies now. He lifts Marty up roughly. "We're not waiting for EMS?" Ty asks. Nope. The quick ER inspired music is playing. Two more squad cars arrive. Where's Doc and Carlos? Oh, I see. This is a cops episode, not a paramedics episode. Bosco arrives and, having no way of knowing what's going on, tells Sully that the ambulance is coming and not to move the bodies. Bosco is told by some witnesses that a guy on a mountain bike started shooting up the place. It was a yellow bicycle, they say. "Where's the damn bus!?" somebody yells. Ty tries to calm Neck Wound down. He tells the guy it's not that bad. Yeah, he only got shot by a high-caliber weapon in the neck. The guy, amazingly, is still alive and can almost talk. He's like Wonder Neck Wound Guy. "Look at me, Greg, look at me," Ty says. Greg, the Neck Wound Guy, starts to tell Ty to tell Mary something, but Ty stops him and says, "Tell her yourself." How rude. I know it's all inspirational and trying to keep the guy alive, but you don't tell somebody dying, "Tell her yourself." Because, boom, Greg just died. And he didn't get to tell anybody anything except maybe St. Peter at the Pearly Gates what an asshole Ty is. Nice, Ty. Real nice.
Kim and Bobby arrive. Oh, is Charles in Charge over? Glad you could make it. (Those lines, by the way, were shamelessly cribbed from MST3K.) Bobby and Kim step in, but it's far too late. The bodies have got rigor mortis by now. The camera spins around Ty as he broods. Implausibly, as Greg's being looked over, the inside of his hat is revealed to have a photo taped inside it. A woman and boy are in the photo. Ty, mouth open, looks stunned.
We go to a stupid Sprint PCS commercial. Because sometimes life is just like that. And I plan to take The Pledge not to see Nicholson's new movie. I don't care who directed it.
Another lottery ball moment. I wish they would combine this with the stupid Ti-Cheeze moments from the last episode and have Doc come out and kick the lotto ball machine. The word "Needless" would appear in some exotic language. No such luck. Lottery ball #24 rolls down the pike, in case you're keeping track.
Ty is washing his hands. Sully is preaching. He says if he ever buys it, please don't let them say he was a hero just because he gave his life to the city of New York. Very noble, Sully. Ty washes some more. He's soaping it up, Lava-style. "Did you call your mother?" Sully asks. He tells Ty not to let her find out from the news because they won't say names on the news right off. Ty keeps watching. "I'm sorry about your friend," Sully says. Ty downplays it. The dead guy, Greg, was in the academy with him. Ty's still washing. I obsessive-compulsively rewind three times to make sure I'm seeing it right. Sully notices the hand washing. "They look pretty clean. Your hands," he says. Ty stops washing. I rewind three more times to make sure it turns out okay. "Ready to roll?" Ty asks. Yeah. Sully is a roll.
Up at the front of the station, phones are ringing off the hook as people are checking in. Faith Yokas calls home and assures her kids that she's all right. She'll just be a little late getting home. Bosco walks up behind her. Yokas makes sure Bosco called his mom. Forum folks: I really think the Yokas / Bosco connection is maternal, not romantic. Honestly. Bosco says the detectives think the guy who shot the cops was the same bicyclist who shot Rudy. He asks how many white guys are riding ten-speeds in New York. "Twenty thousand?" Yokas asks. She says the guy has no reason for shooting up folks. Bosco says the guy has a reason. He grabs Yokas' badge and shows it to her.
At the hospital, Doc and Carlos are walking by. Carlos asks, "Is that the family?" "Probably," Doc tells him. Sad people. "Damn," Carlos says. What a poet.
At the station, all the cops are listening to the dispatch call from the shot cops. It's pretty terrible. "We're hit, we're hit!" they yell. I would have been yelling, "OOOOOWWWWW!" Everyone looks upset, especially Bosco. Wise Black Woman is suddenly heading up the meeting and says that the suspect sent a nice note saying he's at war with the government, and the cops are the government's soldiers (I thought that was the U.S. Postal Service). So they're all targets. The description is white male, 35-40, beard. Oh yeah, and he's a crazy fella. Yokas asks about the cops' families. She says she hopes the one whose family they're unsure of doesn't have kids.
Hospital. Bosco does like Ben Stiller and meets the family. The Monica Lewinsky-looking Wife of Greg and her moppet son greet him. She's crying, obviously. She's Mary Jane and apparently Ty already met her at the academy graduation, although he doesn't seem to remember. "Were you there?" she asks. She wants to know if her husband said anything. Like maybe her name, which he absolutely did. Ty lies and says he was unconscious and didn't feel anything. I get the feeling that if Greg had delivered a soliloquy that ended with, "...and the wind calls out 'Mary...Jane...' " right before he died, that Ty still would have fed her a load of dung. Ty, you're 0 for 2 today. The woman cries on Ty's lying shoulder. "They won't let me see him," she says.
