Season One, Episode Two:”Presidential Fever”
written by Michael Kozoll & Steven Bochco
directed by Robert Butler
original airdate: Saturday, January 17, 1981
“Previously on Hill Street Blues…”
Roll Call: Item 17 instructs the precinct to cease the practice of male officers performing body searches on women suspects, followed the the last item: rapes at Saint James Park, which will be a short-term plotline. Cut to the men’s room, where Furillo enters to shave and Hunter is trapped in a bathroom stall. He self-extricates, then expresses his feelings on hygiene, bureaucracy, and what women police should be doing. He’s frustrated that Furillo sends memos rather than just fixing things. It’s a critical scene to build Hunter’s character which we’ll touch on later. When the sink overflows after Frank leaves, Hunter beats a retreat. Roll credits.
Renko is back in the station following being shot last episode. He’s in a suit, not in uniform, and he ejects the owner of Huerta Bail Bonds for handing out business cards in the station (a no-no). Henry arrives with a stray dog, who Leo accuses of being a cop-hater after he tries to bite Officer Johnson (uncredited). Then a prisoner offers to take the dog for a walk. Clever boy. Leo gets stuck with the dog.
Enter a glamourous woman in a red print dress who has an appointment with Furillo. She turns out to be Grace Gardner, the widow of expired Chief of Detectives Sam Gardner, and — lo and behold — she’s the response to those memos Furillo sent, although she’s not there to fix anything; she’s just there to decorate the station on orders from Divison. Esterhaus enters to inform Frank that Belker has apprehended one of the two rapists mentioned in the open; Furillo pawns Grace off on him, much to his discomfort… and Furillo’s impish glee. That glee is immediately defused as Chief Daniels calls to inform Frank that the President wants to come to town… and visit the Hill.
Belker brings in the rapist, and we get our first look at Officers Harris and Fuentes in the background. The dog growls at Belker; Belker growls back, and the dog soon cowers. Shift to Phil and Grace, where Phil is really bitter about this whole “decorator” thing. He tries to talk to Frank, but he’s busy rounding up Calletano and Goldblume to go downtown… while the dog goes berserk again.
Downtown, Furillo snarls at the President’s press secretary, Parker, who doesn’t seem to think it’s a big deal if the President’s plans change and he doesn’t show up on the Hill after all. The visit’s almost called off until Goldblume gives a short, impassioned speech about how Furillo is the only cop in a suit the community respects. Afterward, we get a glimpse of some of Henry’s personality issues as he talks to Frank.
Back at the precinct, Phil and Grace are bickering like a married couple when Bobby Hill saunters in wearing street clothes to applause, verifying for the first time that he, too, survived the shooting last episode. Harris and Fuentes get their fingers slapped, figuratively, by Phil for gossiping about how they’d heard Hill and Renko were shot because they got “caught sleepwalking”. Everyone’s really glad to see him… except Renko, who looks like someone just peed in his beer. Phil has a somewhat extended talk with Bobby, and reveals that he’s “been there a time or two”, implying he’s been shot a time or two. As they talked, Renko disappeared.
He’s in the men’s room, where someone’s apparently stopped the sink overflow. Hill finds him there, and they talk. They’re both mad, because during the entire time they were laid up neither one of them called the other. (Belker visted Renko daily, Andy claims.) After they’ve been at it awhile, Phil tells them to get out on the beat. As they dress out, they bicker.
Frank finally makes it to lunch with Davenport, who’s frustrated that Furillo’s time with her is always getting curtailed. And lo and behold, it is once again as Phil pages Frank. During the call, Belker has to be physically separated from the rapist by Chesley, leaving Frank talking to a dangling phone receiver. When Furillo returns from the pay phone, Joyce is getting chatted up by a fellow lawyer. He tries to offer her some coke right in front of Furillo; Joyce gets really mad about Frank interrupting — not because she’s a cokehead, but because he embarrassed her.
At the station, Lucy has an exchange with Harris and Fuentes, who then respond to a call with some Puerto Ricans who are moving out of an apartment. Harris assumes they’re burglars, and nobody’s got a license or registration for the truck. After investigating, Harris decides there’s nothing wrong, but tells them to hurry up and get their stuff out of people’s way. As they leave, the leader of the Puerto Ricans pushes a refrigerator down the stairs on top of the two cops, and they are showered with not-so-fresh produce and milk.
Back at the station, Ray, Phil, and Lucy are trying to call in gang leaders to discuss the presidential visit. Frank enters, gets an update, and finds Fay waiting for him in his office. She wants more money. Big surprise.
