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Recap / Barney Miller S 1 E 10

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Episode: Season 1, Episode 10
Title: The Guest
Directed by: Noam Pitlik
Written by: Chris Hayward, Danny Arnold, and William Taub
Air Date: March 27, 1975
Previous: The Vigilante
Next: Escape Artist
Guest Starring: Jack De Leon, Herb Edelman

"The Guest" is the 10th episode of the first season of Barney Miller.

Flamboyantly gay Marty Morrison has been arrested again, this time for shoplifting a suitcase. Marty begs Captain Miller for mercy, because he's about to get married, much to Barney's surprise. Barney understands a little better when Marty explains that the woman he's going to marry, a lady named Gertrude, is rich and 74 years old. In another development, Chano has gotten word of a drug deal going down and desperately wants to make the bust, but he needs $3500 in cash to buy the drugs with. He winds up begging the other cops of the 12th for money.

The main plot, however, involves one Mr. Schuster, a Mafia accountant. Mr. Schuster is scheduled to testify against La Cosa Nostra, and is being shuttled around the NYPD in order to keep him from being killed. Schuster is extremely paranoid that the mob will get to him even in the 12th Precinct squad room. Barney and the other cops assure Mr. Schuster that he's in no danger whatsoever... but events prove that Mr. Schuster was right to worry.


Tropes:

  • Camp Gay: Marty, in his second appearance, still very very very gay. He develops a major crush on Mr. Schuster as they share the same cell.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: The telephone repairman, who was fixing Fish's phone in the opening scene? He was installing a bug that allowed the Mafia to listen in and find out that Mr. Schuster was there.
  • Continuity Nod: The gang orders sandwiches from Grossman's Deli, established as a local eatery that delivers just three episodes ago in "Bureaucrat".
  • External Combustion: Mr. Schuster relates that he narrowly escaped death when a car bomb in his car went off prematurely. And it was a loaner from a mechanic!
  • Five-Finger Discount: Even with a marriage to a sugar mama lined up, Marty can't stop his thieving ways.
  • Gold Digger: Marty, despite being the gayest man to ever live, is going to marry a 74-year-old woman for her money.
  • Instantly Proven Wrong: Barney is trying to reassure Mr. Schuster that he is in no danger while he's in the custody of the 12th.
    Barney: They don't even know you're here!
    phone rings, Yemana picks it up and answers
    Yemana: Mr. Schuster, it's for you.
  • Oh, Crap!: The squad is about to dig in to their just-delivered sandwiches when Kogan comes up with the real delivery from Grossman's. Suddenly everybody puts the sandwiches down... to reveal a shot of Wojo already having taken a bite. Turns out the first delivery was a Mafia hitman who managed to pass into the 12th dressed as a cop, and his sandwiches were laced with arsenic.
  • Properly Paranoid: The cops in the squad room pooh-pooh Mr. Schuster's paranoia and they're particularly amused when Schuster refuses a sandwich on the grounds that they aren't safe. It turns out that the sandwiches actually are poisoned.
  • Tampering with Food and Drink: The men of the precinct are about to dig into their sandwiches when Officer Kogan comes up from downstairs with their real lunch order. It turns out that the cop delivering their sandwiches was a mob killer in disguise, and all the sandwiches are full of arsenic. Wojo, the only one who'd taken a bite, has to go to the hospital and get his stomach pumped.

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