By Nicole
Last week, my mother was in town and watched the episode with me. If you guys thought I was negative towards the show, just you wait until you hear what my mom has to say. So the show starts off with Bosco and Yokas walking down a street, and Bosco is telling Yokas about his mother's fiftieth birthday and that Skanky Nicole wants to go to the party with him, and that he doesn't know whether to introduce Skanky Nicole to his mother while his mother's friends get her drunk and have a stripper. I don't know why Bosco would think Nicole couldn't handle that -- it sounds like what Nicole would do if she went out with her girlfriends. They get a call to direct traffic at a building fire.
Doc and Morales are looking at a very small apartment, and their real-estate agent is giving them the hard sell. They talk about how they couldn't fit all their stuff into it, but it's all they can afford and it has nice views. Anyone else see where this story is going?
Ty and Sully are walking down the street, and Ty is reading email responses to the online singles ad that he placed for Sully. Sully is not interested, and tells Ty that he doesn't want his help finding a girlfriend. Maybe Bosco could help him -- Skanky Nicole must know more women who just want to have sex with a cop and don't really talk much, which would seem like the perfect woman for Sully right now. So Ty reads a letter that he thinks sounds promising. Sully tells Ty that he can have her. ["I think Sully needs to cut down on the saltpeter, seriously." -- Sars]
Fire trucks coming to the scene of the fire, which is at a two-story motel. Bosco and Yokas move people away from the building, and Jimmy and company go inside the motel. The building is filled with smoke, and Jimmy et. al. put on their masks and start feeling for hot doors. Outside, Bosco stops two boys from running into the motel, and they tell Bosco and Yokas that their mother is in the building. We go to credits.
There is a Wal-Mart commercial on, and my mom informs me that since my father has retired, he and his friend Carlos (not dumbass Carlos from Third Watch) are going to work at Wal-Mart as greeters. I can totally see my father as a Wal-Mart greeter. He's very cheesy.
Back outside the burning motel, Bosco tells a firefighter that there is a woman in Room 206, so the guy radios Jimmy to tell him to look for the woman. Bosco then asks the boys if they were there when the fire started, and they tell him that they left when their father came over. Apparently, they don't think much of their father. Inside, Jimmy and company find a man lying down in the hall and they start to pull him out. They get a call from outside telling them that the wind has shifted and to look out for the fire moving. Cue the fire, which starts flying out of rooms and blasting out windows. After the fire dies down a little, the firefighters start battling the flames and searching for the boys' mother.
Ty is on a pay phone calling the woman who sent the promising email, and he tries to imitate Sully's voice. Meanwhile, my mother notices that ten minutes into the show, the credits are still rolling. She asks me why it takes so many people to make such a boring show. Then she asks if there is any more champagne in the refrigerator. Hey, I didn't tell her the best way to watch this show is to get drunk. She figured it out on her own! So Ty leaves a message on this woman's machine to meet Sully for coffee after his shift is over that night. Sully is pissed off, and rightfully so. I think Ty has been watching too much and thinks that if you just make dates for your friends without their permission, everything will work out in the end. Ty needs to work for Mr. Spelling.
Jimmy finds a woman sitting up in a bathtub full of water, and she is still alive but burned badly. Jimmy carries her out. Bobby and Kim start working on the woman as the younger brother yells out for his mother. The older brother yells out that their father did this to their mother, and now he thinks they are going to make him and his little brother go back to their father, so he runs off.
Doc and Carlos talk about Vangie; they are parked outside her apartment and Carlos is waiting for her to come home. When she finally does come back to her apartment, Carlos runs out to see her. At first, Vangie is all happy that Carlos came to see her, and Carlos, the smooth caring man that he is, asks her to consider having an abortion. Vangie gets pissed off at him again, and says, "Hurt me now, miss me later." And then she walks off. Gee, I wonder what she meant by that? This story line is just as predictable as the Doc/Morales apartment hunt. Yawn.
