The Crying Child

DVD, Starsky & Hutch S3 (The Crying Child)

At last, a bona fide good episode, without any caveats! You'd be forgiven for thinking this was a Season 2 episode. Well it is, in part, since they reused the teaser (technically they don't do teasers on the series as the opening credits kick off the episodes, but I think of the first scene as a teaser), from 'Nightmare,' probably my favourite episode of the whole series. I can see why they would reuse it, as, although it does sit within the constraints of that particular episode (Lisa's birthday is mentioned as the reason they're in this part of town), it's also a fine seriocomic escapade that shows S&H at their best: inventive, brash, self-sacrificing (Starsky has to sacrifice his dignity in a big way!), and… really very little to do with the main story. So it wasn't too much of a stretch of them to drop this in at the start of another episode. It's just slightly annoying, as if they either couldn't come up with something new, they ran out of budget or they ran out of time. Perhaps a mix of all three, though budget shouldn't have been a particular issue this early in the season. At least it wasn't a clips episode, we can be thankful for small mercies! I give them credit, too, that this opening also suited the theme of the episode: the abuse of children. If you know 'Nightmare,' then you'd instantly see the parallels, about a young adolescent girl with a child's mind, who suffers rape and attempted murder at the hands of a scruffy scoundrel. That was much more clear cut, a case of tracking down the culprit and soothing the girl as much as possible, whereas this one shines a light on the procedure and intricacies of accusation, abuse and authority.

S&H aren't so able to just jump in, kick around some bad guys and drive off at the end, a job well done (mind you, that hasn't really happened this season, the third episode in a row to feature sensitive subject matter). The jurisdiction, the rights and responsibilities are all a little hazy and uncertain. Take Carol Wade as a prime example: she's the considerate teacher that notices her young pupil, Guy Mayer's, injuries, but is frightened to go through official channels to report it. S&H urge her to do so, as if they don't think telling them is the best way for the procedure to start. Carol's not only concerned about the boy, but that making any kind of accusation might lead to losing her job. S&H agree to take the matter up, which gives her mind some rest, but she doesn't feel empowered to voice her concerns to the police force as you'd think would be the accepted way. S&H get another surprise when, out of the kindness of their hearts (it being not the sort of thing they usually deal with), they visit the department that deals with child abuse, only to find a jaded, pessimistic woman in charge of it. Part of her spiel is to get them onside as potential recruits, so she paints the worst picture she can, yet it's also true - far from S&H finding it as simple as filling out a form for the department to investigate, they learn that it's severely understaffed and underfunded, with ten officers assigned to cover the city out of the four or five thousand officers that serve in the city.

One of things that make this a memorable episode is the lack of clear cut motives and the positioning of the story in the positive/negative view of the city that I've talked about before. At first it seems to be the seedy, grimy aspect (if we're including the stolen teaser from 'Nightmare' which you have to, really - just put it down to strong deja vu for S&H, and they just happened to be doing the same thing for Lisa's birthday as they did last year), with jolly old Uncle Elmo's toy store turning out to now be an 'Adult' toy store, not to mention the setting of railway lines, murky laundromats: the streets. But then we visit a school and things turn positive, hopeful about the future, S&H rehearsing some play they're going to do as Laurel & Hardy (and, for a couple of cops, doing a more than passable impression of the classic comedy duo - if they ever decided to quit, they should go into TV…). Then we get into the tragedy of Guy's marked back, but then L&H, sorry, S&H, get involved, so things look up… but then things aren't as simple, because the Mother lies to them about how he got the marks, saying he was in a fight with another boy… Guy, sister Vikki, and their Mother, live in a street that is the picture of respectability, with neat, green lawns and white houses, far from the usual haunts of criminality and the abused. But here is the most damning negative message of the episode: even here, just as much here, do terrible things go on. Because the victim's a young boy it's all the more striking in the point it makes. But that comes later, when the true grime of that house is shown in the grotty back garden, old shed, and a dustbin in which Janet dumps her child.

