Title: Quarantine, Part 2
Directed by: Noam Pitlik
Written by: Tony Sheehan and Danny Arnold
Air Date: October 7, 1976
Previous: Quarantine, Part 1
Next: Bus Stop
Guest Starring: James Gregory, Ron Carey, Jack De Leon, Ray Stewart, Paula Shaw
"Quarantine, Part 2" is the third episode of the third season of Barney Miller.
As one might guess, events follow immediately upon the last episode, "Quarantine, Part 1". The possible smallpox victim from the last episode is in the hospital, now seriously ill (a 105-degree fever, hallucinations), but the doctors are still waiting on test results. Everybody—Barney, the detectives, gay couple Marty and Darryl, Paula the hooker, and Inspector Luger—is stuck in the squad room, left to bunk out for the night on cots. Wojo is so threatened by a gay couple that he tries to put Marty and Darryl on the other side of the room; Luger is so threatened by a gay couple that he feels compelled to sing "Thank Heaven for Little Girls".
Finally there's Officer Levitt (Ron Carey), a uniform cop from downstairs, who comes up looking to see if the squad room has any sandwiches left. Levitt takes the chance to badger Capt. Miller whether there are any opportunities for a patrolman to move up to plainclothes detective. When a distracted Barney blows him off, Levitt thinks it's because he's short.
First appearance of Ron Carey as Officer Levitt, after having previously appeared in Season 2 finale "The Mole" as a criminal. Levitt would soon become a regular, and remained so for the rest of the run.
Tropes:
- And Starring: James Gregory gets his usual "Special Guest Star" credit.
- Appeal to Familial Wisdom: Another example of the Running Gag where Yemana shares some quote from his ancestors that is supposed to be helpful but is anything but. According to Yemana, his great-grandfather, on his deathbed, said "Although one may conspire to delay the hour of one's death—". After a couple of Beats the others ask what else he said, and Yemana says "That's as far as he got."
- Bad to the Last Drop: Darryl cleans the coffeepot and coffee cups. When he says he cleaned the "mold and mildew" from the cups, Yemana says "I thought that was a pattern!" When Darryl brews a good pot of coffee that everyone else enjoys, Yemana, whose bad coffee is legendary, is offended.
- Bait-and-Switch: Barney, asking if Harris has gotten a cot, says "Fix yourself up a place to sleep?" Harris, who had to break a date after they got quarantined, says "Yeah, but I ain't going to make it tonight, Barney."
- Catapult Nightmare: Harris's nightmare about the office, in which he mutters a lot of uncomfortable opinions about his coworkers, ends with him bolting upright out of sleep, and being startled by the other detectives all staring at him.
- A Good Way to Die: Luger, with his usual lack of tact, says that if he caught smallpox he's just shoot himself, and that he envies his old buddies Foster for getting blown up by a car bomb and Kleiner for getting gunned down in the street. Not so Brownie, who still lies in a hospital "like a carrot" after several strokes.
- Height Angst: Right from his first appearance Officer Levitt, a very short man, is complaining that he can't get promoted to detective because he's too short. He mistakes Darryl Driscoll, who's gay, for a cop, and assumes that it's because Darryl is over 6'3" (a foot taller than poor Levitt).
- Lockdown: The second episode in a two-parter where the detectives and a few civilians are locked in the squad room due to a smallpox scare.
- Multi-Part Episode: Second episode in the show's first two-parter, in which the detectives get locked in the squad room due to a smallpox scare.
- Series Continuity Error: Luger, The Bore, tells another of his endless stories about his old cronies Brown, Foster, and Kleiner—it seems that Foster was killed by a car bomb, Kleiner went down in a hail of bullets, and Brownie had a stroke and is currently incapacitated. However in Season 2's "The Sniper", Luger said that Foster died of pnemonia and Kleiner died of a stroke. (In both versions Brownie is still in a long-term care facility somewhere being fed tapioca.)
- Spit Take: Nick, jealous of Darryl's much better coffee, tiptoes over to the coffee pot in the middle of the night when everyone else is sleeping. He's enjoying a good cup of coffee when Barney says "Pretty good coffee, eh Nick?", causing Yemana to do a Spit Take.
- Talking in Your Sleep: Harris starts talking in his sleep. He mutters that he doesn't like working in the squad room ("hot, dirty, messy"), he's annoyed by Fish taking too long in the toilet ("get out of that bathroom man!"), he's just generally annoyed by Yemana ("rotten coffee, racing forms, lazy"), and he doesn't much respect Barney's kinder-and-gentler approach to law enforcement ("hey Barney, don't give me that old psychology, man...compassionate turkey!"). He's startled when he wakes up from his dream and everybody is staring at him.
