Date of airing: April 3, 1999 (CBS)
Nielsen ratings information: 10.61 million viewers, 7.0/13 in Households
Written by: Sean Clark
Directed by: Mel Damski
The writers really did not want the show to be youth-ified this season. The introductions of Patrick, Erica, and Henry only happened because CBS wanted a younger audience to find the show, and they believed that would not happen if the writers had continued with a character of Marion Zeke Crumb's age. That is why the retired detective was essentially written out after the second season, most likely never to be used again for humorous storylines. But I assume that the network and studio did not care much about EARLY EDITION any longer and maybe stopped giving the writers and producers notes – the ratings were not getting better, the show was not getting press coverage, and it was essentially just another weekly television show that aired, found an audience, and would have to fight to see another season. At this stage of the series, almost at the third season finale, was the show on the bubble? What brought the network to renew it for another year, as I did not see a reason why they would have? I guess this is one of those questions that got lost when the people involved with these kinds of decisions left the room they made those decisions in – back then, no one was asking questions and no one had to hold a Q and A online over these kinds of discussions.
Because the show may have been spared by constant executive meddling, the writers were finally able to return Crumb to the fold, and it does give me thought as to why the Gary/Erica relationship has been shoddily handled since forever. Erica was essentially a network-mandated addition to the series, someone the writers would most likely not have included at all if they would not have heard words from the network. The fact that Crumb returns in this hour, and the Gary/Erica romance has never been part of the narrative since the Valentine's episode, it must mean that the writers were given free rein again, right? After all, making the show younger did not help it finding a new audience, so would that have been an opportunity to go to the old ways of storytelling?
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| Even when old and grey-haired, you are still allowed to date. |
Anyway, this was a fun episode. Crumb’s return into Gary’s life was lighthearted and funny, and brought me to chuckle enough to forget for an hour how absurd the show has become lately. Brigatti’s appearance was a surprise and very much welcomed, and I loved that the writers figured out how to bring some comedy into the story with a threeway of a retired cop, a former federal Marshal, and a guy who receives tomorrow's newspaper today (this is the essential police procedural premiere). The three were working on trying not to annoy each other, while also having to investigate various attempts to murder Crumb. I adored the scene in the precinct, after Gary saved one of the goons from drowning, and Brigatti was just staring daggers at Gary, and Crumb was like “Don’t look at me," knowing that one of those freakish and unexplainable incidents with Gary happened again. This scene could have played on for an entire minute and it would have still been hilarious. After the previous episode and the whole deal with Detective Armstrong seeing a suspect in Gary, it was a welcomed change that another police-procedural-type episode would lead the writers to include some light humor, awkwardness, and playful banter. Gary and Brigatti would be a great couple if Gary would not be so weird, and Erica was not in the game. Seriously, just remove Erica from the show without explanation (send her to Mandyville), and the viewers will not even notice.
Story-wise, the episode was sort of meh. As soon as Gary and Brigatti realized that the attempts on Crumb’s life were made in connection to the bank robbery seven years ago, it was obvious that Joanna was involved. In fact, I made that connection as soon as Crumb wanted to explain to Gary how he and Joanna met up in the first place – when Crumb started talking about the bank robbery, it was clear that his assassin would somehow be connected to that bank robbery, and it would be Joanna. Thankfully, the writers have recognized the predictability of the story and just had Crumb go to Joanna near the end of the episode, knowing everything about what she did and why she did it, instead of creating a story that had him be shocked and surprised about the twist. Other than that though, the story seemed a bit weird and not really thought through, in addition to being predictable. For example, were Joanna and Saunders working together to get rid of Crumb, or was that just a freak coincidence? Did I miss it getting explained in the episode, or did Saunders know that Joanna had the rest of the bank heist’s money hidden in a safety deposit bank? I get that Saunders wanted to get rid of Crumb because he believed that Crumb was reopening the bank robbery case, but it is Joanna’s involvement that gives me the questions. Not to mention that Joanna and Saunders could have just split the money, or she could have killed Saunders earlier, since she knew where the money was (I do not think the episode established that he knew). No one even suspected her being part of the bank robbery – I am sure Brigatti would have concluded that Saunders was the only one involved, and Joanna would have been scot-free. Why the whole detour to assassinate Crumb?
Joanna could have started dating Crumb to find out if he was re-opening the bank heist case from seven years ago, and she would have found out soon enough that he was only using the case files for his memoirs. If she feared that Crumb was getting close to the case, she could have made the case files disappear (there were too many of them, and not digitized – Crumb would not have even noticed that they were missing). And let's not forget that Saunders was giving Crumb the case files in the first place – I guess Saunders was not interested in checking out if the ones from the bank heist he was involved in were part of that delivery? All in all, there were just too many story inconsistencies here, and the fact that I have spent two paragraphs trying to figure out if this episode was just weirdly written or if I am just stupid (it is probably the latter, because it is always the latter) means that something was not properly done here...
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| One man jumps into a manhole, two come back out... |
At least Brigatti's return brought some the light humor that the episode needed. Her little exchange with Erica gave me joy (they are competing for the heart and attention of the same man, as long as Brigatti was still single and did not start dating the other cop dude who liked her), although maybe there could have been even more awkwardness between the two, since both women should see each other as competition – not to mention giving Erica more screentime that way. I can only hope this was not Brigatti’s final appearance (or Crumb's). Now that Crumb should be out of the force for good and focusing on his memoir (by the way, what was so funny about him writing a memoir?), Gary needs another character in the police force to play ball with twice or three times per season, and since he already developed a repertoire with Brigatti, and she turned into a detective between episodes, it can only be because the writers were thinking of replacing Crumb with her and trying to recreate the buddy cop dynamic between the police detective and the recipient of tomorrow's newspaper. That can either be a good move or a lazy move, but it turns out that Brigatti is the more entertaining character. She takes a little less BS from Gary (while Crumb just kind of accepts the craziness that comes with him), so there are more opportunities to create comedy while solving a murder or stopping a mad bomber.
