Some thoughts on "Prostrate Before the Law," the April 28 episode of NYPD Blue, after, as usual, some credits and a quick summary: ------------------------------ Story by David Milch & Bill Clark (you were expecting maybe Kafka?) Teleplay by Robert Ward (presumably no relation to losing Knicks point guard Charlie) Directed by Paris Barclay (who is neither French nor Portugese) SUMMARY: While Andy undergoes surgery to remove his prostate, the rest of the detective's squad -- buoyed by the return of new daddy James Martinez -- try to get five former Army buddies to explain how another member of their old unit was murdered. -------------------------------- Kinda fitting, isn't it? The first episode after we get the news that Jimmy Smits is leaving, and Dennis Franz is virtually absent from the show, giving his partner a chance to shine and show just what the series is going to lose when he leaves. It also gave enough individual screen time to the supporting cast to further reinforce the idea that, should Bochco's search for a new leading man fail utterly (doubtful), there are several good in-house candidates. Essentially, this episode was one long series of interrogations, but with five perps conveniently corresponding to the number of available detectives to give them some variety. We got to see each detective fly solo to accentuate their different styles, which are: -Jill: Comfort. As we've seen numerous times before, this is a woman supremely at ease with herself, which makes other people at ease around her. She sits down with a nervous gun zealot who just saw one of his friends murder another of his friends, and she almost immediately gets him into a comfortable conversation groove. I firmly believe that, even if the search of the hotel room had turned up nothing, Jill would have eventually gotten her guy to flip. -James: Honesty. James is a pretty uncomplicated (and occasionally dull) guy, but there's something to be said for his lay-out-your-cards approach. He gets a sense of his guy quickly, and potentially gathers ammunition for a second interrogation. -Greg: Cleverness. Greg's interivew approaches are all over the map, from huggings to telephone book thwackings and everything in between, but here he played smart by playing dumb, letting his guy try to float a lame story about black hookers with razorblades under their tongues, then at the last minute firmly establishing that he's onto all this nonsense. -Diane: Iron fist in a velvet glove. She sees that her guy fancies himself a ladies' man, flashes him a small smile, then immediately hits him with the information about the witness. Diane the cop is at her best when she's armed with information the perp doesn't think she has, because Delaney looks so un-cop-like that her revelation of certain incriminating facts comes across as more stunning than it might from, say, Martinez. and, finally and most importantly... -Bobby: Power. Bobby's approach, on the rare occasions where he's not required to play Andy's straight man or Diane's avenging angel, might be described by him as follows: I am bigger than you. I am smarter than you. I know you did it, so I am going to let you sit here and mouth off until I figure out what your hot buttons are, at which point I will press them and press them and press them until you tell me what I want to know. And even though I'm letting you talk your fool head off now, I am giving you a look that, if you weren't such a moron, you would realize means I will make you answer for your idiocy later. Have I mentioned that I'm bigger than you? Jimmy Smits is just so damn good when he's playing up Bobby's skills as a hunter, probing his opponent for a weakness. They could've just done an entire hour of Bobby and John (*) doing their verbal dance in the interrogation room, and I would have turned off the set at 11 a happy man. And his "mongrel" speech later on was a show-stopper. I don't think he's been this good since the legendary Henry Coffield slap-a-thon from early last season. Which is not to say that the rest of the cast was exactly chopped liver. As I alluded to above, the Kirkendall scenes were wonderful. Andrea Thompson is so good at the interview scenes that I'm torn between wanting to see her be given more personal storylines and not wanting Jill's image possibly sullied by an ill-thought-out subplot. And Kim Delaney is on something of a roll in terms of the professional scenes, between her work this week and all the Tommy Richardson insults from the previous episode. As both a showcase for all the cops (other than, regrettably, James McDaniel, who did have one nice moment on the staircase with his "I want to try out for the Knicks" line) and as an interesting crime story, this worked extremely well. The brief breaks for personal stuff was also a nice added touch, but I much preferred the three-telephone-call scene to the bit where the detectives tell the perps, in full view of the site of their friend's murder, about Greg and James' new fatherhood. Last time out, Andy's medical mishaps dominated the show, if not in total minutes then in emotional impact. This time around, the hospital scenes were at a bare minimum, but Milch and Paris Barclay sure made each one count. So much of a medical crisis is simply assimilating every tiny detail about the problem and its treatment, and the script and direction made sure to stress each and every tiny detail so we got the full scope of Andy's experience. I didn't actually time it, but the last scene, which essentially required the nurses to come in, help Andy stand up and walk into the hall, seemed to go on a good five minutes, but not a second felt wasted. We all know that the likelihood of anything fatal happening to Andy is somewhere between slim and none, but having to watch him struggle through his recovery has been harrowing and powerful, anyway. If this is the kind of effort we can expect from the season's final three episodes, I will go into the summer a very contented Blue fan. A couple of briefer comments before I go: -The episode was directed, as noted above, by the always superlative Paris Barclay. In addition to his gift at bringing out the best in the cast, the one thing that always marks a Paris episode to me is the fact that at least one scene in the preincthouse will be shot from an entirely new angle, no mean feat after over 100 episodes. Aside from Andy at the hospital and the crime scene on the garage roof, this was entirely a bottle show (an episode filmed on the basic, pre-existing set), but it never felt visually dull because we were often looking at familiar rooms from new perspectives. The one that stands out to me the most was Jill's initial interview with her guy, but even the coffee room looked a bit fresh. -(*) The one problem with having five perps with WASPy first names is that I quickly lost track of who was who when they were being referred to in conversation. The only militia-type whose name I'm positive of is Royce, the spiky-haired bleach blond, and that's because he was played by Darren Burrows, AKA Ed Chigliak from "Northern Exposure." Good to see him working again, even if the biggest perp role had to go to Brenda's prom date from "90210." (Note to self: you really need to cut back on that whole TV thing.) -And so Nick Turturro returns from his stint as Sammy the Bull, which will hopefully bring an end to the deluge of "Where's Martinez?" posts. On the plus side, the coffee room interview was one of the better scenes he's had to play in a while. On the minus side, the return of James brought back the inevitable return of the patented Eye-Rolling Scene, where Greg does or says something socially inappropriate, doesn't realize it, and it's left to James to roll his eyes to let us know what a big dork he thinks his partner can be. I'll buy Greg rambling on and on about Abby's baby to the point of annoyance, but even he's not clueless enough to ignore the possiblity that the birth footage might be a tad, well, gross for anyone without an emotional attachment to the l'il tyke. Back on the plus side, Kid Martinez has not officially been named yet, so the remote possibility of unofficial newsgroup name Gomez Martinez making it into the show someday still exists. Heck, if they can write an entire episode about Bobby's soda dispensing skills, they can call the kid Gomez. Right? Right? Is this thing on? See ya in the funny papers... Alan Sepinwall * e-mail: sepinwal@force.stwing.upenn.edu NYPD Blue page: http://www.stwing.upenn.edu/~sepinwal/nypd.html RANDOM QUOTE: "I've got so many lawyers standing in line to see me now you'd think I had tobacco leaking out of my breast implants." -Stephen Root, "NewsRadio"