Shades of Gray
Directed By: Adam Bernstein
Story By: Julie Martin and David Simon
Teleplay By: T.J. English
When a white bus driver hits a Jamaican-American woman while driving the bus, it sparks a riot that leaves the bus driver and another man dead. While Gharty and Mike try to figure out who killed the driver, Lewis and Sheppard investigate the other man's death, and discovers he was actually killed by a police officer. While trying to take in a witness to the shooting, Sheppard gets beaten.
This episode contains examples of:
- Angry White Man: Gharty definitely shows sides of this in this episode, where he claims white people would never riot the way African-Americans or Jamaican-Americans do here, or if they did, no one would make excuses for them. Mike counters that compared to what African-Americans and other people of color have to go through, white people don't have anything to riot about.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted - Sheppard definitely looks like she went through a beating when she's at the hospital.
- Call-Back: Officer Hellriegel, who turned out to be the one who killed the bus passenger, had been involved in another police-involved shooting.
- Characterization Marches On: Giardello is more willing to investigate a police-involved shooting than he was the last time.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: The woman hit by the bus had recently arrived from (left-hand driving) Jamaica and looked the wrong way before stepping out into the road.
- The Determinator: Lewis will stop at nothing to get Sheppard's gun back, even marching into a Jamaican club and telling people there he wants the gun back that night or else.
- "Eureka!" Moment: When Lewis finds a button at the crime scene, he's initially puzzled until he goes into the coffee room, sees a uniformed police officer wearing a suit with the same buttons, and realizes a police officer must have shot and killed the victim.
- A Father to His Men: At the hospital, Giardello assures Sheppard what happened to her could have happened to any other cop.
- It's All My Fault: The pregnant woman who was hit by the bus turned out to be from Jamaica, who had only been in the U.S. for three weeks and who still wasn't used to the fact Americans drive on the right side of the road. She blames herself for getting hit by the bus and even asks Munch to tell the bus driver it wasn't his fault.
- An Offer You Can't Refuse: Lewis tells the people at the club that if they don't return Sheppard's gun to him by that night, the Baltimore police will come out in force and give them something to really riot about.
- Seinfeldian Conversation: Before they hear about the riot, the Homicide detectives talk about their favorite Baltimore landmarks.
- Shout-Out: The dead bus driver is once referred to as "Ralph Kramden", after the bus-driving central character of The Honeymooners.
- Terrible Interviewees Montage: The passengers on the bus whom Gharty and Mike interview all insist they weren't on the bus. Three of them later get arrested for the bus driver's murder.
- Title Drop: After the murder of the bus driver is solved and Gharty and Mike reflect on the fact it wasn't due to a race issue like Gharty originally thought, he says, "Shades of gray."
