Spoilers

“Dairy Queen”

Breasts become a handful in Rome, Wisconsin.

The city hires a model to promote milk using her sexual nature. Turned out, she was being abused by her husband. She was also a woman pulled over for speeding years before by Jimmy.

This whole storyline was designed to cause some issues in the marriage of Jimmy and Jill, but that just did not work for me. I had little concern with the model’s storyline. Her husband did punch a cow and knocked it out, but otherwise the abusive husband story was not

Kimberly’s story was about breasts as well. She ran an experiment by wearing falsies and realized she received more attention with bigger breasts than she did before. This led to her beginning to think about the possibility of getting breast implants.

This, of course, freaked Jill out, who was already having some issues with Jimmy. Kimberly called in Lydia for another opinion.

This episode did not feel like much of anything to me. The story with the model and her abusive husband was too sparse to be worthwhile and it did not feel organic.

It also seems as if the show has completely forgotten the entire Douglas Wambaugh is a rotten person arc from two episodes ago. He was here backing the abused model and no one even made any references to that apparently character defining moment.

Sounds as if we are gearing up for the next Thanksgiving episode, which was mentioned a couple of times during this show.

Spoilers

“The Dancing Bandit”

Marlee Matlin guest starred on Picket Fences as Laurie Bey, aka The Dancing Bandit. Laurie was a deaf woman who would rob banks, and then send the money that she steals to worthy charities in the area. The old Robin Hood mentality. The deaf woman would end each bank job with a dance.

She had a whole gang of experts helping her along the way, including prince Humperdinck himself, Chris Sarandon, who played her husband. The Dancing Bandit Gang were shown to be extremely intelligent and able to pull off remarkable complicated plans, fooling the local police and the FBI.

However, it appeared that Laurie’s luck had run out when she came to Rome, Wisconsin. She wound up shot in the back by Jimmy when she had tried to escape.

Thing was, Laurie had already charmed Jimmy’s son Zach, who was one of the hostages during her attempted bank robbery. Laurie was impressed that Zach knew some sign language and kept calling him cute.

This classic episode really displayed how the intelligence of Matlin’s character and her gang kept them several steps ahead of the FBI and everyone else. That was very impressive and was a cool thing to show. At times, because of their disability, some deaf people are perceived to be less intelligent than others, but there is no stereotype going on here.

Marlee Matlin was charming as could be in this role, a role that she will return to later in the series. She received an Emmy nomination for this episode.

The Dancing Bandit is an excellent episode of Picket Fences.

Spoilers

“Under the Influence”

Two storylines collide, both dealing with the influence over people. Alcohol and manipulation by a therapist. Well, he was not a therapist at the time.

I hated that character of Danny. I hated watching what he was doing to Maxine. Tearing her down, preying on her insecurities and trying to isolate her from her friends and co-workers. Danny was a grade A jerk.

He had Maxine so messed up that she allowed a drunk driver go. The driver was just a few blocks away from her house and Maxine thought it would be okay, but the driver ran a stop sign and crashed into another driver, putting him into a wheelchair. Maxine told the drunk driver to go into her house and wait.

The rest of the episode focused on Douglas Wambaugh. The drunk driver called Wambaugh who instructed her to have some scotch immediately.

The episode showed how slimy Doug can be. He was doing all kinds of things that were borderline criminal to try and win his case. The show then seemed to show Douglas changing his tune. He helped the drunk driver plead the case out (instead of going to trial). Though it looked as if Douglas had learned his lesson and turned over a new leaf, he was actually setting up a lawsuit against the city for the guy in the wheelchair. It was a marvelously horrific lawyer trick that sent Wambaugh into a jail cell for contempt.

Maxine was able to pull herself away from Danny, finally seeing how his manipulations were affecting her, thanks to Kenny and Jill.

There are still several pieces of info dropped. Kenny and the new mayor are sleeping together, making office politics a new thing.

Spoilers

“Unlawful Entries”

I remember when this episode first aired… I hated… just hated Danny Shreve, the therapist who had claimed to be in love with his former patient, Maxine. Maxine had him arrested last episode for crossing the line and taking advantage of his position as therapist.

This episode found him doing his best to get Maxine to drop the charges, and he was clearly manipulating her, and I loved Maxine and I hated him for what he was doing.

At the end of the episode with Danny and Maxine in bed together seemed so sinister that I hated him once again.

The rest of the episode was quite disgusting. They had a case where a male was raped by a female and they way he was treated as a victim was just appalling. I know the idea was to highlight how rape victims are treated by the system, but listening to Douglas Wambaugh, one of my favorite characters, spout off the platitudes of the ridiculous statements used in rape cases was sickening. Watching Henry Bone’s reactions were also obscene. Nothing spoke more than to see John Littleton’s eyes being adverted in shame, avoiding the gaze of the victim.

The victim was played by Alan Ruck, the actor from Spin City and Ferris Buhler’s Day Off. He played the anger and embarrassment with such a heart-breaking pain.

This episode also found the debut of a character in Picket Fences called Rachel Harris. Played by Leigh Taylor-Young, this is a character who fumbled into the mayor’s office after Bill Pugen exploded last episode. She has a huge role moving forward.

Overall, this episode was more of a set-up for stories for the future.

Spoilers

“Duty Free Rome”

Last episode, I wondered if it was the episode where Bill Pugen spontaneously combusted. It wasn’t.

