It’s Belker’s (Bruce Weitz) thirty-seventh birthday (and gets a nice surprise by episode’s end), the police bowling league is playing, and some new directives from headquarters about officers being responsible for reimbursing phonecalls and vehicle conditions stir up a hornets’ nest in Washington Deceased.

Written by Frank South, this episode was first broadcast on 7 February, 1985. The best narrative thread running through this episode focuses on Mayo (Mimi Kuzyk). She had her date with Chief Daniels (Jon Cypher) the other night, and gently, and firmly turned him down, despite his advances. Now, she’s assigned to work on an ongoing investigation to capture a killer who is going around and beheading prostitutes.

With the lack of support and staffing she voices concerns to Furillo (Daniel J. Travanti) about maybe not being used as bait for this case, and he agrees. When Daniels learns this, however, he blows up at Mayo, accuses her of cowardice, and when she attempts to make her case, he suspends her, letting her personal rejection of him come around to have professional consequences for her.

And that is worth talking about. And the episode does, a little bit. Furillo, rightly, stands by Mayo, and takes Daniels, his boss, to task for his behaviour. Daniels comes around (way too quickly considering his behaviour) and apologizes, before hitting on her again.

Yes, Daniels was in the wrong, so, so, so in the wrong. But his quick turnaround admitting he was wrong was just a little too quick and neat and trying to make sure everything got wrapped up in forty-eight minutes.

This is something that needed and needs more in-depth exploration, and I felt it got glossed over a little quickly.

Finally, Furillo and Washington (Taurean Blacque) deal with a racist lieutenant (Dana Elcar), and J.D. (Kiel Martin) who has been all about pulling pranks lately, has a doozy pulled on him.

Passage to Libya.

For as much as I loved the previous episode, there was a lot going on, and a lot of things to unpack and explore. I was a little let down by the follow-up episode. Written by David Milch, Jacob Epstein, and Elia Katz from a story by Steven Bochco, Jeffery Lewis, Milch, and Micheal I. Wagner, this episode was first broadcast on 14 February, 1985.

Fay (Barbara Bosson) finds herself getting in over her head (again) when she attempts to help a young single mother on welfare who was assaulted on her way home. The woman is reticent to help out and only does so when Fay has promised her she should be able to recoup some of her losses once the paperwork is completed.

So Robin (Lisa Sutton) is back in Belker’s life. And there’s talk of moving in together. All well and good, but Belker wants to make a real go of it and even wants to step away from the precinct bowling team which puts him on the outs with Jablonski (Robert Prosky).

Gina (Jennifer Tilly) is back, wearing a wire to help Goldblume (Joe Spano), Coffey (Ed Marinaro) and Garibaldi (Ken Olin) in their pursuit of a major crime figure. Goldblume and Coffey are posing as waiters, standing by should Gina get the right thing on the record.

And Frances McDormand returns as Joyce’s (Veronica Hamel) public defender replacement, Connie Chapman, she’s eager and determined but is that going to be enough to keep her client out of jail?

I’m glad Robin is back, as I like her and Belker together. I am getting very tired of Fay, it seems things are only important if Fay thinks they are important, and honestly, way too much happens to her character.

We’re coming up on the close of season five, so let’s see if we get some interesting stories to round out the season, and maybe a little less Fay. Until then, let’s be careful out there.