Season One, Episode Six: “Film at Eleven”
written by Anthony Yerkovich
directed by Georg Stanford Brown
original airdate: Thursday, February 5, 1981
“Previously on Hill Street Blues…”
Roll Call: Item 9 involves a guy biting prostitutes on the neck, on the street in broad daylight. Item 10, the theft of a llama from the zoo. As Phil amuses the unit with this, we see a camera crew in the squad room. Finally, the dreaded edict from Divisional Commander Swanson, who’s angry about “the mortality rate” of vending machines in the station house. On the way out, Hingle mugs for the camera, wanting to talk about his need for Preparation H, and Renko serenades the camera crew. We also catch our first glimpse of Santini, who’s taking over for the departed Fuentes as Harris’s partner. And amazingly, that’s really all we get before we roll credits.
LaRue and Washington are hoboing it up, staking out a tenement. They spot a girl who’s obviously just pulled a purse-snatch, but LaRue’s uninterested in pursuing her. Neal’s irritated, and goes after her. She bolts, throwing her bag at Neal and knocking him over; as J.D. pursues, Neal sees a gun has tumbled out of the sack. Uh-oh.
Back at the station, Frank’s trying to get the reporter, one Cynthia Chase, to pay attention to his officers rather than on him. After all, he’s a boring paper-pusher. Phil interrupts to let Frank know Neal’s on the phone, and pawns Chase and her crew off on Phil. Neal already suspects it might be the gun that shot Renko and Hill, and Frank wants it tested ASAP and the girl — Billie — brought in for interrogation. But Renko and Hill need to be kept in the dark.
Belker, meanwhile, has brought in a dapper young man and a well-dressed black lady. The latter is filing a complaint on the former, who happens to be our neck-biting enthusiast mentioned in roll call, and his name is Kevin. After a brief interlude with Phil and Chase, we go back to Belker taking the woman’s statement, then asking for Kevin’s full name. Belker almost takes his head off when he says something about Debbie Kaplan, before realizing her name is all over his desk. Then Kevin starts spelling his entire name for Belker, who’s pecking away with two fingers on the typewriter: K-E-V-I-N H-E-R-M-A-N D-R-A-C-U-L-A. It’s even on his driver’s license. Mick grabs the mirror from Wilma (the victim), and Kevin insists he can’t see his reflection. Ho-kay.
Hunter is busy demonstrating a new torture device to the amusement of the camera crew and several bystanding officers, getting Santini to act like a hopped-up junkie only to disable him with one of those old-style pole snares from before they used loops instead of a pincer collar. Naturally, it malfunctions, and Santini is stuck. Hunter can’t be bothered, and moves on to a taser demonstration.
Neal and J.D. wander in with Billie, and then it’s back to Belker. Mick apologetically informs Kevin he’ll have to be locked up until he makes bail, and Kevin is not having any of it. He goes nuts, jumping on a desk and hissing and gesticulating. The camera crew comes running, Mick is trying his hardest to remain calm and pleasant. Bates says she’s calling psychiatric, and things get worse, but then Mick pulls the “don’t make me use force on you” by reaching in his pocket to grab a second cigar… and making a cross. That does the trick, and Kevin collapses into Mick’s arms, begging not to be sent to psych.
Called away from the spectacle to answer a call from ballistics, Frank finishes that and is asked by Ray where to put the vampire. (“I don’t think he will mix with our other guests,” Ray says.) As for the ballistics report, Frank orders Hill and Renko to be sent out with Chase and the camera crew to get them away from the precinct, and wants LaRue and Washington immediately; the gun is a match.
Hill, Renko, and Chase’s crew respond to a live animal complaint at the apartment of a Haitian woman. She swears she has no animals, even though everyone can hear chickens. She steals Renko’s baton, won’t open the door again, and Andy starts losing his temper. Luckily for him, Bernard has run out of film for his camera and has to reload.
Back at the precinct, Billie is being grilled by Ray, Frank, Neal, and J.D. They get the name of a woman, Rita Perez, from whom Billie may have gotten the gun. Frank tells Phil to get someone after her, and again reiterates the need to keep Hill and Renko out of the loop. The very next scene is Belker bringing her and her beau, Chico, into the station. Phil makes Rita leave her son with Mick; she demands a receipt.
Threatened with a booking for attempted murder, Billie confesses to having stolen the bag from Rita. That shifts the interrogation to Rita and Chico. Frank has Phil call the DA, and then Joyce arrives to blast Frank because she can’t find Kevin Dracula. That’s because he’s in a “private cell”, so it’s no problem. Frank volunteering Joyce to represent Chico Perez, on the other hand, amuses her less. She bites, though, and reads Chico the facts of life.
Hill and Renko come back with the Haitian woman and her dead Rhode Island red, and informs Leo that they found the llama from roll call. Meanwhile, in Frank’s office, Rey is expositing the results of his questioning of Chico: he got the gun from a guy named George, who got it off the owner of a liquor store on Richmond Avenue. Frank still wants it kept quiet, but a scene between Hill, Renko, Harris, and Santini indicates that people are acting weird around Bobby and Andy now, and they’re getting suspicious.
