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.

Spoilers

“Rights of Passage”

A powerful episode of Picket Fences, “Rights of Passage” featured a small band of Native Americans taking over the court house because the town of Rome decided to build a golf course that would extend over the burial grounds of their ancestors. The eventual showdown was built to exquisitely and was used, as is always the way with this show, to deal with some deep insecurities of one of its characters, in this case, Jimmy Brock, the sheriff, as Jimmy had some deep reflections on his time as the sheriff and what the job entails from him.

Jimmy really did not want to lead an attack on these Indians to reclaim the courthouse despite having the Mayor and Judge Bone making demands of him.

Seriously, Judge Henry Bone looked very much out of line through most of this episode, making demands of the police, especially Jimmy, whom he asked “What kind of sheriff are you?”

I found Henry to be really obnoxious during this episode. He seemed to be more concerned with get “his” courthouse back than dealing with the situation calmly and under control.

Chief Winnetka forced Jimmy’s hand with his demands to get rid of the golf course. It was a powerful episode with some painful moments for everybody.

The side stories included Matthew fighting a bully to protect Zach and Ginny protesting Jill’s office with other ‘little people’ because she was giving a small child HGH shots so he could grow bigger.

Either way, the standoff at the courthouse was clearly the main storyline and led to the death of the Chief. It was a sad ending.

Spoilers

“Sightings”

Picket Fences has the most well developed ensemble cast of characters of any TV show I can remember. I do believe this show is the precursor to shows like LOST or The Walking Dead where even the secondary characters are deeply developed and have real feelings and emotions. Picket Fences was truly ahead of its time as a show.

Tis episode focused on Carter Pike, played as always wonderfully by Kelly Connell. We have seen Carter through other episodes in little bits, but this time we really dive into the doubts and mind of Carter, and, because he is a morose and melancholy individual, with terrible feelings of insecurity.

They take Carter and rip everything away from him, his reputation, his job, his self-confidence.

When a missing man shows up dead with radiation burns in garbage outside the Brock house, questions about the possibility of UFOs take over Rome. A traveling group led by a woman named Wendy of UFO believers arrive and gain Carter’s support. When Carter announced to the press that he was listing exposure to radiation from a UFO as a possible cause of death of the man (after seeing something in the sky the night before), things went terribly wrong. Jimmy and Mayor Pugen fired Carter from his post as Medical Examiner because his credibility had been damaged beyond repair.

Turned out that Wendy was using Carter for publicity and her people had used a hologram projector to make Carter think he saw a UFO.

The UFO story was countered in the episode by the fact that the man they found in the garbage was a Jewish man and Carter would not release the body for burial. So the episode has some serious scenes dealing with the Jewish faith and the beliefs of Judaism. Douglas Wambaugh had some amazing scenes dealing with his own issues in connection to his religious beliefs. There was one with Doug and Miriam, his wife, in bed that again showed a deep understanding of Wambaugh and who this character was.

I really did feel for poor Carter by the end of the episode and, once again, Picket Fences showed why this show won as many Emmys as it did.