Bobby and Kim have brought the burned woman to the ER and are getting ready to leave, and they tell Morales that they don't think the burned woman will make it. Morales asks Bosco and Yokas what they know about the woman. They tell Morales that they talked to the motel manager, who told them that she'd just moved in and had enough cash for a three-week stay, and that the kids are scared of their father. Morales suggests they get a detective involved because she found aged bruises on the woman and a pattern burn of a watch on her wrist, but she didn't see any watch. Bobby and Kim get a call, and Kim tells Morales that she will check for the watch in her ambulance. They hear the younger brother yelling in one of the examining rooms, and Bosco and Yokas and Morales run in and see him in the corner yelling for his brother. Dana, the nurse who seemed to have disappeared after Bobby slept with her, has reappeared and is in the examining room; she tells Morales that she tried to take off his shirt to examine him and he freaked out. Bosco talks to the kid and tells him he will find his brother and bring him to the hospital, and then he talks the kid into taking off his shirt. I'm sure Bosco has had a lot of experience trying to talk women into taking off their shirts, so I bet it was pretty easy for him to get a little boy to undress. The medical personnel find bruises all over the boy's body and they ask him who did it, and the boy tells them it was his father.
At the commercial break, I asked my mom how she liked the first fifteen minutes off the show, and this is how the conversation went:
Mom: It's only fifteen minutes into the show?
Nicole: Yep.
Mom: Are you sure?
Nicole: Look at the clock.
Mom: God, this show is boring. It feels like it should be half over. Now I know what to watch when I want time to go by very slowly. How do you do this every week?
Kim and Bobby are looking for the watch in the ambulance, and Bobby suggests that Kim talk to Jimmy about the missing watch. He tells her Jimmy was alone when he found the woman, and everyone knows he has a gambling problem. Kim gets upset that Bobby is insinuating that Jimmy is a thief. Well, duh! How could you not insinuate that Jimmy stole that watch -- look at his track record!
Bosco and Yokas bring the boy to a room with Detective Kiser and a Child Services woman. The detective comes over to talk to them while the Child Services woman talks to the boy. Yokas asks Kiser if they are going to bring in the father, and Kiser tells them that the father has some questions to answer. They ask Kiser if they can bring the father in, and she gives them permission.
Ty and Sully are in the ER, and Dana tells Ty that a beating victim specifically asked to see him. They go into the waiting room, and Malcolm's sister's friend (the one who helped Tisha steal that Lexus) is in there and she's all beat up, and she tells Ty that Tisha got hurt worse and is in the hospital, and that Sunder did it. Tisha was dating Sunder, which is how Malcolm got involved with his numbers running, and when she wanted to leave him, Sunder beat the two of them up. Then she tells Ty that Malcolm is hell-bent on revenge; Tisha wants Ty to find Malcolm and make sure he doesn't do anything. Maybe Ty can get his mother to baby-sit Malcolm again.
Bosco and Yokas are in their car, talking about what kind of a man would beat his kids and wife and then start a fire. Then they do their PSA for the day about how no one helps kids until it is too late, yadda yadda yadda, warning signs, the system just doesn't work. Tell us something we don't know.
Bobby and Kim come to an apartment and knock on the door. Music is blaring, and Kim announces that they are the paramedics that were called for help, and then they walk on in. There are candles lit all over, and they walk over to the bed where Vangie is lying unconscious in a silk nightgown and matching robe. Bobby looks at her nightstand and sees that she took cough syrup, aspirin, and children's chewables, trying to commit suicide. They try to wake her up. What a freak. She and Carlos seem perfect for each other.
Ty and Sully go into a barbershop where Sunder is getting his hair done. After some tough talk on both sides, they arrest Sunder for assault. Sunder tells them he knows Malcolm is after him, but he doesn't care because he has men who will kill Malcolm if he tries anything. Sunder, ever hear of "you have the right to remain silent"? Learn it, know it, live it if you don't want to spend the rest of your life in prison.
Bosco and Yokas find the boys' father at work fixing cars, and they tell him about his wife. He doesn't really seem to care, and then they tell him that he needs to come to the precinct to answer some questions. The guy gives them a hard time and resists coming with them, so Yokas smacks him in the back of his legs with her nightstick, and Bosco cuffs him. Now I see what Yokas's theory on police brutality is. You can do whatever the hell you want to do, if you think that someone did something wrong to a child. I can't wait to see her pound on someone wrongfully accused of hurting a child.
My mom is really happy there is another commercial. She asks if people really like the show, or are they sending me nasty emails and saying mean things to me on the boards because lots of psychos play on the Internet and I seem to have attracted them.
