NYPD Blue, Season 2, Episode 11, "Vishy Vashy Vinnie" Story by Stephen Bochco & David Milch Teleplay by Ted Mann & Burton Armus & Gardner Stern Directed by Michael M. Robin PLOT ONE: A DEFINITIVE INTERROGATION While Detective Solomon is searching the apartment of the suspect in the Webster slayings, Simone decides to take a crack at interrogating Webster. Bobby's easygoing manner appeals to Webster, but just as Bobby starts to make headway, Solomon returns from the field and demands that he be allowed to grill Webster on his own, despite his total lack of success to this point. Simone's pissed, not so much because he wants to hog the glory like Solomon but because he thinks Solomon's going to blow the case, so he takes Medavoy to do his own search of Webster's apartment. Remembering a comment Webster made in interrogation about how hot his apartment was, Bobby looks in the air conditioner and finds a zip-gun hidden inside - a gun that Ballistics confirms was used in all the prior Webster shootings. Armed with this triumph, Simone gets Inspector Aiello to give him another crack at Webster, though Solomon insists he be in the room. Bobby gives Webster the soft sell again, convincing him that unless he gives them his side of the story, the papers will write him off as a nut-job. Webster starts to give in, and when Simone realizes he has him dangling over the precipice, he informs Webster that they found his gun. That does the trick, and Webster starts writing a statement of confession. Outside, Simone tells Solomon that he'll give him more credit than Solomon was willing to give him. PLOT TWO: DING, DONG, HAVERILL'S DEAD! The sting operation on the planned armored car robbery is going according to schedule, as is Fancy's covert sting operation on Commander Haverill. Haverill gets the National Guard Armory to loan them a cannon with useless ammunition, but when Vinnie and Sipowicz (who's still undercover) deliver the gun to the robbers, they discover that the robbers have procured a second gun from elsewhere. Fancy and Sipowicz figure a way around this, and the bust goes as planned, with Medavoy and Martinez posing as the armored car drivers. As Haverill is preparing for a press conference to announce the bust, Fancy asks him into his office and plays him the incriminating tape that Vinnie got. Fancy offers Haverill two choices: retirement or a civil trial. Haverill takes door number one and announces his retirement during the press conference. Fancy gives Vinnie his money for the tip on the heist, and they part company - though Vinie says he may have more information for Fancy in the near future. PLOT THREE: CALVIN KLEIN AIN'T THE ONLY GUY WITH AN OBSESSION A young woman contacts Lesniak after someone lit her apartment door on fire, then left a note asking for $500 to keep something worse from happening. Adrian and James stake out the money drop and arrest the young man who picks it up off the street. It turns out he's a coworker of the woman's - though they've never actually spoken, he's become fixated on her. He sticks to the story that he was just picking up the bag of money out of curiosity, but when reports come back from his previous employers that he threatened female coworkers in the past, his armor starts to crack. Adrian is still worried for the young woman though, and when she tells James about her fears, he mentions a couple of times how much he enjoys working with her. PLOT FOUR: BOBBY'S ROMANCE Benita, Bobby's reporter friend, is still covering the Webster case, and while she's hanging around the stationhouse waiting for a development, she asks Bobby if she can cash in the raincheck on their date. He agrees, and later on in the day lets her know about Webster's confession before it's even made public. That night, as Bobby's up late watching TV, Benita knocks, armed with a fresh copy of the morning paper - with her story on Webster on the front page of the Metro section. Benita comments on the lack of decoration in the apartment and Bobby says that he's only been living there since his wife died and rapidly clams up. Benita senses his discomfort and asks if she should go, but he asks her to stay, and they kiss and begin undressing each other.... ------------------------------------------------------------------------- One word: wow. Anyone who had any doubts that Jimmy Smits could take the place of the dearly departed David Caruso should feel reassured right about now. Jimmy Smits was given a golden opportunity to shine - the kind of long, intricate, tactical interrogation you usually only see by Andre Braugher on "Homicide" (see? I can mention the show) - and he ran with it. The man was dynamite tonight - he was Superfly TNT. This is the best performance I've ever seen him give. And even though "Vish Vashy Vinnie" was packed with lots of great stuff - especially the great chemistry between James McDaniel and Joe Pantoliano - I'll always remember this as the episode where Smits finally staked his claim to the show and said, "I'm here and I'm good. Get used to it." What really impressed me about the Webster storyline is that this is the first time we've seen a case that Simone was better equipped to handle than John Kelly would've been. Kelly's usual macho interrogation act would've rubbed Webster