Next, Frank meets with the gang leaders to tell them about the presidential visit. There are negotiations regarding who gets to travel on what gang turf. Everything is fine, until Parker decides to start running his mouth. The gang members start mocking him, as you’d expect… and then start making demands. Jesus Martinez demands a picture of the president with his arm around his mom. Furillo has to stop Parker, explaining that if he does that, he’ll have to do it for all of them. After Martinez points out to Parker that on Diablos’ turf, he’s the government, Furillo is impressed.
All during this, uniformed officers have been slipping into the locker room, and Furillo notices. He goes in, and the blues are apparently gearing up to go do some harm. The reason? Harris and Fuentes are bruised and bloodied, and the squad’s going to go get even… and get Harris and Fuentes’ guns back. Furillo points out that there are enough guns out there to kill everyone already. Phil tries to calm Frank, but he’s having none of it, telling the squad that if they go out for revenge they’re nothing more than another gang.
Back at his desk, Frank calls Joyce. No funsies tonight, but breakfast tomorrow. And then Phil tells Frank he threw Grace out of the station, just as Belker brings in the second rapist. Mick gets an attaboy from Furillo, who then exits into the night.
Look, Pizza Man: The issue of Frank’s beeper and Phil’s constant interruptions will be a long-standing plot element. In this case, with the benefit of omniscience, it’s justified; Phil paged Frank to whine about Grace.
Would You Prefer Internal Injuries?: “Sirs? Sirs… you’re not leaving me alone with him?” The rapist, realizing that everyone is leaving him alone with Belker.
I’m Unarmed: Goldblume has an exchange with Furillo after the meeting with Parker where he apologizes for putting Frank on the hook for the presidential visit, and explains that he’s got anxiety issues around authority figures. Except, apparently, around Frank.
My Car!: “RATS. Rats, Renko… were crawlin’ all over my face, man.” There’s a lot of angst between Bobby and Andy in the wake of their shooting, and the bathroom scene makes it pretty clear that these are two guys who consider one another brothers — or thought they did. This conflict will run throughout the first half of the season.
Judas Priest!: “I don’t like the indiscriminate use of tae kwon do, Captain, but I cannot abide close confinement.” Hunter’s escape from the bathroom stall involved him literally kicking the door down, to Furillo’s baffled amazement. He then notes Frank’s sideburn isn’t perfect, and subtly (and unintentionally) insults Furillo by suggesting it’s “sympomatic of a greater malaise” — then complains that things are falling apart and Frank’s writing memos. Told it’s procedure, Hunter triples down, suggesting that Frank round up the women officers to clean up the station house. Wow, Howard. Just… wow.
Meanwhile, Howard’s sink is overflowing, and the faucet handles break on him, and he just walks out and leaves it running, glancing furtively all the while. (This won’t be the last time he does something like this, either.)
Mano a Mano: Lucy gets to inform Furillo and Calletano that a guy in a jock strap is directing traffic right in the middle of a stakeout location. Later, she upbraids Harris and Fuentes for being obnoxious insensitive sexists.
I’m Good For It: Other than appearing without dialogue, LaRue is absent from this episode…
What’s Up, Lover?: …and the same goes for Washington. They will more than make up for it next week.
Not Now, Fay: Once again, Fay thinks her problems are more important than Frank’s job while he is at work. Well, I’m sure they are, to her, and they’re real problems. But she just has no concept of how to deal with hers. Her behavior wouldn’t be acceptable of Frank was an auto mechanic; it’s even worse given his job.
Central Booking: Jonathan Dasteel, Gerry Black, Gary Van Ormand, and Paul Michael return in their recurring roles, while Steven Bauer (credited as “Rocky Echevarria”) also returns as Fuentes after an uncredited appearance in the pilot; he won’t return, and when we next see his partner Harris he’ll have a new partner. Also returning is Trinidad Silva, once again stealing scenes as Jesus Martinez.
Making one-shot appearances were Richard Marion as the lawyer with the coke; Danny Mora as the bail bondsman Huerta; Eric Helland, as the prisoner offering to walk Goldblume’s stray dog; Sal Lopez, whose main claim to fame was playing T.H.E. Rock in Full Metal Jacket; and Anthony Pena played the Puerto Ricans in the refrigerator scene.
Jake Mitchell will appear four more times as Hingle, all within the first dozen episodes. He’d previously appeared on Bochco’s Paris; Hill Street was his final credited work.
