Title: Quo Vadis?
Directed by: Alex March
Written by: Tony Sheehan and Douglas Wyman (story), Tony Sheehan (teleplay)
Air Date: March 2, 1978
Previous: Wojo's Problem
Next: Hostage
Guest Starring: Barbara Barrie, John Dullaghan, Ivy Bethune, John O'Leary
"Quo Vadis?" is the 19th episode of the fourth season of Barney Miller.
Wojo books a stickup man who complains about getting divorced, but as far as wacky criminals go the focus is on a little old lady, Miss Jacobs. Miss Jacobs comes barreling into the squad room demanding action regarding an obscene picture that she saw while passing on the street. The detectives are surprised to learn that the place where she saw the picture was the Monroe Gallery, a high-end art gallery as opposed to, say, a porno theater or strip club. When Harris determines that yes, the painting in the gallery window is a tasteful nude, Barney explains that there's nothing the cops can do about that. Miss Jacobs stalks off without another word.
Cue a phone call about a public disturbance at, yep, the Monroe Gallery. Miss Jacobs is arrested and charged with defacing the painting in question with shoe polish. When Miss Jacobs says she'd rather go to jail than pay to have the shoe polish removed, Barney wonders just what the old lady's problem is with the rather tame painting.
But before all of that: Barney is shot! With Yemana off on vacation and Harris late for work, Barney had to go out with Dietrich on an armed robbery call. The squad room explodes with panic when word gets back from Dispatch that Barney got shot. The detectives are frantically calling hospitals when Captain Miller strolls right through the front door. It turned that while technically he did get shot, the bullet only grazed his index finger.
The detectives all breathe sighs of relief, until Barney's wife Liz shows up. Liz is on the verge of hysterics at the news that Barney got shot, and the fact that it wasn't serious doesn't make her feel any better. When Barney once again says that he's not leaving New York for some less risky place to be a cop, Liz suggests that she may want a divorce.
The first of five straight episodes that Jack Soo missed to end the fourth season, as he fought the cancer that killed him in January 1979.
Tropes:
- And Starring: Barbara Barrie gets "Special Guest Star" credit for her return.
- The Bus Came Back: Liz Miller makes her first appearance since Season 2's "Happy New Year". Barbara Barrie would appear once more in Season 5's "Toys".
- Call-Back: Liz's desire to leave New York for somewhere that is more peaceful and safer for a cop goes all the way back to the first episode. In the first season when Liz was a semi-regular she was repeatedly pleading with Barney to leave the city. In Barbara Barrie's return appearance their marriage reaches a crisis point over this.
- Continuity Nod: When Harris shows up late an annoyed Wojo asks if he is moonlighting again. That was the plot of Season 3 episode "Moonlighting".
- Did You Just Have Sex?: Averted. Harris obviously did just have sex; he comes in grinning like a fool, late, singing "Love, love love." Somehow dimwitted Wojo misses these signals, instead asking if Harris is moonlighting again.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Barney is wondering why Miss Jacobs is being so unreasonable when, midway through his sentence, he realizes why: it's her in the painting.Barney: Miss Jacobs, are you just being difficult or is there something about this painting that...[realizes] disturbs you.
- It's Not Porn, It's Art: Discussed Trope. Miss Jacobs acts like the painting of a tasteful nude woman is filth. Barney, trying to reason with her, says that there's a difference between something like a Renoir nude and hardcore porn. Barney can't answer when Levitt interjects with "What's that, sir?".
- I Was Quite a Looker: The Reveal as to why Miss Jacobs is bent on the destruction of the painting. The tasteful nude of a beautiful young lady is her from 40-odd years ago. She tells Barney that it was painted in an intimate private moment and wasn't meant to be put up for sale in a gallery window.
- Mood Whiplash: The silly comedy of the cold open with Mr. Loftus the stickup man turns dead serious when the phone call comes in that Barney got shot. Later, the comedy of Barney trying to reason with Miss Jacobs the batty old lady instantly changes to poignancy when he figures out why she's so dead-set on destroying the painting.
- Moral Guardians: Subverted. Miss Jacobs comes off as one of the Moral Guardians, as she hysterically overacts about a nude portrait in a shop window, then defaces it. Eventually it's revealed that she was the model.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Mr. Loftus the armed robber commiserates with Barney about marriage troubles, remembering how his wife left him because she couldn't take his irregular hours and "temporary separations" (when he went to jail). Barney is startled to realize that their situations are a lot alike.
- Scenery Censor: Justified In-Universe as after all Miss Jacobs was trying to destroy the painting, but the shoe polish she splattered on it does in fact cover up the breasts of the woman in the painting.
- Shout-Out: Star Wars had imprinted itself on the public consciousness so much that just a year after it came out, Levitt is saying "May the force be with you" to Barney. (Levitt the weirdo is trying to express how everyone in the precinct supports Barney.)
- Sophisticated as Hell: Dietrich the pompous intellectual is pontificating to Wojo the meathead about the painting.Dietrich: You see how the subtle shadings of light and dark entwine to create a naturalistic yet eloquent symbol of the woman eternal?
Wojo: Nice body too.
Dietrich: Oh yeah. - You Make Me Sic: Harris's interchange with an irritated Miss Jacobs:Harris: Miss Jacobs? Hi, I'm Detective Harris. If you'll have a seat right over there, we'll be right with you.
Miss Jacobs: "Both" of you?
Harris: Uh, no, I meant me.
Miss Jacobs: Then say what you mean, for heaven's sake!
