Season One, Episode 17: “Jungle Madness (Part Two)”
written by Michael Kozoll, Steven Bochco, and Anthony Yerkovich
directed by Corey Allen
original airdate: May 26, 1981
“Previously on Hill Street Blues…”
Roll Call: Item 12: the weather report. It’s hot, which means it’ll be snarky out on the street. Unlucky 13 is operation DNC (Dust ‘n’ Clean), which will involve Howard’s team making a weapons sweep. 14 is Division reiterating policy on women officers being required to wear bras, and 15 is the sudden “volunteering” of several Blues (including Andy and Bobby) to work doubles in the wake of a flu outbreak. Real flu, not Blue Flu. During all this, Coffey passes a note to Bates asking her out. She sends him a “maybe”, Andy and Bobby gripe their way up the stairs, and someone has to wake up a blotto J.D. LaRue.
On the way out, Andy tries to foist off his overtime on Coffey; he’s recalcitrant, but Bates jumps on the offer, which flusters Joe to no end. LaRue gets roasted by Andy for his driving skills as he emerges from Roll Call, and then Belker lays into him — even slinging a “dogbreath” J.D.’s way — and tells him he’s got one day to produce his stewardess before the operation closes. J.D. tries to weasel, and Mick’s having none of it. And then we finally roll credits.
We return to Howard’s EAT unit and several squad cars rolling up on the Jefferson Avenue playground, then cut immediately to the aftermath. Hill, Renko, Bates, and Coffey are all part of the round-up, and collect a variety of personal implements of cutting from the crowd. Afterward, there’s an exchange between Howard and Lucy wherein Howard tries to show off his new, more sensitive, less chauvinistic side. It… sort of works. Almost.
Cut to Jennifer Cross’s apartment, where she’s lighting into J.D. for taking her necklace. She’s not having any of his crap either; she tells him to get her necklace back or she’s calling the not-J.D. cops. He finally whines his way into getting her on board, but she has one demand in return: walk out, never come back, never call.
Over at the fake fence, Prentiss receives a guy in a wheelchair trying to sell Cuban cigars, but he’ll only talk to Belker a.k.a. “Shecky”. The cigars aren’t Cuban, and the guy goes into a long song-and-dance, eventually selling his wheelchair (which he doesn’t need). Mick, amused beyond his wildest dreams, arrests him.
J.D. is in Frank’s office telling him about Jennifer, but Frank’s far more interested in whether J.D. made the call for help he told him to make at the end of last episode. Frank’s had enough, and suggests that LaRue put in for a transfer. The implication is clear. And then J.D. loses it, blowing up all over Frank right in the squad room before storming out.
Neal’s got a new partner, as he’s out on the street with Henry. They’ve arrived after Curtis Gilford’s funeral to talk to his brother Montel about what he was doing in the alley the night Weeks shot him. Gilford’s hostile, of course, and Neal eats a couple of minutes of basically being called an Uncle Tom.
Daniels is giving Frank the works. He’s furious that a massive police operation took place on the same block where Gilford was shot, and he’s even more irate that it was done in order to help exonerate Weeks — who he intends to publicly fry later that afternoon. Daniels seems one step from busting Frank down for insubordination.
At the station, Shirett Anders is trying to buck up against Denise Thompson, who’s not even remotely interested in giving Shirett her kids back. Once Thompson lays all that out on the line, Shirett breaks down. Bobby has a heartfelt talk with her about how it’s not about her, but about her kids. She leaves, determined to make a better life for herself and prove she can take care of her children.
After a commercial break, Bobby’s walking out with Thompson, commisserating over the job. He asks her out, awkwardly. She turns him down, noting she spends all week with cops. But she pauses and relents, handing over her digits.
J.D.’s in a bar, unloading his problems on the bartender, Bee Gee. The owner, Perry, won’t let J.D. drink other than on a cash basis. Bee Gee covers the drink she’s already poured him, and he downs it, half of it ending up on his shirt.
Fay strolls into the station to talk to Frank. This week’s problem: someone called her with a death threat if she goes to St. Louis with Otis, and Frank immediately assumes it’s a racist because of course. Except it wasn’t. It was Otis’s wife. Oops.
