Gone for Goode
Encyclopedia
"Gone for Goode" is the first episode of the first season of the American police drama television series Homicide: Life on the Street
. It originally aired on NBC
in the United States on January 31, 1993, immediately following Super Bowl XXVII
. The episode was written by series creator Paul Attanasio
and directed by executive producer Barry Levinson
. "Gone for Goode" introduced regular cast members Daniel Baldwin
, Ned Beatty
, Richard Belzer
, Andre Braugher
, Wendy Hughes
, Clark Johnson
, Yaphet Kotto
, Melissa Leo
, Jon Polito
and Kyle Secor
.
The episode connects several subplots involving the detectives of a Baltimore Police Department
homicide unit and establishes story arcs that continued through the first season. Among them are an investigation by Meldrick Lewis
(Johnson) and Steve Crosetti
(Polito) into a widow killing husbands for insurance money, as well as rookie Tim Bayliss
(Secor) being assigned the murder of an 11-year-old girl for his first case. Both of those subplots were taken directly from Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
, the 1991 David Simon
non-fiction book from which the series was adapted.
"Gone for Goode" was seen by 18.24 million viewers, the largest viewership of the first season, although NBC was initially disappointed with the ratings. The episode received generally positive reviews upon its original broadcast. Barry Levinson won an Emmy Award
for his direction in "Gone for Goode", and was nominated for a Directors Guild of America Award. Paul Attanasio received a Writers Guild of America Award
nomination for the episode's script.
(Clark Johnson
) and Crosetti
(Jon Polito
) looking for a projectile a few yards away from the body of a man shot to death. The man's girlfriend (Oni Faida Lampley), who was shot in the head during the incident but survived, tells police during questioning that her aunt Calpurnia Church hired a hitman to kill her for insurance money. The detectives learn Church previously collected life insurance from five deceased husbands. Suspecting Church of murdering her husbands, Lewis and Crosetti have the body of her most recent husband exhumed for an autopsy, but reach a dead-end when it turns out to be the wrong body in his grave.
Felton
(Daniel Baldwin
) hesitates to take a new murder case because he fears it will be too difficult to solve, so it is taken on by his partner Howard
(Melissa Leo
), who has recently experienced a perfect streak of solving 11 consecutive cases. They investigate the body of a man dead in a basement, and much to Felton's bewilderment, Howard solves the case easily. The owner of the house, Jerry Jempson (Jim Grollman), literally calls her at the house while she is investigating and agrees to a police interview, during which he acts extremely nervous and is eventually charged with the murder.
Munch
(Richard Belzer
) is reluctant to follow up on the case of murdered drug addict Jenny Goode, who was run over by a car. The case has been cold for three months, but he is made to feel guilty by his partner Bolander
(Ned Beatty
) into reexamining it. Munch makes no progress after speaking with the family and reexamining notes. Based on witness accounts of a man with long blond hair and a black car, Munch spends all night looking through suspect photos until he finds a man with a black car with front end damage and long black hair, but blond eyebrows. Munch and Bolander question him, believing the suspect (Joe Hansard) to have dyed his hair to change his appearance after killing the woman. He quickly confesses to having hit her accidentally while driving drunk.
Gee
(Yaphet Kotto
) tells Pembleton
(Andre Braugher
), an excellent detective but a lone wolf, that he must work with a partner. Pembleton ends up investigating the death of a 65-year-old man with rookie detective Bayliss
(Kyle Secor
). Bayliss initially believes the death to be a heart attack, but Pembleton correctly determines it is a murder because the man's car is missing. Police later arrest a man named Johnny (Alexander Chaplin
) who is found driving the dead man's car. During an interrogation, Pembleton fools Johnny into waiving his Miranda Rights
, then sneakily persuades him into confessing to the murder. Bayliss, although convinced of Johnny's guilt, nevertheless questions the ethics of Pembleton's approach, prompting Pembleton to yell angrily at him in front of the other officers. The episode ends with Bayliss responding to his first homicide as the primary detective: the brutal murder of an 11-year-old girl named Adena Watson.
"Gone for Goode" was written by series creator Paul Attanasio
and directed by executive producer Barry Levinson
. Levinson was seeking to create a television series based on Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
, a 1991 non-fiction book by David Simon
based on one year he spent with Baltimore Police Department
homicide detectives. Levinson and fellow executive producer Tom Fontana
hired Attanasio to adapt elements of the book into the teleplay for the first episode. It was first television script Attanasio ever wrote. The episode was shot by director of photography Wayne Ewing. Stan Warnow started out working as editor, but departed before the process was done due to creative differences with Levinson. Tony Black finished the editing for "Gone for Goode", but did not return for the rest of the season, and Jay Rabinowitz
worked as editor for the remaining episodes. The costumes for the episode were designed by Van Smith
, but he also did not return to work on subsequent episodes. Although it was first episode of Homicide: Life on the Street, it was not technically a television pilot
because the network had already ordered a full season of episodes before "Gone for Goode" was produced. The first episode was noted at the time for weaving four separate storylines into a single episode, the first in a trend of multiple subplots in each Homicide show. NBC
executives indicated to Attanasio and Levinson they would have preferred the script to focus on a single homicide case rather than four, but ultimately allowed the script to be filmed with all subplots included. Additionally, despite intense advance promotion of the Homicide premiere, Attanasio deliberately sought to introduce the show with little fanfare, avoiding sensational gimmicks in favor of character-driven plot, quirky dialogue and morbid dark humor.
