Television Review: Work Related (Homicide: Life on the Street, S4X22, 1996)

Work Related (S04E22)

Airdate: 17 May 1996

Written by: Tom Fontana
Directed by: Jean de Segonzac

Running Time: 46 minutes

Season 4 of Homicide: Life on the Street stands as a paradoxical milestone. While it contains some of the series’ most acclaimed episodes—marked by its signature blend of gritty realism and humanistic storytelling—it also marks the beginning of its decline. For many die-hard fans, this decline is emblematic of the show’s creators “selling out” to the conventions of 1990s U.S. broadcast television, prioritising melodramatic tropes over the unvarnished authenticity that defined its earlier seasons. Nowhere is this shift more evident than in Work Related, the season finale. True to its title, the episode leans into the formulaic devices of network TV, delivering a dramatic cliffhanger to lure viewers into the next season. Yet beneath its sensationalist surface, Work Related retains vestiges of the series’ original ethos, making it a bittersweet coda to a season that straddles the line between brilliance and compromise.

The episode picks up shortly after Detective Meldrick Lewis got married, a milestone that bookends the season’s emotional arc. Lewis returns from his honeymoon, still grappling with the pressures of his new marriage. Partnered with Detective Mike Kellerman, Lewis is assigned a bizarre case: a red bowling ball dropped from an overpass onto an oncoming car, killing the driver. Kellerman dismisses the incident as the reckless act of teenagers, noting the lack of witnesses or evidence to pursue the perpetrators. Lewis, however, fixates on the case with unusual fervour, driven not by professionalism but by marital strain. Kellerman soon discovers that Lewis’s relentless focus on the case is a conscious choice to avoid confronting the fissures in his marriage.

Meanwhile, Pembleton faces his own internal conflict. Newly father to Olivia, he yearns to spend more time with his family, yet his innate professionalism compels him to tackle a high-stakes case at a fast-food restaurant where an employee and customer were shot dead, and a third man, Ian McKenzie (played by Jeffrey Perry Przebinsky), was wounded in the leg. Pembleton’s interrogation of McKenzie—revealed to be an accomplice in a botched robbery—culminates in a harrowing twist: during questioning, Pembleton collapses, suffering what appears to be an epileptic seizure. The diagnosis is a stroke, leaving his survival and future uncertain. His colleagues, including a visibly shaken Captain Larry Giardello, must regroup. Giardello orders Detective Al Giardello (Russert) and Sergeant John Munch to take over the case, leading to the discovery that the shooter has committed suicide. Pembleton survives but faces an unknown prognosis, his fate hanging in the balance.

This storyline exemplifies the series’ strength in blending personal stakes with procedural rigor. Pembleton’s stroke—a sudden, unpredictable event—mirrors the fragility of life the show often explores. Yet the episode’s climax, which leaves his condition unresolved, feels manipulative, a cheap emotional ploy to set up next-season drama rather than a natural narrative progression.

Both major storylines cling to the series’ trademark realism, even as they flirt with melodrama. The overpass incident—foreshadowing a societal issue that would gain prominence in later years—ends unresolved, as Kellerman predicted. This reflects the frustrating truth that many crimes lack tidy resolutions, a theme Homicide often championed. Similarly, the fast-food shooting’s perpetrator is driven not by grand motives but a mix of petty greed, jealousy, and revenge—a reminder that violence often stems from banal, human failings. The killer’s downfall is a product of random chance, not investigative brilliance, underscoring the unpredictability of justice.

The portrayal of Pembleton’s stroke is strikingly realistic. His collapse occurs without warning, shocking both characters and viewers alike—a narrative choice that mirrors real-life unpredictability. The aftermath, too, is handled with clinical detachment: Giardello orders the team back to work, refusing to indulge in a fruitless hospital vigil. This decision honours the show’s ethos of professionalism amid chaos. However, the episode’s closing sequence—a haunting, abstract shot of comatose Pembleton trapped in personal limbo—feels tonally discordant. While visually striking, the artsy flourish disrupts the series’ grounded tone, prioritising cinematic flair over the understated realism that defined its best moments.

A minor subplot involving the shooter’s young sister, portrayed by Anna Belknap (later of CSI: NY fame), adds little to the narrative. Her confrontational scene with Detective Bayliss feels gratuitous, a throwaway gesture to inject tension into an already overloaded plot. While Belknap’s later role in CSI: NY (as Lindsay Monroe) might interest fans of the franchise, the scene itself is forgettable, a reminder of the episode’s tendency to prioritise filler over focus.

Work Related is a flawed but poignant finale, encapsulating the duality of Season 4: a celebration of Homicide’s strengths and a harbinger of its decline. The episode’s adherence to melodramatic tropes—cliffhangers, unresolved trauma—reflects a shift toward conventionality, a move that alienated purists who cherished the show’s gritty authenticity. Yet its exploration of human vulnerability—Lewis’s marital struggles, Pembleton’s brush with mortality—retains the soul that made the series unforgettable. The unresolved ending, while manipulative, underscores a universal truth: life, like homicide investigations, often leaves us in limbo, grasping for answers that may never come.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)

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