At a bar, the bartender is running off one drunk, and then he goes to check on another. Of course it’s J.D. This bartender wants money up front, too. He doesn’t have any, and as he looks around he has a bit of an epiphany; this place is full of nothing but desperate drunks with nowhere to go but up.
Neal and Henry pay another visit to Theo Monroe, the manager of the clothing store. Monroe is sniffing constantly. Neal’s not buying his crap today, though, and frisks him… uncovering a giant vial of coke. Turns out Monroe was accepting stolen merch from the garment district through the back door.
That leads to Neal and Henry busting the other guys from behind the store, who have a trunk full of stolen clothing and a new license plate on their car. Neal unscrews it, and boom. Bullet hole. Weeks is off the hook. After the inquest, Daniels collars Frank again, lecturing him about perception. Frank suggests maybe people on the Hill are smarter and more intelligent than Daniels gives them credit for.
Andy surprises Sandra coming off the subway, and she’s flustered. He’s trying to carry her groceries up to her place, and she’s trying to get rid of him. Suddenly, Andy’s light bulb goes off: she’s not alone. She’s been cheating on that someone with Andy. He’s pretty hurt, and he reacts badly.
We cut to an AA meeting, hosted by Ben. Someone walks in, camera behind them; obviously this is J.D. He identifies himself as a newcomer. And then we hear Frank: “How ya doin’, J.D.” LaRue starts to weep.
Coffey picks up dinner, and argues with Lucy over who’s paying. While eating and flirting, they see a car going the wrong way on a one-way and give pursuit. They finally get him to pull over and approach the vehicle. The driver shoots Coffey right in the chest with a shotgun.
We briefly cut to Frank and Joyce, and after about 40 seconds of banter Frank’s pager goes off. Back to the scene, Phil’s on hand. In a one-line scene reshot for syndication, Phil doesn’t know if Joe will make it. Frank walks over to Bates, who knows he won’t. She’s wracked with guilt, because if she’d gone out of town with Joe for the weekend, he wouldn’t have been shot. She walks into the street, distraught and sobbing.
And thus ends season one.
Look, Pizza Man: “Lots of your workaholic types, of which I consider you one, break out in hives at the very thought of going on a vacation.” Joyce is only here this episode to be interrupted by the pager after Coffey’s shooting.
Would You Prefer Internal Injuries?: Mick gets two scenes: upbraiding J.D. and serving as the Greek chorus to the wheelchair salesman’s antics. Strangely, he doesn’t drop any good lines himself.
I’m Unarmed: Henry’s sole purpose this episode is to keep Neal from hurting anyone, apparently.
My Car!: “I score a lot and I never get involved. Sort of like a hobby with me, you know? I do teachers, dental hygenists, next time I’ll sex a six-foot tall CPA.” Andy, lashing out on Sandra. Woof.
Judas Priest!: “Bates, I’ve been keeping a close eye on you, and I must admit you really cut the cheese out there.” Howard malaprops his way into another awkward compliment of Lucy’s policing abilities. Since it’s not exactly a common phrase in 2016, just to clarify, “cut the cheese” used to be a very common euphemism for farting. Afterward, he makes a comment about how Lorraine has “rotated his sexual orientation”, which obviously does not mean what Howard thinks it means…
Mano a Mano: “Alright, Officer Ma’am!” is the response from a street tough who suddenly finds out Bates isn’t a frail little wannabe. (“I’m into personal grooming, alright?” is the response Joe gets immediately afterward from a female detainee.)
I’m Good For It: “You didn’t think I was so pathetic the first night we spent together.” “Oh, that was pathetic, too. You were just so bombed you don’t remember it.” J.D. getting laid low by Jennifer. Ouch.
What’s Up, Lover?: “Oh, you got a real explicit ‘hay fever allergy’ here.” Neal, after he pulls one of the biggest vials of cocaine I’ve ever seen in fiction from Monroe’s pocket.
