Essential Episode #22: Night Shift

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We watch a young kid (Johnny Macado) break into a car parked in an alley, but before he can get it started up three men come out of one of the buildings.  From the conversation it seems that one of the men (Kaplan) is reassuring the other (Miller) about something having to do with a jury and legal issues.  The third guy (Smallwood) is just standing in back.  Kaplan hands Miller an envelope of money, but then Smallwood starts to strangle Miller.  Johnny chooses this moment to start the car; the lights come on and he can see all three men clearly.  Smallwood shoots at him, and he panics and drives off.  Gabe, a homeless man, sees the whole thing.

 

 

Jim and Rafe are bringing in a speed dealer and his van when Johnny drives his stolen car into the front of Cascade PD.  Jim cuffs Johnny as well, then turns the speed dealer over to Brown.  We find out from their conversation that most of the city services – office services, sanitation, road repair – are on strike.  He and Simon question Johnny, but Johnny won’t talk, and Simon sends Jim and Blair back out to help Megan with a homicide.

 

We shift to Jim and Blair in the truck.  Blair is using the cab light to work on his diss, which annoys Jim, because it’s draining the truck battery.  It also annoys Jim because he wants to read it, but Blair won’t let him.  In what seems like fairly uncharacteristic behavior for Blair, he teases Jim about what’s in it. 

 

Megan’s homicide is Miller, the man Johnny saw killed at the start of the episode.  Initially Jim’s presence at the scene goes okay with Megan, but in short order they’re arguing over their version of events – Jim think this was a mob killing, while Megan thinks it was a simple mugging.  Jim zooms in with his sight and sees a paint smear on the nearby dumpster, which he gets one of the officers to take a sample of.  They go to leave, but the truck won’t start and Jim is mad at Blair.  That’s when Gabe comes out to talk to Jim and Blair.  He’s not making a lot of sense; he says he’s an angel, come to “bear witness”.  Blair thinks he witnessed the murder and pulls Jim aside to tell him.  Gabe closes the hood and Jim’s truck mysteriously starts.

 

Back to Major Crimes.  Jim and Blair have brought Gabe there to make a statement, but the PD is filled with homeless people because social services is now on strike.  Jim and Megan present their competing theories to Simon and snark at each other.  Simon tells Jim that he wants him to run point on the case; Megan protests, but Simon points out that she hasn’t been fully trained in the departmental procedures.  He also says her past cases have been a little “improvised” (which seems an unfair critique given Jim’s record in that department).  Megan is miffed and storms out. 

 

Megan goes down to the garage to ask Rafe and Brown – who are unloading the speed dealer's van – about Jim and Blair’s witness.  As they’re taking stuff out, they find a live crocodile in the back of the van.  They jump back, alarmed, and the crocodile crawls into one of the ventilation shafts.  They try to get it out, but it growls at them and just retreats further.

 

Later that night, Smallwood meets Kaplan at a bar.  He’s been doing some research, and he’s found out that Johnny is being held at the PD.  Kaplan is worried, but Smallwood reassures him that Johnny has bigger problems than ratting on them right now (like a busted PD front window).  He assures Kaplan that he’ll take care of the kid (and he doesn’t mean in the h/c kind of way). 

 

Meanwhile, back at the PD, Simon and Jim are discussing Johnny, who they think is working for a chop shop.  They run across Megan and Brown, who are still looking for the crocodile.  Megan makes an offhand comment about how she used to go “croc spotting”, and that’s that: Simon puts her in charge of finding the crocodile.  As Jim and Simon are walking off, Simon tells Jim that the car Johnny stole belongs to Charles Kaplan, a notoriously annoying and slimy defense attorney. 

 

We cut to inside one of the interrogation rooms, where Jim is sweating Johnny.  Johnny stays firm, though, despite all Jim’s persuasive talent, and refuses to say who he’s lifting cars for. 