It was this episode.

This was an absolute shock when I first saw this episode back in the 1990s. I couldn’t believe that a serious TV show had a character die by spontaneously combusting. And then to treat it like that was a truth.

I have always enjoyed the mysterious things, and I remember having some knowledge of spontaneous combustion, but to see it used in the show like this, well, it was a shock.

It also started the long running gag of Wambaugh instructing his clients that they shouldn’t tell him the whole truth. The idea that a client telling their lawyer the truth could hamstring the lawyer is something that I have seen elsewhere (The Practice and Boston Legal spring o mind.. both David E. Kelley shows) but I think this is where it originated.

The story with Maxine and her therapist started in this episode and, if I recall, gets worse for Maxine before it gets better.

There was also the religious argument going on. A couple who both have a genetic marker for a terrible birth defect are scared to have sex and the church will not allow them to use birth control without it being considered a sin. Roy Dotrice joined the cast as Father Gary Barrett. He would be involved with several religious fights in Rome over the series.

Spoilers

“Turpitude”

What can be great about rewatches like this, I haven’t seen these Picket fences episodes in a long time and I may not necessarily remember the ending. So while I remember this episode very well, I was not remembering exactly how it wrapped up and that is cool.

I remember the carjacking episode, where Mayor Bill Pugen shot his carjacker after the man had dropped the knife. The mayor shot him because the man had threatened to come back after his jail time and get Pugen and his family. Perfectly understandable.

However, Jimmy saw it as vigilantism (which it is, by the way) and he was determined to uphold the law, even if everybody was telling him he shouldn’t.

This was also the episode where Don Cheadle came to Rome.

Don Cheadle is one of my favorite actors, and that love started in Rome as Cheadle joined the cast as District Attorney John Littleton and immediately gets thrown into the dep end by Jimmy and this unpopular decision.

Cheadle takes this role that had been so uncertain over the first year of the show and truly makes it his. Every time he asked anyone listening “Who is this man?” in reference to Douglas Wambaugh, I could’ve died.

As I said, I was not sure what way the court decision would go, and I kind of thought there would not be a verdict because of the whole spontaneous combustion story, but that is not in this episode.

So I was surprised when Pugen was found guilty. This show was never afraid to go for the big swings.

Spoilers

“The Lullaby League”

The first season finale of Picket Fences was a memorable episode. Guest star Della Reece appears as one of the great Blues singers known as Naomi Grand. She was performing in Rome and Zach won a contest to play with her.

When the night of the concert came, just after they finished their scat, Naomi collapsed on stage. Jill diagnoses liver failure and claimed she was going to die without a experimental treatment, the use of a pig’s live as a stopgap measure until a human liver could be found.

The surgery was a success, but when Naomi awoke, she was horrified by the idea that a pig organ was inside her body and demanded that they take it out. Of course, Jill refused and that meant that we got to hear those wonderful words… “Douglas Wambaugh for the pig woman!”

Meanwhile, Maxine and Kenny pulled over a speeder who was in labor and ready to give birth. Maxine helped give birth even with the baby being a birch.

Turned out though that the mother was wanted as an accessory to a bank robbery and she took off afterwards. But not before she left the baby with Wambaugh with instructions to give the baby to Maxine.

Maxine wanted no part of the baby at first, but the little girl warmed Maxine’s heart and before long, Maxine was anxiously trying to adopt her.

Sadly, Maxine’s heart was broken as the mother turned herself in and gave testimony against the bank robber so she could keep the baby.

These were two fairly emotional stories contained in a single episode. The pig liver story was more like the weird stories of Rome, whereas the baby was the story to dive into our characters hearts and minds.

It was a strong episode to finish off an exceptional first season. There were no flops during this season, with even the lowest episodes on my list being very enjoyable.

Spoilers

“Sugar and Spice”

Kimberly and her best friend kiss, experimenting and stir up all kinds of trouble.

Kenny and Maxine compete for the job of under sheriff and stir up all kinds of trouble.

Jimmy makes some mistakes when speaking with Maxine about the position and stirs up all kind of trouble.

Poor Jimmy just does not see things coming. He is pretty old fashioned when it comes to a lot of things, but when he told Maxine that he did not think she would be accepted as under sheriff because of the other male deputies, he really put his foot in it.

His heart was in the right place. He did not intend to commit sexual discrimination even though that was exactly what he had done. He was trying to protect her from a job that he did not think she was ready for. He just went about it in the wrong way.

Of course, Maxine did not react well to not getting the job at first either. Her immediate outburst was disrespectful to Kenny, no matter what she said later. It showed that Jimmy was right that she was not ready for the position, even though he went about it in the wrong manner.

I think the show did a great job with the Kimberly sexual confusion story angle. This felt real and made a lot of sense, even if it were uncomfortable to watch at times. Jimmy, Jill and Lydia reacted in all sorts of ways though, in the end, Kimberly seemed to appreciate what they had done. They sort of lucked into it.

Oh, and Matthew had to fight an older bully to protect Zach. Jimmy had found out and gave his son some pointers and Jimmy’s shock and joy when he discovered that Matthew had won the fight was as funny as Jill’s outcry over him knowing and letting Matthew do it. It was a funny little C-level story.

We looked quite a bit at Jimmy again this episode, as he interacted with his real children and his two deputies that he thinks of as his children. Maxine was mad at Jimmy, but she’ll get over it.