Title: Discovery
Directed by: Lee Bernhardi
Written by: Tom Reeder, Danny Arnold, and Chris Hayward
Air Date: October 30, 1975
Previous: Grand Hotel
Next: You Dirty Rat
Guest Starring: Jack De Leon, Ray Stewart, Phillip Sterling, Paul Jenkins
"Discovery" is the eighth episode of the second season of Barney Miller.
Marty (Jack DeLeon), the Camp Gay guy who is sometimes brought into the 12th Precinct for petty theft, returns—but he hasn't been arrested. He has come in on his own, and he's brought a "friend", Darryl Driscoll (Ray Stewart). Darryl has a complaint, and it is shocking news. It seems a cop from the 12th intercepted Darryl outside a gay bar, and shook him down for a $50 bribe in lieu of an arrest.
In other news, one Mr. Buckholtz, a suspected suicide who was talked down from the top of the Washington Arch, is brought in by Chano and Harris. Mr. Buckholtz insists that he is just fine and had no intention of killing himself. And Detective Fish didn't get his paycheck. Fish calls the payroll department and finds out that they think he's dead.
Marty and Darryl would become Those Two Gay Guys, appearing together four times.
Tropes:
- Bad to the Last Drop: The Running Gag about the coffee. Yemana's coffee is maroon—"it's what you get when you mix brown coffee and yellow water!" When Barney asks why the coffee is fizzing, Yemana says it's "air sneaking out of the cracks in the cup."
- Call-Back: Marty says he nearly jumped off a bridge when he was a teenager due to his Gayngst, until he heard Doris Day singing "Que Sera Sera" over the radio. At the end, when Wojo simply can't believe that a gay man could be an NYPD detective, Sgt. Forbes looks him straight in the eye and says "Que sera sera."
- Camp Gay: Marty as usual, this time joined by his boyfriend Darryl. This would prove a minor Series Continuity Error with later episodes, where Darryl came across as more Straight Gay for comic contrast with his effeminate partner.
- Handshake Refusal: Wojo is extremely homophobic, refusing to shake hands with Darryl when they're introduced.
- Impersonating an Officer: A man claiming to be a detective from the 12th precinct is accosting men as they leave gay bars and demanding money or else he'll arrest them.
- Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Fish is highly annoyed when he discovers that the payroll department has him listed as dead.Yemana: You can't be dead. There was nothing in the papers about you.
- Shout-Out:
- Even before he finds out the NYPD thinks he's dead, Fish is in a bad mood, because he watched Soylent Green the night before and it gave him nightmares.
Fish: They showed a movie last night where they made old people into crackers and fed them to young people.- Later Darryl tells Fish that he looks just like Boris Karloff, and Fish says "That's because we're both dead."
- Straight Gay: The Dirty Cop who was shaking down homosexuals is brought in by Det. Sgt. Forbes of Manhattan South...who was a patron of the gay bar where the dirty cop tried to shake him down. Wojo the homophobe is shocked to discover that a detective sergeant of the NYPD can be gay.
- Talking Down the Suicidal: Mr. Buckholtz insists that this was unnecessary and that he had no intention of jumping off the Washington Arch.
- Where Everybody Knows Your Flame: Not seen, as exterior locations of any sort were almost never seen on Barney Miller, but the cop shaking down homosexuals is targeting them as they leave a gay bar in the 12th.