Kim walks up to Jimmy and tells him the woman didn't make it, and he doesn't seem too phased by that. Then she tells him about the missing watch, and again Jimmy doesn't really seem to care. Kim keeps tiptoeing around the issue and kind of sort of asks if he knows anything about the watch, and if he did know anything she would hope that he would tell her about it. Jimmy does not seem to get the hint that Kim is accusing him of stealing the watch, and goes on about his business of whatever it was that he was doing before Kim walked up to him. If ignorance is bliss, Jimmy is probably a very happy man.
Morales stops Carlos and Doc in the ER and asks Carlos about Vangie. She tells them Vangie OD'd on cough syrup and vitamins, and when they got her coherent she starting talking trash about Carlos. Morales asks Carlos what his relationship to Vangie is and if she has any psychological problems. Carlos tells her that he had a relationship with her, and she got pregnant and flipped out. Doc chimes in that she flipped out because Carlos wanted nothing to do with her or the baby. Morales tells them she is putting Vangie on psychological evaluation for seventy-two hours. Carlos is such an asshole. There are many other things I can say about Carlos, but I think I'll keep it short because we all know what a flaming asshole he is, and all those other things pretty much lead back to that.
Sully and Ty are in their car, looking for Malcolm. Ty tells Sully that someone is going to get shot that day. Then they go into their own PSA about how blacks don't trust cops because of they way they have been treated in the past. Yeah, we get it.
Kim and Bobby have come to a convenience store to take care of a boy who collapsed. They check him out, and he is wheezing and his mouth and nose hairs are burned. They figure out that he's the older brother that ran away from the scene of the motel fire. I wonder what tipped them off? They ask him if he was in the motel and inhaled smoke, but he doesn't answer.
Doc and Carlos are in the ambulance, and Doc tells Carlos that he and Morales weren't teaming up on him, even though that's what it felt like to Carlos. Carlos thinks that Vangie is nuts, and he doesn't even believe that she is pregnant. After the stunt Vangie pulled, you would think that the hospital would give her a pregnancy test to make sure she really is pregnant, and if she is, they need to make sure that the overdose didn't do anything to the baby. Carlos then tells Doc that he can barely support himself, let alone a child, and there are things he wants to do and to have, and he doesn't want to deal with a baby. As he is pleading poverty, he accuses Doc of being rich and always having it easy, and they fight some more about that. Could Carlos tells us once more that he grew up poor? Because we didn't get it the first ten times he mentioned it. Oh, wait a minute, we did get it. Shut up about it already. And it is nice to know that Carlos is going to keep the cycle of poverty going by abandoning his unwanted child.
Kim and Bobby are putting the gurney up into the ambulance when Bobby finds the watch stuck in the frame. Kim gives him grief about not finding the watch earlier, and now Bobby feels guilty about accusing Jimmy of stealing the watch. Good thing he had Kim go up to Jimmy and accuse him and Jimmy didn't get it, otherwise Bobby would have to start eating some crow.
Bosco is walking over to Yokas after using the little boy's room, and Yokas tells him that she got a call from Detective Kiser telling her that they found the older brother; he's at the hospital with burns on the inside of his lungs. Bosco can't put two and two together, and Yokas has to spell it out to him that the boys lied to them about being in the motel when the fire started. Bosco still doesn't believe that they lied. That pesky evidence is always getting in the way, huh, Bosco?
Carlos buzzes at the door of the psych ward at the hospital, and a nurse answers the door. He asks if he can see Vangie, but the nurse tells him no visitors are allowed on the psych ward. Carlos asks if he can leave a message for Vangie, and he takes out a paper and pen but can't think of anything to say. Gee, Carlos, you usually are such a smooth talker with Vangie. How come you're tongue-tied now? She's already on the psych ward, so it's not like you can make anything worse for her. Or -- can you?
Sully and Ty are in their car looking for Malcolm when they hear gunshots. They see Malcolm being chased by some large men, and they join in on the chase. The men grab Malcolm, and Ty pulls the men away from Malcolm. Malcolm pulls out a gun, but Ty snatches it away from him and tells him that violence is not the answer and that he has taken care of Sunder and will now take care of him. Malcolm starts yelling at Ty that he needs to do something about his sister getting beat on by Sunder, and asks when Ty has ever done right by him. Ty tells him he is doing right by him now as he cuffs the other guys, and Malcolm finally has no witty retort.