Then Harris hits on Chase at the vending machine, and she expresses her frustration at a lack of cooperation. Santini interrupts, explaining the black van story (which has been alluded to briefly here and there) — a van full of prostitutes who aren’t really prostitutes. They’re robbers. Foreshadowing!
LaRue and Washington hit the liquor store and grill the owner, DiCarlo, who’s irritated about the fact that honest businessmen can’t get protection from the police but he’s being eyeballed regarding a cop shooting. He puts the dime on a junkie named Eddie Hoban. J.D. calls the boarding house where he’s staying to draw him out, and Neal busts him.
Joyce is frustrated, because she can’t seem to get Dracula to leave the “Vampire Lounge”. Oddly, Joyce is angry because the cops are being too nice to him, rather than kicking him to a psych ward. Phil, with the camera crew in tow, takes Joyce back down to retrieve him, but in the interim Kevin has hanged himself. Frank’s beating himself up because the lounge wasn’t hanging-proofed. Joyce is bitter. And Mick is devastated.
Neal and J.D. bring Hoban in, and the senior staff interrogate. Hill and Renko collar J.D. asking what’s going on in the interrogation room. Neal comes out, and Bobby starts explaining how everyone’s been giving them the “back of their heads”. Henry arrives and heads into interrogation, opening the door before Phil can stop him. That lets Andy see the suspect, and Frank sends Bobby and Andy to the lineup room. He joins them, and explains the situation. Henry brings a lineup in, including Hoban. Andy identifies him. Bobby is unsure, but hesitantly concurs. But Andy knows he’s not sure, and he’s not happy.
Phil runs down Hoban’s alleged whereabouts the day of the shooting, and Frank asks Henry whether it’s feasible that Hoban could have slipped out of the treatment facility long enough to do the deed. Henry says yes, but also (apologetically) says he doesn’t think Hoban did it. Frank charges Hoban, and retreats to his office. Joyce arrives, soaking wet after a drive in the rain with the top down, and they commisserate over Dracula before heading home.
Look, Pizza Man: “District Attorney Simonson allows as how he’d abandon his wife of nineteen years just for a meaningful weekend with you.” That’s Frank speaking, but it’s to and about Joyce so we’ll slide it in here.
Would You Prefer Internal Injuries?: “I don’t react well to being zinged. Not when I’m trying to turn over a new leaf!” Mick thinks Dracula is jerking him around, of course. When Kevin kills himself, Mick has no lines; just anger. Helpless, seething anger.
I’m Unarmed: Henry only appears in a couple of scenes, and doesn’t have much to do.
My Car!: “You took the words right out of my mouth, lieutenant.” “Very insightful, sir. Very.” Renko and Hill mocking the bejeezus out of Hunter following Howard’s own quote below. They also have some amusing bickering during the chicken call.
Judas Priest!: “That is a sad commentary on our society, gentlemen. A dangerous misfit deriving his identity from a media myth.” That was Hunter’s reaction after Mick cigared Dracula down off the desk. After missing last episode, Howard returns, and does a fine job making a fool of himself as always.
Mano a Mano: Belker calls on Bates to help talk Kevin down right before Kevin goes nuts. It’s not very effective.
I’m Good For It: During the stakeout, J.D. is more interested in eyeballing a Latina woman in her window wearing nothing but a bra. He’s all business otherwise following his lack of desire to chase Billie down, but he’s largely the quiet sidekick this episode.
What’s Up, Lover?: Neal, on the other hand, takes point on the shooting investigation once the ballistics report comes in. Like J.D., he’s all business in this episode, simply questioning people and doing his job.
Not Now, Fay: Barbara Bosson is credited for this episode, but does not actually appear.
Central Booking: With a new writing team and director being worked into the mix, many recurring characters were left on the sidelines in this one. The only actors reprising prior recurring roles were Mark Metcalf (Harris) and Jake Mitchell (Hingle). Metcalf skips the next episode before making his final appearance in “Up in Arms”; Mitchell will also return one more time in episode 11, “Life, Death, Eternity”. Although she had appeared in the pilot episode, Luisa Leschin plays an entirely different character in this episode, appearing as Rita Perez.
Four actors made one-off appearances in this episode, three of whom would return later under other guises. Esther Sutherland, who’d spent the Seventies appearing in various Blaxploitation films and black-oriented sitcoms, appeared as “Haitian Woman”. She’d return in a different role in season two’s “Domestic Beef” before passing away in 1986. Joseph Sicari , who has spent 45 years as a television character actor, played DiCarlo. He’d be back in the series’ penultimate episode, “A Pound of Flesh”, as Mr. Glass. (This, by the way, marks the longest gap between appearances by any actor on the series.) Gregory Norman Cruz appeared as Chico in his only Street appearance. He’s better known for his role as Detective Bobby Stillwater alongside Holly Hunter on the TNT cop series Saving Grace, in which he appeared in all but two of the show’s 46 episodes. Finally, Kevin Dracula was played by Tony Plana, who’d come back for the season five opener, “Mayo, Hold the Pickle”. Plana’s been around, co-starring on a ton of short-lived programs and starring in the Showtime series Resurrection Boulevard, but he’s most famous for the role of Ignacio Suarez, the title character’s father, on all 85 episodes of Ugly Betty.