In the squad car, Bosco is complaining that the new squad cars aren't comfortable like the old ones. Yokas says it's in his head. Just then, Bosco spots a guy on a bike coming up behind him. On a yellow bicycle, no less. He jumps. Yokas and he lean down as he draws his gun. The guy passes without incident. "Gotta keep moving," Bosco says. They drive off.
Hospital again. Ty is leading Monica Lewin- …I mean, Mary Jane, down the hospital corridor as people stand by and watch. They go into an empty room. "I feel like I can't walk," Mary Jane moans. "You don't have to do this," Ty says, charitably. "Yes I do," she slurs. She goes in, totally unaccompanied by any doctor, and sees her husband, who is so blue I start to think he might be part Oompa Loompa. She cries. A lot. My closed captioning says, "Wailing." That she does. All the cops outside, especially a Chris Farley-looking fellow with a walrus moustache, look ashen.
Squad car. Bosco asks Yokas if she believes in fate and predetermination. How very Hobbes of him. Or is it Calvin? Bosco asks the great questions that have plagued mankind for centuries. What if Rudy hadn't stolen the fruit? Why did the cops have to die? What if it was supposed to be Bosco's day to die? Yokas fidgets. "I really want to win that lottery," she says finally.
Yokas gets home. Fred, who just got home himself from the Larry Miller Look-alike contest (Hey, you laugh, but it was $500 smackers!), says the shootings were all over the news. "All the Larrys were talking about it, too," he says. Yokas moves quickly through the house. She wants to see her kids. She goes to Emily, who is sleeping, and touches her shoulder. Another day, Yokas. Just another day. She kisses her kids. Fred watches, Millerly.
At the station, Mary Jane is greeted by Ty, who has brought her Greg's dress uniform. He couldn't find the shoes. "Did they need the shoes?" she asks. Ty doesn't know. She opens the suit carrier and looks at the medals inside. "He was so proud of being a cop," Mary Jane says. Ty offers to carry the suit out, but Mary Jane takes it herself. She leaves, thanking Ty on her way out. "I didn't really do anything," he says. Just. Take. The. Damn. Compliment. Okay? She leaves. In slow motion. Ty broods. We go to commercial.
We come back to, jeez, another lottery ball sequence. My girlfriend, who anyone will tell you is sweet and meek and not at all profane ["She really is lovely" -- niki], yells out from the couch, "What the fuck is with the lottery balls!?" Ball #26 comes down.
Yokas is lying down. Fred bursts in and says he heard on the radio that Bicycle Man is planning on shooting more cops. Yokas says it won't happen. "You don't know that!" Fred says, with the white-hot intensity of a thousand Larry Millers. Fred also asks about the guy who got shot in the back of the police cruiser. Yokas doesn't tell him that she was in that car when it happened. "What would be wrong with calling in sick?" Fred asks Yokas. Yokas says she can't. Fred asks why she would knowingly go to a place where someone is trying to hurt her. Yokas, who looks like she's about to cry, says that if something did happen and she didn't know, she'd never be able to live with herself. "What about us?" Fred asks. "How are we supposed to live without you?" Yokas gives the best answer ever. She says that this is what she is and being a cop is what she does. She can't expect someone else to sit in the seat for her, no matter how bad it gets. Like recapping this show for instance. "Don't ask me to do that," she says. "Please." Fred puts a hand on her knee and walks off. He doesn't seem angry, like the last time he asked her to quit.
Sully leaves his apartment building. According to the closed captioning, he "inhales deeply." He runs into the very cute Russian neighbor, Tatiana. He asks about her drain. She, smiling, says the drain is fine. "What about the drain snake?" Sully thinks, "Oh, wait, that's mine... heh heh." No, of course he doesn't think that. Sully is probably fretting in his mind that he has something stuck in his teeth. Sully tells Tatiana that he's on his way to work. Tatiana says that she's been watching the news and she wants him to be careful at work. She says this in the cutest Tony-Soprano's-Russian-Girlfriend voice. "Thanks," Sully says. He smiles as he walks off.
Bosco knocks on an apartment door. A surly looking woman answers. Bosco was about to walk off. He asks if she's Rudy's mom. She says yeah, but he was killed yesterday. She's smoking a cigarette and holding a big bottle of liquor. Hooch. The Hard Stuff. Booze. Liquid Courage. Okay, I'll stop now. Bosco says he knows about the murder. "Did you kill him?" she asks after Bosco says he's sorry. "He was in my car," Bosco says. "You're the cop. I'm not gonna sue you if that's what you're worried about." Bosco says, "No." The woman says her son wasn't always bad. He got straight A's in seventh grade. Bosco, who looks like he's about to cry, says he's sorry about her loss. She asks if he wants to come in or something. Bosco says he's late to work and leaves. The woman looks a little shaken. So does Bosco for that matter.