During the commercial break, my mom asks if I would mind if she called my Aunt Carol and Uncle Bob to wish them a happy thirty-fifth anniversary. She tells me she had planned on calling after the show was over, but she's afraid she will fall asleep before then.
Bosco meets up with Kiser in the precinct, and she tells Bosco that she needs him to help the boy open up and tell her what really happened. Bosco goes into the room that the boy is in and asks him if his mother hurt him. He tells Bosco she didn't, and Bosco tells the boy that when he was little, his parents used to hurt him with their hands or with words, and he felt bad about it but he knew what they were doing was wrong. He then asks the boy if he is keeping anything to himself, and the boy tells him that if he tells the truth, they are going to send him and his brother back to their father. Bosco assures him that if their father hurts them, they will never have to go back to him. Bosco then asks if the boy's father started the fire. The boy tells him that his father came over and started a fight with his mother, and his brother Steve tried to stop the fight. The father started beating Steve, and then he left. After his father had gone, his mother got drunk and fell asleep with a cigarette burning, which started the fire. Steve told him if they let their mother burn, their father would be blamed and they could be together and no one would hurt them again. You know their lives had to have been pretty screwed up if they would let their mother die just so they could get rid of their father.
Kim sees Jimmy outside the station, and she comes over to him and apologizes for not believing in him. Jimmy looks a little more confused, and just then Brooke arrives and Kim walks off. Brooke asks Jimmy what was going on between him and Kim, and he has no idea, but he still seems pretty happy.
Doc and Morales are cleaning up Doc's dad's apartment, and they are trying to figure out what to do with all of his stuff. Then they start talking about finding a new apartment of their own, and they decide that it would be best for everyone if they just lived in Doc's dad's apartment. Wow! I didn't see that coming! Not. Who didn't see that one coming last week? In spite of this stale plotline, Doc and Morales have really good chemistry. I wonder if they will have kids soon?
Bosco and Ty are leaving the precinct for the night, and they're talking about the kids who burned their mother, and Bosco tells Ty there isn't anything he can do to help them. As Bosco is walking away to go to his mother's birthday party, Ty tells him that there has to be something he can do to help the kids. Now Ty is helping people solve problems. Just call him "Sully Junior"!
Sully goes to the coffee shop to meet his mystery date, and when he sees her and sits down with her, she is clearly let down by the looks of Sully. He tries some small talk, and then he tells her that Ty was the one who set up the date, and he can tell she is let down and he knows she doesn't want to be there any more than he does, so he pays for her coffee and leaves. Man, that sucks. If I were Sully I would go straight to Ty's house and beat him silly. And then I'd take Maggie out for some coffee.
Bosco is back at the precinct. He finds the Child Services woman and tells her that she will put the brothers in the same foster home. Halfway through this episode, Bosco picked up some sort of accent. I'm guessing Jason Wiles was told he needed to sound more like a New Yorker, but it just sounds like he is trying to talk like he is from New York. And if he decided to work on the accent, you would think he'd have used it in the beginning of the episode. But that would be consistency, and we all know that's frowned upon here.
Ty visits Tisha at the hospital, and Malcolm is there with her. They talk about Sunder for a little bit, and Ty tells them that Sunder is in jail and can't hurt them. He decides to be all buddy-buddy with Malcolm and pulls up a chair and tells them he wants to hang out with them for a while. I think he just knows that Sully is at his house waiting to beat the crap out of him.
Bosco is at a bar where his mother's birthday party is. There are lots of drunk squealing middle-aged women flailing about and a male stripper gyrating in front of Mama Bosco, who is sitting on the bar swinging her legs around. Like mother, like girlfriend. Nicole is dancing around with the other women while Bosco sits at a table and looks on. Mama comes up to Bosco and tells him that she really likes Nicole, and Bosco tells his mother that he really appreciated her being there for him when he was growing up. Mama B tells him she loves him and then goes back to the stripper, and Bosco looks longingly at Nicole as the screen fades to black. My mom notices the show is over and comes over to give me the phone so I can wish Aunt Carol and Uncle Bob a happy anniversary, and when I get on the phone, Aunt Carol says, "So, your mother told me that you have to watch a very boring television show every week. Is it over now? Are you still awake? How much longer do you have to do this?" Not much longer, Aunt Carol. Not much longer.