A Case of Do or Die
Directed By: Tim Van Patten
Written By: Anya Epstein
Ballard and Bayliss get the case of Kimberly Cullen, a woman who fell to her death in a ravine in a city park, but are unable to determine if she killed herself, was murdered, or merely slipped and fell. Mike and Sheppard investigate the death of a man at a movie theater.
This episode contains examples of:
- Ambiguous Situation: We never find out if Kimberly Cullen was mugged, was Driven to Suicide (even though Kimberly's sister - played by Amy Ryan - admits Kimberly called her up a couple of weeks before the wedding nervous and hysterical), or simply slipped and fell.
- Asshole Victim: Michael Blowen, the murder victim at the movie theater apparently loudly gave away the plot points of all the movies he attended, including spoiling the endings, which make the theater patrons, and manager Frank Hopper (Wallace Shawn), angry at him. When she's arresting Hopper for Blowen's murder, Sheppard even admits she sympathizes with what he did.
- Bait-and-Switch: Giardello calls Mike into his office, and Mike naturally assumes he's going to be chewed out. Instead, Giardello reveals his daughter Charisse has had a baby boy, making him a grandfather and Mike an uncle.
- Imagine Spot: At the funeral, Marcus (Dan Futterman), Kimberly's fiancee, imagines he sees Kimberly walk up the church aisle in her wedding dress, as if he was at their wedding instead of her funeral.
- It's Personal: Ballard empathises with Kimberly Cullen, as before she came to Baltimore she broke off her engagement two weeks before the wedding.
- Obligatory Joke: When Mike and Sheppard find out Blowen died during a double feature of Casablanca and The Big Sleep, but the audience has left so they have no one to interview:Sheppard: Well, I suppose there's only one thing left to do.
Mike, Sheppard: Round up the usual suspects. - Runaway Bride: Ballard reveals to Bayliss she was one of these, as she ran out on her fiancee two weeks before the wedding.
- Shout-Out:
- Among the movies the man murdered at the movie theater talked during were The African Queen, Citizen Kane, Doctor Zhivago, Gone with the Wind, The Maltese Falcon (1941), Psycho, Taxi Driver, and The Wizard of Oz.
- As he's being arrested for Blowen's murder, Hopper grouses, "Of all the movie theaters in all the cities in all the world, he had to go into mine!"
- Special Guest: Michael Blowen, the cinema victim, is named after and played by the Boston Globe cinema critic of the same name.
- Tampering with Food and Drink: Hopper drugged the butter for the popcorn the murder victim at his theater ate at every screening in hopes it would shut him up. He claims he never meant to kill the man.
- Titled After the Song: Or lyric, in this instance - "A case of do or die" comes from the song "As Time Goes By".