Bosco bursts into the locker room, rushing to get dressed. He's so late. In the meeting room, Doogie Bateman asks Yokas where da Bosco at. "He's changing, Sarge," she says. Notice how she called him Sarge? He shakes his head and walks to the front of the room. The guy from before walks in and starts giving out assignments. Bosco walks in late. "Sorry boss," he says. The guy at the front says that people were worried cops wouldn't come to work. He's glad they proved him wrong. Doogie Bateman asks Bosco to see him after.
In the car, Bosco tells Yokas he's getting a reprimand. He has to sign it. Yokas tells Bosco he has to apologize. Bosco plays like he has nothing to apologize for. "He was engaged to her," she says. Bosco says it wasn't hard to get the woman to go home with him and it was meant to be. Whoa. So Bosco slept with Doogie Bateman's woman? How utterly fresh of him. "That's right, put an existential spin on it," Yokas says. This is funny like that Sopranos episode where Tony Jr. starts reading philosophy and asking all these questions about death and existentialism and Tony Sr. tells his psychiatrist in frustration, "Fucking Internet!" That's funny. Yokas asks why Bosco was late. "I just can't seem to get my ass here," he growls.
On the street, Sully is complaining that they've seen maybe ten yellow ten-speeds that day. It's amazing, he says, that you start to notice stuff is everywhere when you're looking for it. Ty says he's thinking about Mary Jane (the woman, not the herb, although it would explain a lot otherwise) because she asked him to be a pallbearer. "It's an honor," Sully says. Ty relates a story where Greg and another guy in the academy had to run a distance to pass the academy. Ty stayed back with them so they wouldn't give up, and according to Mary Jane, Greg never forgot that. "I couldn't even remember his first name till his partner said it," Ty says. He looks emotional. He says that if he hadn't helped the guy on that run, maybe he wouldn't have been there and gotten shot. Sully's got no answer for that.
Bosco and Yokas are walking down the street. People are staring. Bosco asks what they're looking at. "They know we're like dead men walking," she says. A loud bang. Bosco and Yokas jump. It's just a guy dumping garbage. "We gotta catch this bastard. Fast," Bosco says.
But before that, we have to catch some bastard commercials. Like the Golden Globes ones again.
You guessed it. Lottery. This time it's #5.
Bosco and Yokas arrive in a parking lot. "I mean it, Bos, salute him," she urges. Bosco gets out of the car and ambles over to where Doogie Bateman is in his squad car. Bosco salutes. Doogie rolls down the window. Bosco asks if he can have a word in the back of the car. He slips and calls him Jason and then corrects himself. Doogie Bateman agrees and steps outside. Bosco apologizes for what happened. Doogie says it has nothing to do with that. Bosco goes on, saying he was young, she was young, it was a stupid mistake. This is rather big considering it's Bosco. Doogie says it's water under the bridge. Yeah, water that he's pissing in. Doogie tells him to sign anyway. Bosco says he's sorry. Doogie tells him to sign anyway. "Do you need a pen?" he asks menacingly. Sad. Bosco gave the guy's fiancée some sex, and now he gets a pen. Just then, the crazy, bearded, coated bike rider passes by and starts shooting. He shoots out the tires, some windows, the car. Bosco bravely grabs Doogie and drags him around the car while yelling out "Faith!" Yokas has crouched down and it looks like the bullets are missing her. The bicyclist keeps shooting. Yokas calls in the incident. Bosco asks if she's all right. "Yeah! He went south!" she yells back. While Doogie crouches with his gun, stunned, Bosco climbs into the car and they're off. Awwww, yeah. It's on 'till the break of dawn! Chase time! It's The Reckoning!
Sully and Ty get the call. They get on it. In fact the biker passes right in front of their car. They give chase. Lots of speeding through busy streets. The bicyclist is good. Real good. Bosco and Yokas are chasing from one direction, Sully and Ty from the other. They almost collide, and then Ty and Sully take the lead. Sully radios and asks them to go around so they can box him in. That looks like it's going to work except the guy is on a bike and easily maneuvers between the two cars as they completely fail to form a roadblock. Oops. More chasing. Lots of steering wheel pulls. Both cars are chasing when, suddenly, a rig comes along. The biker slides, falls off the bike, and slides neatly under the rig, as if this were Smokey and the Bandit all of a sudden. Sully and Ty stop with lots of "Whoa, whoa, whoas!" They stop just short of the rig.