It's just not that simple, however, as although everything appears to play out as we'd expect it to, this episode is the perfect example of evidence to the contrary of the erroneous statement that the camera never lies. By selectively showing us what we expect to see we're quick to build up a picture with the circumstantial evidence shown: Janet Mayer seems a goodly, godly woman, trying to bring up her two children alone, while on the other side, her former husband, Eddie, is an imposing figure who appears quick to anger, rising up in apparent rage when Guy, staying at his place, breaks a lamp. Except the camera cuts away then, and from all we see in that scene, Eddie's an indulgent Father, or at least not the ogre we assume from his size and the accusations of his ex-wife - he lets Guy have five more minutes when it was bedtime, and seems quite laid-back until the breakage. The same can be said about his workmate, Coop, who S&H meet at the City Trucking Corp. - he's quick to point out Eddie's temper, claiming he hit him when they went out for drinks, but can we really see Coop as a reliable witness? In the light of the later revelations, and with the testimony of Gwen Larson, Eddie's widowed girlfriend of two years, he's a decent sort, with a fairytale life - he's never lost his cool with her, has been like a Father to her daughter, and likes to make pottery to get some extra income. It's far from the typical stereotype we might have of a rough, tough truck driver, who's quick to violence, and no one will challenge.

I wonder if Coop had a score to settle, which is why he painted a black picture of Eddie - I'm not saying the man didn't give him a black eye, just that he may well have had good reason for it. Though he may not be a violent man, he's not backward in standing up for himself, and the stress of his broken family on his pride doesn't help him be civil to cops when they come asking for him. Again, this serves to back up what we think we know of him, a big, hulking man, who drives big, hulking trucks can be just as sensitive about his family as anyone. And just as we assume Janet is the wronged party at first, she's proved to be a liar, and a violent one at that. Even she has reasons for how she is, having been brought up in a single-parent family and abused by her own Father, so she has a deep hatred of all men that she's carried since childhood. It's a tragic backstory that brings you to feel pity for her, not to condone her behaviour at all, but I like when a 'villain' gets some sympathy, and isn't just a two-dimensional being to be beaten. Maybe not the best choice of word there, but you get the idea. Janet's shown to be religious, praying and fondling her rosary, calling Eddie a sinner (something else that touched a nerve when Guy says repeats it, and you're wondering what it's going to be that sets off Eddie's anticipated rage, since he seems so peaceful reading his paper, which was good use of tension), but she's forgotten her own beliefs: that we're all sinners. Lying, bullying and wordlessly cajoling, almost pleading with the children to lie to the police for her, just so the status quo remains.

The interpersonal dynamics are another of the things that make this a standout episode, because there's reality and complexity that we don't often get in the series' characters. Janet wants to keep her children, she's alone in the world otherwise, yet she also hates her son for being 'garbage, like his Father,' and is driven by her own problems to take them out on him. S&H discuss the idea that Guy doesn't know any better, accepting the abuse as 'normal,' and though you can see Vikki is very conflicted (I love that shot of her sitting alone on the floor of her Mother's room, staring brokenly towards the camera), she wants to protect her Mother, perhaps from herself. It's a minefield of loyalties and misunderstanding, Eddie himself tortured by his inability to keep his family together and safe, and you really feel for him. In this regard it's a stunningly well written episode that touches all the bases, the lowest point being when Starsky sees the new injuries to Guy's back - rather than show gory detail the full impact is given to us by his strong reaction of horror and disgust, so much that he has to leave the room. When Hutch finds him he says you 'get used to all the killings, and the murders, the rapes and the junkies,' but that this is worse, the strongest impression of the negative in the episode, on a par with their poetic description in the pilot of the city being a toilet bowl. He basically sums up the seventies, saying "we've got a lot to learn." If only modern TV would realise that showing is gratuitous, and hinting is far more powerful in ramming home a point.

Importantly, and ultimately why the episode is broadly optimistic about the future, is the way things end on a hopeful note. It's true, as Sergeant Sheila Peterson says, that S&H come riding in like knights in shining armour, to sort out the problem, but that's not the end of the story because Guy will live with the mental scars for the rest of his life, and Janet will get treatment, but it will be from a similarly overworked and underpaid psychiatrist who won't be able to give her the care she needs… but S&H counter with the fact that with people like her working on the problems the future is bright. I did feel the ending was a little heavy-handed in the way it underlined the point that there aren't enough resources for those fighting child abuse, perhaps it wasn't being dealt with as seriously in those days, and almost in a counter to many of the episode endings, the idea of it not being 'case closed' is really laid on strong. But you know that with Peterson, and of course, S&H looking out for them, things will get better. In fact, you could almost say it's gone too far in the other direction now, with parents on the back foot, uncertain how much they can discipline their children, children encouraged to speak out at the slightest thing, which could be misused, and the impression that children can pretty much do what they want, because they know they'll get away with it from their parents and society. As Starsky said, "We've got a lot to learn," and not just those in the seventies.