Charles Seaverns plays press secretary Parker, and George Dickerson makes the first of six appearances as Commissioner Swanson, taking part in the meeting with Furillo, Goldblume, and Parker. Dickerson had a spate of film appearances immediately after his run on the Hill, including playing Detective John Williams in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet. Seaverns, who would reprise his role in the following episode, only had two other credits in his brief career.
Fuentes has a partner now, which he didn’t have in the pilot. He’s immediately recognizable; it’s Mark Metcalf, who played Douglas Niedermeyer in Animal House. The casting here is not coincidental.
The first rapist brought in by Belker was played by Merritt Butrick, in his first-ever credited appearance. Butrick is far more famous for playing the son of Admiral James T. Kirk, David Marcus, in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. He also played Johnny Slash on the series Square Pegs. Butrick passed away in 1989 due to complications from AIDS. His victim was played by Lydia Fernandez, who would appear later in the season in a different role, credited under her new stage name of Lydia Nicole.
Your eyes weren’t fooling you if you looked at the Shamrock gang leader and did a double-take. That was, indeed, David Caruso, who would go on to stardom on NYPD Blue and CSI: Miami; in between, he suffered a forgettable film career and starred as the title character in the series Michael Hayes. His counterpart, the unnamed leader of the Bloods, was played by Bobby Ellerbee; the leader of the Gypsy Boys was played by Guillermo San Juan. All three would make either six or seven appearances in the series.
The big fish in the pond this episode, of course, is Barbara Babcock‘s first appearance as Grace Gardner. Babcock was an accomplished veteran of the television guest-star wars, appearing in over three dozen series prior to Hill Street. Babcock concurrently portrayed the recurring role of Liz Craig on Dallas at this time, and later had several regular roles on series which only lasted a season before taking on the role of Dorothy Jennings on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. On the Hill, Babcock appeared in 17 episodes overall; 11 of those appearances were in the first 31 episodes of the series, with the final six being more traditional guest-starring roles rather than as a recurring cast member.
Rap Sheet: Now that she’s on our radar, we can talk about it: Babcock won the Best Actress in a Drama Series award after this season for playing Gardner, even though she only appeared in five of the seventeen episodes. It’s possible that her entry as lead actress deprived Veronica Hamel of a win, which would be unfortunate; Hamel was nominated five times without taking home the statuette.
The episode aired just two days after the pilot, as the initial five episodes were aired on Thursdays and Saturdays over a 15-day period. This probably hurt casual ratings, but did give the show an opportunity to quickly find a dedicated audience.
Verdict: There’s a lot going on in this episode, but the centerpiece is the bathroom scene between Hill and Renko. Bobby’s mad because Renko never called him; Renko’s mad because Bobby didn’t do the same. The difference is that Bobby’s reasoning is never really outlined early on, while Renko is wracked by guilt. He feels responsible for what happened, even though the shooting had absolutely nothing to do with his actions on the street that day. Bobby does start getting angry because Renko wants to become a detective; he feels like he’s being abandoned. It’s a really powerful scene which gets at the heart of what it means to be partners on the beat in a big and violent city.
The hostile by-play between Gardner and Esterhaus seems a bit weird, especially as Phil was shown to be such a gentle soul in the pilot. Of course, all will become clearer soon.
The other Big Scene in the episode was the gang summit. I didn’t detail it too much in the recap, but we got a solid glimpse of the inter-gang politics which will form a major portion of the show’s skeleton. It would be easy to take a tell-don’t-show path here and exposit how the gangs actually respect Furillo (while at the same time always, always trying to get over on him), but this scene does a fantastic job of it without being heavy-handed. Martinez speaks for the group, effectively, when he points out how Furillo knows how to manage them… and Furillo indicates his own respect for their pride and dignity with just one look and one facial expression. It’s a perfect three seconds.
The structure of the episode as a whole is a bit awkward, however. The entire Hill/Renko plotline was contained in two scenes: the extended scene in the bathroom, and the brief follow-up in the locker room which came immediately thereafter. Also, without any indications to tip the viewer off, there’s no indication how much time has passed since the pilot until Hill and Renko converse.
The final third of the episode essentially centered on Frank one way or another, which actually comes as sort of a jarring shock after the pilot bounced from character to character throughout. We don’t see Hunter again after the opening credits, which makes the viewer wonder if he’s just the show’s absurd comic relief. And the complete absence of LaRue and Washington from any plot-relevant action is a concerning note, given that this is only the second episode of the show.
Still, an effective second outing about which one can’t complain much. This shouldn’t be a shock, as the first five episodes all shared the same writing team and director.
Final score: 8.
Next week: “Politics as Usual”. LaRue gets in a jam, and so does Fay.
