Title: Inquiry
Directed by: Gennaro Montanino
Written by: Frank Dungan and Jeff Stein
Air Date: March 26, 1982
Previous: Obituary
Next: Old Love
Guest Starring: Bonnie Bartlett, Norman Bartold, Barry Gorman, Sal Viscuso
"Inquiry" is the 16th episode of the eighth season of Barney Miller.
An Edward Meyers has been arrested for mugging. It seems he was in New York to see a Broadway show—alone, because his wife has recently left him—and he was himself mugged and robbed of everything. Alone in the city and with no way to get home, and with no one willing to help him, he mugged someone else and got caught.
The second case involves Mr. Joseph Loftis and his wife Emily. The Loftises were interviewing to get their son into a private school, but the boy was rejected. Mr. Loftis then snapped and assaulted the school administrator. The joke is that the Wainwright Academy for Boys is actually a pre-school and the Loftis's son is four.
There's a third case in which Wojo and Levitt have to go out to respond to an armed robbery. Barney is horrified to learn from Levitt that Wojo had to shoot the suspect. It turns out that the burglar (who was whacked out on drugs) got only a minor grazing wound on the arm, but Wojo still has to face an inquiry.
Tropes:
- Education Mama: Both of the Loftises. They explain with great agitation that if their son doesn't get into Wainwright he won't get into a good private elementary school, which will mean he won't get into an exclusive high school, which will mean that "Harvard will laugh in his face!"
- Internal Affairs: Sort of, as a cop from the NYPD legal department is sent over to interview Wojo about the shooting. An agitated Wojo stalks out of the informal interview.
- Interplay of Sex and Violence: Mrs. Loftis eventually tells her husband that when he attacked the Wainwright guy, and the two of them were brawling on the floor, she was proud of him and also "aroused." She then whispers something into his ear, and the two of them leave in a hurry, obviously headed home for sex.
- Jerkass: Mr. Wendell, headmaster of the Wainwright School, is a sneering, arrogant jerk. He says that the Loftis's young son couldn't possibly "cut the mustard" at Wainwright (a preschool!), but that they can send the boy to Tick Tock Day School because "they'll take anybody."
- Malaproper: Mr. Waymond is proud to tell everybody that he's both a cop and a lawyer but evidently he isn't a very good one. He says "German" instead of "germane" and "disposition" instead of "deposition."
- Miranda Rights: Apparently NYPD policy is that any cop who fires his weapon in the line of duty must be read his Miranda warning prior to an internal inquiry. Levitt didn't do it—he was not comfortable reading his Miranda rights to another cop—and Wojo is brought up short when Barney does.
- Mushroom Samba: Mr. Renaldi, the guy Wojo shot, is having one of these. As Wojo is bringing him in (a bandage covering the obviously minor wound on his upper arm), Mr. Renaldi says "You sure you got all the spiders off my back?"
- One-Gender School: The Wainwright Academy for Boys, which, despite its grand name, is only a preschool.
- Rage Breaking Point: Mr. Meyers, who was already unhappy what with his wife leaving him. Then he was robbed. Then he started approaching people asking for subway fare home, but no one would help him. That's when he snapped and tried to mug a woman, assuming that it's just how things are done in New York.
- Rhyming Names: The cop/lawyer sent over to interview Wojo has the absurd name of Raymond Waymond, which undercuts his attempt to be serious.