 

Over in Simon’s office, Blair comes in to show Gabe’s witness statement to Simon.  Apparently it’s written in Aramaic, an ancient Biblical language that no one has spoken for over 1,500 years.  In the face of Simon’s disbelief, Blair admits that possession can be used as a coping mechanism for modern street people.  Simon gives him a form to take to missing persons to do a search and see if someone meeting Gabe’s description has been reported missing.  Blair leaves to do just that.  As if Simon didn’t have enough trouble, Brown calls him to report that a news crew has shown up at the station, and they already know about the lost crocodile. 

 

But all the disasters that have happened so far in this ep pale in comparison to what happens next.  Jim is sitting at his desk, looking over at Blair’s dissertation.  He looks around; seeing that Blair is nowhere in sight, he takes Blair’s dissertation to the bathroom to read it.  A few minutes later, we see Blair come into the bullpen and paw frantically around his desk and Jim’s desk, looking for his manuscript. 

 

Since we’re in need of some comic relief at this point, there’s an amusing scene where Megan, Rafe, and Brown use a robot to snare the croc, with disastrous results (read: the robot gets eaten by the croc).  Oh, and did I mention it’s all caught on film by the news crew?  We also see Jim coming out of the bathroom, looking like thunder as he tosses Blair’s dissertation in a drawer of his desk. 

 

Blair comes to Jim and asks him if he’s seen his dissertation.  Jim silently pulls open the drawer and hands it to him.  Blair is too ecstatic to notice that Jim is giving him the cold shoulder.  Just then Kaplan walks into the bullpen.  He’s come to get his car and tell Jim and Simon that he’s Johnny’s defense attorney, claiming that Johnny called him.  Simon is doubtful, but Kaplan has the proper paperwork, so they can’t prevent him from meeting with his client. 

 

Kaplan meets with Johnny in the interrogation room.  Johnny tells him that he can identify him, and tells Kaplan he’d better get him off, and get him $75,000 in the bargain.  Kaplan agrees.  He goes to Simon and tells him  Johnny can't be put in the regular lockup, since he’s only 15 years old.  Simon agrees to leave Johnny in the interrogation room for the night. 

 

Jim has a strong feeling that Kaplan is lying about something, so he goes down to Evidence to look over the car.  Meanwhile Kaplan meets up with Smallwood and tells him where Johnny will be.  Smallwood sees the news story about the croc and gets an idea. 

 

Meanwhile, Jim is examining the car.  He asks one of the officers to take a sample of the car’s paint; he thinks it matches the scrape on the dumpster at the murder scene.  Blair has accompanied him, but Jim’s still giving him the cold shoulder and Blair finally catches on.  He asks Jim what’s wrong; Jim replies by quoting part of Blair’s dissertation back at him.  He’s angry at the things that Blair said about him, feels that it’s a betrayal of their friendship.  Blair doesn’t back down from what he wrote, and is upset that Jim read the chapter.  They trade angry words, and then Jim storms off. 

 

We see Smallwood come up to the animal control guy that’s been sent to catch the crocodile and knock him out.

 

Up on the seventh floor, Blair is trying to continue the argument with Jim when he’s waylaid by Simon, who tells Blair that they ID’d Gabe through his fingerprints as an ancient history professor from Chicago named Harold Blake who went missing two years ago. 

 

Jim sweats Johnny again.  This time he takes a more menacing route, threatening him with murder charges, telling him what prison will be like for him.  Then Jim leaves, probably to let Johnny stew about what he’s said.  We see Smallwood, dressed in animal control guy’s uniform, enter the PD. 

 

Back to Simon’s office.  Jim tells Simon and Megan that a bullet taken from Kaplan’s car was fired from the same gun that killed Miller.  Simon wonders why Kaplan would kill Miller, and Jim says that there’s some kind of investigation of jury tampering going on, but no one will confirm that Kaplan is the target.  Megan suggests going through the PD database for a connection between Kaplan and Miller.  Simone says to bring Kaplan in for questioning.

 

Blair brings food over to Gabe and tries to get him to talk about Harold Blake, but he gets mostly Scripture in return. 