Everybody gets out of the cars. Sully goes to the bike and sees that the "son of a bitch has a scanner!" Yokas and Bosco chase on foot. Sully and Ty get back in their car for some ungodly reason. Guy runs. Bosco chases. Bosco has the gun and, I think, the advantage. Plus Bosco hasn't been pedaling a bike all day. Wouldn't it be funny if the killer were a bearded Lance Armstrong? Just asking. They chase the guy into a junkyard. Yokas calls it in and says they should wait for backup. Bosco doesn't want to wait. He asks Yokas to wait in case the guy doubles back. Then he leaves her. Yokas yells, "Good luck!" Bosco yells back that he doesn't believe in luck.
Sully and Ty finally arrive. They draw their guns and now it's a deadly game of cat and mouse. Only with cops and a killer and no mice or cats to speak of. The killer takes some shots and some windows get blown out, including one right near Bosco's head. Yokas chases after Bosco. He radios to her that he's okay. Lots of peeking around corners and looking through windshields. Sully makes some hand motions to Ty, who runs for cover. Sully tries to be stealthy, but that's like trying to get valet parking with a garbage truck. Yokas and Sully meet, and Yokas was pointing her gun his way. Way to be careful. More windows blown out. Bosco looks scared. He climbs on a car, stupidly, and runs. Then he does the first smart thing he's done all day. He looks under the car for feet. Yes! He spots the killer and blows out one of the guy's legs. Way to go, Bosco! Bosco corners the guy, points his gun and everybody else catches up. They all point guns at the guy, who looks not at all remorseful. Yokas picks up the guy's gun. Bosco looks to the others and then looks at the guy, who's smiling. He kicks the guy in the face to wipe the guy's smile off. Nobody seems to mind. Yokas calls in the bust.
Drums are playing. Suddenly, we're in a commercial for the Marines. White dress gloves. Shiny black shoes shined to perfection and wiped down. Brass buttons being, well, buttoned. Badge. Medals. Hat. All part of getting dressed in the morning.
Now we're outside at a funeral procession. The flag corp, each with a melancholy shamrock in their hat, passes. Then the guys with the big fuzzy things on their heads and kilts. Lots of shamrocks, but I don't think they're for luck this time. Drums keep playing. The largest moustaches I've ever seen belong to some of these NYPD cops. Ty and Sully are shown. Sully is following the procession solemnly. The hearse stops. The widow appears, moppet in tow. The pallbearers, with Ty at the fore, take their position. Ty pulls out the casket, which is draped in a green, white, and blue flag. Sully calls out the orders as a bagpipe player starts his dirge. The casket is brought to the gravesite. Everyone salutes. The casket is laid on the stand. The flag is drawn and two trumpeters begin to play "Taps." Sully leads the front line of officers. Faith and Bosco are rock solid. Ty is blinking, holding back tears. The bagpipes resume. Each pallbearer grabs a rose and lays it on the casket. Ty plucks his, lays it on top and salutes the casket. Then he goes to Mary Jane and salutes her. The little boy, round faced and sad, looks at him with wide eyes. Then he stands up and salutes Ty back. Ty closes his eyes, tears running down his cheeks. Dammit, it happens to me, too. Yeah, it's cheesy. Yeah, JFK Jr. is up in Heaven right now seeing if he can sue from the grave. But damned if it doesn't work. I've got tears here. Nice job with the tears there, Ty. Mary Jane doesn't look up. Ty walks away. He stands in front of Sully. Sully puts an arm on Ty's shoulder. I get a Kleenex.
At the bar, the final lottery number is announced: 50. Hey, I won! The show's almost over! Jackpot! Ty moans. Sully says he didn't get one number. Everybody is holding a huge mug of beer. "I really wanted to win," Faith says seriously. Bosco says Yokas would have missed him too much. They toast the fallen officer and Bosco excuses himself. "I'll see you tomorrow," Sully says to him as he leaves.
Bosco exits, still in his dress uniform. He takes off his hat and then walks off. In voice over, Bosco says a group of coffee shop employees from Queens won the $70 million and said they'd all be at work the day. Rudy Granger, Bosco says, was laid to rest the day. He and Rudy's mother were the only ones there. The funeral, Bosco says, wasn't much, but it was all he could afford. Bosco says there was one other winner of the lottery who never came forward. He says he thinks about the ticket he threw away and whether he would have come to work the day if he'd won. "Yeah, I woulda been there. You bet I would," he says. Bosco walks down Times Square as the bagpipes and drums start up again.
A title card at the end reads, "One hundred and fifty police officers in this country died in the line of duty in the year 2000." Sober, much? Wow. Bosco's likeable? I'm crying over something the non-emoting Ty did? What the Hell is the world coming to? I can hardly believe it. I guess the world really did go Bizzaro during the long break.
week: much more Bosco. Surprisingly, I can't wait.