The episode is also interesting from the point of view of police procedure in the seventies. We've often seen things are a lot more lax in many ways, but there are options to follow. One was that if the Mother refused to testify against Eddie, the court could choose to use a polygram test, which I assume is the same as a polygraph: a lie detector. It was apparently admissible only in cases of child abuse, but even then it sounded like they couldn't use this to prosecute, it would just mean that he'd have to go through the courts to see his children. Something else that would be questioned today, was a responsible adult appointed on the fly to look after the children, when S&H ask Carol to take care of them while they sort out the mess. Again, she's reluctant, and quickly gives them up when their Mother comes looking for them, a scene we didn't see, but you can tell Carol isn't comfortable, perhaps because of her position. In reality she'd be the ideal person, being Guy's teacher and known to them, but we wouldn't have a police detective just arbitrarily make that call, there would have to be rigorous tests and probably care homes. They pull the same trick on Carol as Sheila did to them, to get her to agree, perhaps you could even call it emotional blackmail, despite the good cause! But it's interesting that none of them feel they have proper authority, it's strongly the parents responsibility and they're entering sensitive ground. That expectations and stereotypes get turned on their head make for a superior story.

There are few of the expected novelties of the series, apart from the obvious reference to Laurel & Hardy, a much more subtle one, and a good example of the kind of writing on show, is when, in response to Sheila's questioning of society, Starsky reassures her with "Peterson… In our time," a play on the 'peace in our time' quote of Neville Chamberlain on returning from his meeting with Hitler before World War II. There is the ghost of a running theme with S&H looking out for jobs for Franklin. I was struggling to think who he might be until it clicked that it must be the guy they arrested at the beginning of the episode in the second teaser (I wonder if the episode had simply run short, which was why they added the 'Nightmare' sequence), a man shoplifting because he's desperate and his children are starving - another link in the chain of hardships suffered by children. As if to cement the episode in the positive, S&H mention how they bought the children lots of food (including something Starsky meant for himself!). I'm not sure if they took Franklin in, or whether they allowed him freedom, but they can be pretty softhearted sometimes! With no wacky characters, the episode firmly grounded for the sake of emotional attachment, there weren't really any other notes, except when I first saw it, I thought Eddie was played by Donald Sutherland (same build and voice, but it was actually a Michael Lane). And to confirm my suspicion that they often used the first take of a scene, when S&H leave to find Mayer at work, Starsky tries to open the Torino's door, forgets it's locked, and has to unlock it, then try again - they wouldn't have done that multiple times! Also, there's a voiceover at the start saying it was a good job they had their costumes in the trunk or they'd have been late for rehearsal, then Hutch says in the car that they'll be late for rehearsal.

In the limited possibilities of the series (it is a cop show, after all), this episode shows what's possible in crafting a strong story with realistic characters, without reliance on the usual action or romance (preferring to use tension rather than outright violence - an example is when S&H go to talk to Eddie and we're already built up for a difficult encounter, and he does fight, but it's not the animal aggression and crazy temper we expected). It displays the delicacy of such situations when it's one word against another, and that the truth can be uncovered if thought and care is used in a timely manner. It shows S&H at their best, their human nature shocked, but not affecting their judgement, except in making them even keener to do their job to the best of their ability. The mental processes and feelings of real people are fully integrated into a complex interpersonal study, which gives insight into people and the way they think and act that is quite mature for the series, and most importantly, on the entertainment side, it leaves on a note of optimism - S&H might be moving on to the 'next planet' in the 'Star Trek' manner (though in reality they don't have that luxury, but there tends not to be much continuity), but like superheroes that have come in and done a job, they leave inspiration in their wake, and the strength for those stuck there to carry on and keep making a difference to people's lives. I like it a little more every time I see it.

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