 

Jim and Simon question Kaplan about his car being at the scene of Miller’s murder.  Kaplan offers to tell the DA about confidential discussions he’s had with Johnny.  Simon has Kaplan hauled off to booking.  He gets Johnny’s file from Social Services and tells Jim he’s got to find something to get Johnny to cooperate with them and turn on Kaplan.  Jim thinks that maybe the way to the kid’s heart is through his stomach.

 

Over in the break room, Blair is helping hand out sandwiches to the hordes of homeless people still thronging the PD.  Jim comes in to get a sandwich for Johnny, and acknowledges to Blair that he might have overreacted a bit to the diss--although he’s still hurt.  Blair seems somewhat mollified, and has some wise things to say about fear and choices that Jim probably doesn’t hear.  He tells Jim that he’d rather be friends than researcher and subject, and offers to destroy his notes.  Then he leaves.  Jim is left standing there, and Gabe delivers the best line ever: “What good does it do a man to have ears that will hear a thousand miles if he cannot listen to the whispers of his own heart?”  Jim stares at him, a little dumb-founded.

 

Jim’s sandwich ploy works and Johnny agrees to turn on Kaplan.  It also helps that he’s found out that Johnny’s mother is a patient with AIDS in the hospital.  He promises Johnny he’ll try to work things out for him.  Kaplan is arrested.  He tries to snitch on Smallwood, but Simon will hear none of it and Jim takes him to booking.

 

Speaking of the devil, we see Smallwood in the basement, placing some C-4 at the base of one of the elevators.

 

However, it’s Megan who puts all the pieces together and links Miller to a case of Kaplan’s – coincidentally, the defendant in that case was Smallwood.  Jim recognizes Smallwood as the animal control guy he saw earlier.  They figure out the ruse, and Jim realizes that Smallwood is here to kill Johnny.  Simon puts the word out, but Smallwood’s bomb goes off, creating panic. 

 

Meanwhile, Blair is looking for Gabe in the chaos.  Smallwood gets into the interrogation room and is about to kill Johnny, but Johnny gets away and runs into a hallway.  Smallwood fires at Johnny, but Gabe takes the bullet.  Jim pursues Smallwood; Smallwood is startled by the croc and Jim is able to subdue him. 

 

Everyone is in front of the PD as the day dawns.  Jim apologizes to Blair again – sorta.  The croc is caught.  They find out that Harold Blake actually died last winter.  And Gabe vanished on the way to the hospital. 

 

Why this episode is essential:

 

Although the actual final episode of this season is Sentinel, Too, many fen feel that the problems that are highlighted in that ep, as well as eventually highlighted in the final episode, The Sentinel by Blair Sandburg, first show themselves in this ep.  Although the diss has been a source of some tension since Warriors, in this ep it comes front and center as a major source of conflict between Jim and Blair.  Whereas Jim was grumpy and snarky about the dissertation before, in this ep he actually does something that Blair tells him not to do – he steals and reads the diss.  His distrust of Blair is a theme we will see echoed in both SenToo and TSbyBS, as well as his feelings about being a research subject.  Don’t think his apologies, as honest as they seemed, are putting the matter to rest.  For me, the whole Johnny-Kaplan plot line and the whole croc thing are just distractions from what the real heart of this episode is: Jim’s fears about Blair’s dissertation and the implications it (and finishing it) has for their relationship. 

 

This ep has one of my all-time favorite characters: Gabe.  If you ever have a chance, you really should actually see this ep.  Just reading Gabe’s lines doesn’t do justice to the wonderful job that Alex Zahara does playing him.  He takes a character that could easily be overdone or ridiculous and makes him magical.  Plus, Gabe gets to say what is probably my favorite line in the entire series of TS (points up). 

 

We see some interesting takes on Jim as an interrogator in this ep.  We see him as both good cop and bad cop, and as frankly menacing and slightly creepy cop.  It’s a bit of a different view of the guy we’re generally disposed to think of as the hero (although there are times that Jim is definitely not heroic in this ep), and some food for thought.  This may be what has given rise to some of the dark!Jim fic that’s around.  You get the sense that Jim could easily be using his powers for evil, given the right set of circumstances. 

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