the wrong way as rapidly as Detective Solomon's did, but Simone's easy-going, "I'm your friend" style worked like a charm - he practically hypnotized Webster into confessing. Until this episode, the Simone character seemed very fuzzy to me - it was as if Bochco and Milch couldn't get over the fact that they had originally offered the part of John Kelly to Smits, so they kept sticking aspects of Kelly's personality into Simone. But Smits finally got to define exactly who Bobby is. We always thought he was a little too nice in interrogations, but now we see that it's an act he's practiced to perfection. We knew that he was grieving over the death of his wife, but only because he told us. Tonight, we got to see him alone in that barren apartment - on the night of his triumph, he looked like a shell of a man until Benita came by. And even then, she was the agressor rather than him - a rare situation on a TV show. In addition, while I complained last week that I didn't see any kind of chemistry between Bobby and Benita, this week Smits and Melina Kanakaredes finally clicked. I could see a definite attraction there, and when the two of them kissed, it felt right. I'm not so sure that Simone should've gone to bed with her on the first date, but my problem with that stems more from thinking Bobby made a bad decision than from thinking that it was out of character, so I didn't have a problem with it. As for the Fancy/Haverill endgame, I can't remember the last time I had that big a grin on my face for that long. I was relishing every second of Fancy's scheme, especially whenever Haverill was acting like he was going to get Fancy. And as good as I thought McDaniel and Pantoliano were together last week, they surpassed that tonight. The two played off each other like a professional comedy team - I could watch a series just about Fancy and Vinnie (let me think here....Fancy gets booted off the force for decking the police commissioner, then he and Vinnie move to Beverly Hills to start their own detective agency...nahh, already been done). The scene in Fancy's office where Vinnie played the tape of him going "GONG! GONG!" and Fancy's reaction to it was probably the most natural I've ever seen James McDaniel - not only did it look like Fancy was having fun, but it looked like he was having fun. And when Fancy finally played the tape for Haverill, I cheered. In addition to my raves for Smits, McDaniel, and Pantoliano, I have to give a lion's share of the episode's credit to Mike Robin, the director (and the show's Supervising Producer). Yeah, I gush about him every time he directs an episode, but the guy deserves every bit of praise - look at the way he took a drecky, predictable script like "Don We Now Our Gay Apparel" and made it shine by bringing out the best in Peter Boyle and Dennis Franz. This week, he had much better material to work with - it was like two "A" stories for the price of one - and he made them even better than they were on the printed page. Everything tonight (with the exception of the Lesniak/James bit, which I'll get to in a minute) started slowly and built to a stunning payoff. Of course, it helped that for once, both major stories were continuations from the week before. See what I've been saying about how self-contained episodes are boring? I just hope Bochco & Milch haven't shot their wad for the season on this particular story arc; it was so good that I'm bracing myself for the inevitable let-down. Hopefully, there won't be any, and we can all say that the show has finally righted itself after the tumult created by Caruso's exit. In all, this was by far the best episode of this season, and is up there with the best of the Season 1 shows. I'd rank it right behind "Guns'N'Rosaries" (where Licalis confessed) on my all-time list. Shorter takes: -Way back when Lesniak made her first appearance, I commented that there was an odd closeup on Martinez as she entered the squadroom, and I guessed that the two of them would get romantically involved. Well, it took longer than I thought, but it looks like the two of them will finally get together. They left that one subplot dangling until next week - let's see how it turns out. -Bad week for Blue women: Sylvia didn't appear at all, despite the events at the end of last week's show, and Donna had at most three lines. Donna seems to be getting less screen time each week. The problem is that from the beginning her character was intensely tied to Medavoy, and now that the writers have cut back on the constant and repetitive Greg & Donna romance storylines, there's nothing for her to do but relay phone messages. At this point, it seems the only way to have Donna become a part of the action again is to have her be the victim of a crime, which could provide some meaty stuff for both Gail O'Grady and Gordon Clapp (imagine Medavoy on the warpath). -Yet again, Lesniak gets stuck with a case involving a sexual deviant. She is in a major rut of perversion here. -Line of the week: Aiello asks Fancy about Simone's interrogation skills "Is your guy good in the room?" "Better than your guy." -Alan Sepinwall -sepinwal@mail.sas.upenn.edu RANDOM QUOTE: "I once stole a pornographic book that was printed in braille. I used to rub the dirty parts." -Woody Allen, "Bannanas"