Just an Old-Fashioned Love Song
Directed By: Leslie Libman and Larry Williams
Written By: Eric Overmyer
Ballard investigates the murder of a woman in the garage of Alvin Taylor, a famous sports doctor, and discovered the woman was a gambling addict. Elsewhere, Munch has to deal with an IRS audit, Bayliss and Sheppard decide to go out on a date, and Falsone decides to ask Ballard out.
This episode contains examples of:
- Ambiguously Bi: Discussed - when Sheppard asks Bayliss out (after she sees him hemming and hawing about it), she says he thought he was gay. Bayliss denies this, but admits he's gone out with men, leading Sheppard to admit, "I'm a little bi-curious myself."
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: When Stivers asks Falsone what's been going on with him and Sheppard, he responds Sheppard shot him down. Stivers thinks he means Sheppard turned him down when he asked her out, but what Falsone really means is Sheppard beat him at basketball.
- Call-Back: The nurse at the hospital Ballard goes to tells Ballard she's happy Ballard has recovered from being shot.
- Continuity Nod: During the conversation about the "naked in public" dream, Munch mentions that he had a crush on Helen Rosenthal at high school.
- Dr. Feelgood: The manager of the boxing gym where Alvin Taylor once worked as a cuts man says that he banned him from the club after discovering that he was selling anabolic steroids to the boxers.
- Eating the Eye Candy: Ballard gets very excited when seeing Falsone stripped to the waist and fighting at a boxing club. Mike calls her on it.
- Hard-Work Montage: To the tune of a cover of "The Look of Love", Ballard and Mike Giardello interview various gun range owners to see if the murder victim trained at any of them.
- Intimidating Revenue Service: Munch is pretty scared of having the IRS come after him, and Mike refuses to use his FBI connections to investigate the IRS agent because even he's scared of them.
- Love Dodecahedron: A lot of the subplots of this episode involve romance and rivalry within the squad, with the general free-floating sexual tension involving Ballard and Sheppard versus Lewis, Falsone and Bayliss, and a developing rivalry between Munch and Gharty over Billie Lou.
- "Not Wearing Pants" Dream: Lewis and Munch talk about how they've each had a nightmare about wearing nothing except shoes and socks in front of a woman they were attracted to.
- Shout-Out:
- Taylor says he and his wife were watching Dark Victory.
- Munch and Billie Lou makes a date to watch the Zapruder Film.
- Undying Loyalty: Taylor bails his wife out even though she might have tried to kill him.