The new production cycle did see the debut of some recurring characters, all of whom would only survive this particular four-episode arc. Donna LaBrie appeared as Wilma; she’d return, uncredited, in the next episode before returning as Officer Angela Barber in season five’s “Washington Deceased”. LaBrie later had a short recurring role as Senator Hartford on Benson, but only notched five credits after that. Karole Selmon, as Billie, would also return uncredited in the next episode, but wouldn’t come back later. Rob Berger played Eddie Hoban; he’ll return in “Your Kind, My Kind, Humankind” after skipping two episodes.
The bigger guns debuting in this episode also didn’t get past this arc. Jeff Seymour debuted as Santini. He won’t appear in the next episode, but does return for the following two. Seymour’s not well-known in the States, but he’s had a long career starring in various shows north of the border. The main guest star for this arc, Andrea Marcovicci, begins a run of four consecutive episodes as Cynthia Chase. Marcovicci had most recently had a fairly significant role in the abysmal The Concorde: Airport ’79 (a movie so bad it killed the franchise), and she later went on to star in the short-lived primetime soap Berrenger’s. Tagging along with Marcovicci for most of the arc is Kent Williams, who played Bernard the cameraman. His only other credit was an episode of Quantum Leap over a decade later.
Rap Sheet: This episode marks the scripting debut of Anthony Yerkovich, who would take part in 38 episodes in one capacity or another over the show’s first three seasons. Yerkovich, of course, would go on to create and helm another pretty major show: Miami Vice.
Georg Stanford Brown took the director’s chair this episode, and would return six more times including “Up in Arms” two weeks later, for which he’d receive an Emmy nomination. (He was also nominated for the season five episode “El Capitan”.) He didn’t win either time, but he does own a directorial Emmy for a 1986 episode of Cagney & Lacey, the show which starred his then-wife Tyne Daly. Brown had been a 1970s television fixture in front of the camera, starring in The Rookies and as Tom Harvey in both Roots and Roots: The Next Generations. He’d also appeared on the big screen in Bullitt and Stir Crazy, and would later have major roles in North & South and Linc’s. As a director, he’d begun his career toward the end of The Rookies, and in addition to scads of single-episode jobs was also responsible for several episodes of Starsky & Hutch, Charlie’s Angels, Miami Vice, Cagney & Lacey (of course), and — perhaps surprisingly — Dynasty. Brown was also yet another alumni of Bochco’s prior project, Paris.
Verdict: “Police don’t believe no one unless they white. No matter nothin’ if they freaks or junkies or neck-suckin’ vampires, long as they white neck-suckin’ vampires.” The best line of the entire episode belongs to a one-shot character who gets about 40 seconds of screen time. What a world.
This was not a stupendously great episode, but it was a very, very good one. After five episodes of setting up the milieu, we finally loop back to the pilot episode and start to resolve the shooting plotline. The pieces of the investigation are well-paced; really, the entire episode is built around it with only the two gags from the roll call interfering. The llama plot is pure comedy, but the Dracula plot is an important touchstone. This is our first real look at how Mick is profoundly affected by criminals who really aren’t such bad guys; that’s a series trope which will recur again, and reach a crescendo at a point which just happens to be precisely in the middle of the show’s run.
And of course, we also get to see how Frank is affected when the system fails. One gripe I have here, though, is that even in the midst of Frank quite clearly kicking himself, Joyce is taking shots at him. In fact, as noted above Joyce seems to think that the police trying to treat Kevin Dracula with sympathy and kindness is actually doing him a disservice because they’re violating protocol to do it.
What’s forgotten here, too, is that it’s probably Joyce’s fault he killed himself. Because, you see, even though we don’t see it happen on screen, the dialogue in Frank’s office makes it clear: Joyce has already been to see her client, and has probably explained to him that the police can’t hold him. But Kevin likes it in his quiet little vampire lounge, and he’s also not stupid. He knows that his next move is to a psych eval, and he’s not down with that. Kevin Herman Dracula hung himself to avoid being saved by Joyce Davenport, and the script completely ignores that in the aftermath.
It may have been a wiser move than showing Joyce beating herself up over the end result. But in terms of logical process, it’s a miss. Also a miss: we never actually see Kevin again after Mick escorts him out of the squad room. We’re told how much he enjoys his new accommodations rather than being shown. That’s a misstep.
Small quibbles, though. This is a really good hour, which sets up a great arc, including some solid foreshadowing to events which aren’t part of the Hoban case.
Final score: 8.
Next Week: “Choice Cut”. The return of Hector Ruiz, the investigation of Eddie Hoban continues, and the unfortunate fate of a side of beef.