Not Now, Fay: “You know I’m as liberal as the next person, but… some of these women have been known to carry razors!” Fay, stereotyping Otis’s wife because she’s black. Yay.
Central Booking: Ed Marinaro as Coffey and Jon Cypher as Chief Daniels are the only regular recurring characters this episode. Robert Hirschfeld did not appear as Leo Schnitz this time out.
With the season’s end came the final appearances of the story arc’s main guest stars: Mimi Rogers as Sandra Pauley, Van Nessa Clarke as Shirett Anders, Freddye Chapman as Denise Thompson, Frantz Turner as Prentiss, and of course Charles Hallahan as Weeks. It’s also the final appearance of Terry Alexander as Theo Monroe, but he’ll be back in season four for “Doris in Wonderland”, in a different role.
Lionel Mark Smith appeared as Montel Gilford; he’d be back under a different guise in season three’s “Life in the Minors”. Jeannetta Arnette, best known as Bernadette Meara on Head of the Class, played Jennifer Cross. She’d also return in a new role in season three, in “Gung Ho”. Hill Street made up one-third of Opelene Bartley‘s career credits; she played Montel’s mother in this episode, and returned twice more in 1986, each time in different roles.
This episode’s one-shot appearances include Antony Carbone as Ben. Carbone used to be a regular in Roger Corman’s exploitation flicks, and appeared here near the end of his active career. Susan Harney played Bee Gee, Eddie Ryder (who recurred on Doctor Kildare in the early 60s as Doctor Simon Agurski) played the guy trying to sell cigars at the fencing operation, and Cliff Carnell played the second bartender.
Rap Sheet: The crew credits are the same as Part One. This would, however, be Michael Kozoll’s final writing credit on the show (although he would get story credit on about half of the show’s episodes in season two).
The most important trivial matter for this episode: Joe Coffey was supposed to die. In the originally aired-version, he dies immediately when he’s shot. The video release and all syndicated releases, however, are a re-edited version of the episode where he’s only seriously wounded. The chemistry between Marinaro and Bates was so strong that not only was it decided to bring Marinaro back, but he was promoted to the main cast starting with season two. The side-effect of this, of course, is that what wasn’t intended to be a cliffhanger originally now sort of is one, as Coffey’s survival isn’t entirely certain in the new version of the episode.
Verdict: I said “we finally roll credits” at the end of the rare two-paragraph Roll Call section, but we were still only 3:45 into the episode at that point. That’s how dense the cold open was this time out, which isn’t really normal.
Major artistic beef: in the scene at the second bar, they play an angles trick to try and delay the reveal that it’s J.D. Look, guys. There’s only one plotline surrouding a drunk on this show. We knew this was a J.D. scene as soon as you cut to a location with alcohol. This sort of thing only works when it’s an actual surprise, not the next expected step in plot development. As a result, when they do it again as J.D. enters the AA meeting, it’s even worse. That technique should only have been used for the latter scene.
Although we wrap up a lot of dangling plot threads, most of them are very cut-and-dried, except for Belker’s subplot; we never do get any resolution regarding the sting operation, as it was largely just a vehicle for J.D.’s subplot anyway. The ends of the Shirret Anders and Sandra Pauley plots are quite obvious, and even the putative A-plot — Weeks’ exoneration — is straightforward with no ambiguity, other than perhaps Frank’s suggestion that maybe, just maybe, the Hill won’t riot.
As a result, the two major threads in this episode — the ones with lasting impact — are LaRue’s story and Coffey’s shooting. The latter, of course, we’ve already discussed. The blowback from trying to kill him off was so fierce that they basically undid it. It’s LaRue’s story which will really resonate. Obviously, Frank gave him more rope than he needed to. Frank knows what it’s like. In the end, it becomes pretty obvious: Frank wanted to get J.D. help, not get rid of him. For J.D., realizing this was like being flattened with a ton of bricks. He’s not alone. He’s got someone to talk to, although that’s not without its own complications.
Final score: 9.
Next Week: Season Two, Episode One: “Hearts and Minds” — Coffey returns, Frank turns 40, and Phil and Frank end up living the bachelor life.
