Title: Group Home
Directed by: Lee Bernhardi
Written by: Larry Balmagia and Dennis Koenig (story), Tony Sheehan and Danny Arnold (teleplay)
Air Date: March 10, 1977
Previous: Asylum
Next: Strike: Part 1
Guest Starring: Florence Staley, George Murdock, James Cromwell, Don Calfa, Phil Leeds, Denise Miller
"Group Home" is the 20th episode of the third season of Barney Miller.
An Army Master Sergeant, J.R. Reveille, comes into the squad room and reports a bomb threat to the local army recruiting center. He turns out to be a noxious racist, behaving particularly offensively to Yemana even after Yemana reveals that he was in the Army and fought with the Nisei Regiment
in World War II. But there's still a bomb threat to be investigated, so a sketch artist played by James Cromwell—yep, that guy, from Babe and L.A. Confidential—renders a sketch of the bomber. The bomber turns out to be one Mr. DiLucca, a mentally disturbed man who blames the Army for the hacking cough he's had for the last ten years.
It's Fish's turn on mugging detail, so after dressing up as a woman he heads out for the park. He comes back quickly, bringing not a mugger, but a lonely fellow named Lou Hector who took such a fancy to Fish that he offered Fish $20.
Meanwhile Harris, inspired by the recent airing of Roots, has hired a genealogist to trace his family tree. He is not happy at all when the report come back, tracing his ancestry to...Scotland.
Tropes:
- Attractive Bent-Gender: Fish in women's clothing looks like a science experiment gone wrong, but Mr. Hector apparently finds Fish so enchanting that he tries to proposition Fish with $20. In fact, even after he's arrested and finds out Fish is a man, he still wants to take Fish out to lunch or a ball game.
- Bad to the Last Drop: Reveille takes a sip of the squad room's coffee and says "This stuff is worse than army joe!"
- Bait-and-Switch: After Nick reveals he was in the Nisei Regiment, Sergeant Reveille gets thoughtful, and you think maybe he's going to relent—nope. He just remarks that it must not have mattered who won as far as Nick was concerned.
- Mathematician's Answer: Fish, explaining that he arrested Mr. Hector for soliciting prostitution, says "What did you offer me $20 for?" Mr. Hector answers "That's all I had!"
- Mistaken for Prostitute: Fish is not happy when he gets dressed up as a woman for mugging detail but instead is mistaken for a hooker.
- Required Spinoff Crossover: Bernice and the two orphans that she and Fish are looking after, Jilly Pappalardo and Victor, make an appearance. All three were regulars on the spinoff Fish, which premired one month earlier.
- Ripped from the Headlines: Mr. DiLucca's insane ranting about the Army doing germ warfare experiments on the New York subway? That actually happened.
- Series Continuity Error: Just two episodes before this one Yemana claims that he'll be 46 on his next birthday. In this episode he says he fought with the Nisei division in World War II over thirty years earlier.
- Shout-Out: Roots was a huge, huge TV ratings hit. It's inspired Harris to find out about his ancestry.
- Stocking Filler: Parodied when Fish, who looks truly ghastly dressed up as a woman, sticks out his leg and adjusts his stockings.
