Shaggy Dog, City Goat
Directed By: Kyle Secor
Written By: Eric Overmyer
At a medical examiner conference, Dr. Cox tells her colleagues the story of a case Kellerman and Munch caught involving a man who jumped off the roof or an apartment building to kill himself, but he was also shot in the abdomen as he was falling. Ballard and Gharty get the case of a drug dealer killed for dealing bad drugs, which leads them to the poor white side of town. Falsone decides to fight his ex for custody of their son. Georgia Rae sues Kellerman, Lewis, Stivers, Giardello, the rest of the police department, and the city of Baltimore for the wrongful death of Luther. When Lewis confronts her about it and hits her, he gets suspended.
This episode contains examples of:
- Absurdly Youthful Mother: Ballard initially mistakes the mother of the two brothers she and Gharty are pursuing as their sister. When Ballard tells the woman she looks too young to be a mother, the woman snorts Ballard should tell that to the boys' father, which Ballard is not happy to hear.
- Actor Allusion: Josh Pais, who plays an unnamed medical examiner who's one of the ones listening to Dr. Cox's story, played assistant ME Borak on several episodes of Law & Order.
- Beef Bandage: Gharty is applying a steak to his black eye when he and Ballard are nursing their humiliation at the Waterfront.
- Brief Accent Imitation: When Dr. Cox notices the bullet wound, Kellerman puts on a British accent to say, "By Jove, Holmes, shotgun if I'm not mistaken."
- Call-Back: Munch describes his victim as looking like a cross between John Waters, Steve Buscemi, and Edgar Allan Poe. Waters appeared in two episodes of the show, Buscemi in one, and Poe was the subject of another.note
- Celebrity Paradox: Munch says that the victim in his case resembled John Waters and Steve Buscemi, both of whom have played acting roles in the series (Waters as a barman in "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" and a murder suspect in "Law & Disorder", Buscemi as a suspect in "End Game"). To make it even more extreme, Munch is strongly implied to have personally murdered Buscemi's character.
- Evil Laugh: Georgia Rae does this as she's walking away from Lewis while he's lying on the ground.
- Foreshadowing: Gharty's feelings for Billie Lou will become important over the next season.
- Groin Attack: When Lewis tells Georgia Ray where to stick her summons, she responds by kneeing him in the groin.
- Hates Everyone Equally: Gharty has as many stereotypes about hillbillies as he does about African-Americans and other people of color.
- Leitmotif: For an entire section of town - John Campbell's "Couldn't do Nothin'" plays whenever Ballard and Gharty are chasing their suspects.
- Lethal Chef: Mr. Cochran feels this way about his wife. The fact she burnt the pot roast is what made him get out the shotgun in the first place, according to him.
- No Kill like Overkill: Gharty's and Ballard's victim was shot a ridiculous number of times.
- A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside an Enigma: A variation - as Kellerman and Munch get further into the case of the "maybe suicide, maybe murder", Munch describes it as "a riddle surrounded by a mystery wrapped inside an enigma and stuffed into a body bag."
- Shout-Out:
- When Kellerman wonders initially if the victim getting shot while he was jumping is a murder, and thinks shooting the victim was overkill, Munch brings up Rasputin.
- Before she realizes how complex the case is going to be, Dr. Cox suggests to Kellerman and Munch they catch a movie after wrapping the case up. After she realizes it's not going to be easy, she says they won't be able to catch The Full Monty after all.
- Side Bet: Kellerman and Munch place a bet on what kind of shotgun Mr. Cochran (Steve Allen) was threatening his wife (Jayne Meadows) with. Kellerman wins.
- Title Drop: Part of it, anyway - when Stivers is helping Ballard and Gharty on their murder case, she describes the suspects' decrepit truck as a "city goat stretch [limo]". Later, Gharty describes the suspects he and Ballard are pursuing as city goatsnote .
- Turn in Your Badge: After Giardello tells Lewis he's been suspended, Lewis puts his badge and gun on Giardello's desk and walks out of the homicide unit.
- Urban Legend: The story Dr. Cox tells, and the case Kellerman and Munch were investigating, is an urban legend concerning Ronald Opus
, though it's also used as a teaching tool for medical examiners. - Who Shot JFK?: Discussed - when Mr. Cochran claims his wife loaded shells inside the shotgun, Mrs. Cochran responds, "I was the second gunman on the grassy knoll, too."
- Would Hit a Girl: When Gharty and Ballard try to arrest the suspects at the bar, Ballard's the first of the two to get attacked by the other patrons.