"Gone for Goode" included several storylines, and even exact bits of dialogue, adapted straight from Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. Among them were the investigation into Calpurnia Smith, an elderly woman suspected of murdering five husbands in order to collect their life insurance policies. This was based on the real-life case of Geraldine Parrish, who was also accused of killing five husbands for insurance money, and was eventually convicted for three of their deaths. A scene involving a funeral director accidentally exhuming the wrong body while investigating the Church case mirrored a similar situation described in Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets from the Parrish case. The Adena Watson murder case, which is assigned to Bayliss in the final scene of "Gone for Goode", was adapted from the unsolved 1988 slaying of Latonya Kim Wallace, which made up a major part of the book. The Watson case became an important story arc throughout the first season which ended without the case being solved. The hit-and-run murder of Jenny Goode was also based on Simon's book, and the murder of the elderly man was inspired by a case featured in the book in which a young homosexual man killed his elderly lover and stole his car.
Attanasio also based the characters in Homicide on the detectives featured in Simon's book. The difficulties Bayliss experienced with the case, as well as the extremely personal approach he took in attempting to solve it, were inspired by the real-life Baltimore detective Tom Pellegrini, who was the primary detective in the Wallace case. Most of the detectives featured in the Homicide book said they were happy with their on-screen counterparts, although Detective Harry Edgerton
, the inspiration for Frank Pembleton, objected to a scene in "Gone for Goode" in which the character drinks milk in a bar, something Edgerton said he never does.
The episode opens with Crosetti and Lewis looking for clues in a dark alley. Levinson and Attanasio specifically wanted a dialogue-driven prologue scene that did not immediately clarify the fact that the two men were detectives or what they were looking for. The dialogue and staging of the scene were imitated in the final scene of the last Homicide episode, "Forgive Us Our Trespasses", which aired on May 21, 1999. In that final scene, Detective Rene Sheppard
(played by Michael Michele
) says to Lewis, "Life is a mystery, just accept it", a line spoken by Crosetti in the first episode. Lewis also said, "That's what's wrong with this job. It ain't got nothin' to do do with life", a line also spoken by Crosetti in the first episode. Early scenes in "Gone for Goode" also involved Giardello introducing rookie detective Bayliss to the homicide unit. Attanasio sought to use Bayliss' orientation as a way of introducing exposition and background about the show to the viewer as well.
In writing the script, Attanasio, Levinson and Fontana wanted the dialogue to reflect the kinds of things detectives would talk about when not discussing murders or cases, which led to the inclusion of several scenes in which detectives talk casually among themselves during lunch or around the office. Fontana, who compared the scenes to Levinson's 1982 film Diner
, said, "That really made the show different from other shows, because we had the room to have conversations that seemingly didn't (storywise) connect anything, but they did reveal a lot about the characters." Levinson specifically asked that the body by Howard and Felton be badly decomposing and attracting flies because he felt other police dramas did not portray corpses in a realistic way.
cameras to give the episode a naturalistic documentary look and an editing style involving jump cut
s that was unusual for television at the time. Levinson said this camera and editing style was partially inspired by Breathless, the 1960 Jean-Luc Godard
film. The scenes were shot on-location in Baltimore, as would be the case throughout the duration of the series. The use of hand-held cameras allowed the film to be shot more easily in the city, rather than on a sound-stage in Los Angeles or New York City, where most shows are typically shot. Levinson said being on location at all times allowed Baltimore "to be a character in the show".
While filming the episode, Levinson said he would simply allow the actors to perform while he switched back and forth between them with the hand-held camera instead of filming carefully planned shots and individual scenes from multiple angles. This camera style largely persisted through the end of the series in 1999. Some individual scenes involved a number of jump cuts repeated several times in fast succession. Another unusual stylistic element used in the episode involved sudden changes in jump-screen direction; a shot with an actor looking from left to right might immediately jump to another shot of the same actor looking from right to left. This process was born during the editing sessions for "Gone for Goode", where Levinson insisted that the footage be edited to include the actor's best performances. During editing, Tony Black cut together two shots that did not match and began looking for a cutaway shot he could use to disguise the edit. Levinson, however, liked the technique that came from cutting the two conflicting shots together and insisted it stay in.
In addition to stylistic touches, the episode established several narrative motifs that stayed with Homicide: Life on the Street throughout the duration of the series. Among them was the white board where detectives kept the names of their open cases in red and their closed cases in black. The names of NBC employees and friends of the Homicide crew were used on the white board. The episode was noted for its deliberate lack of gunplay and car chases in favor of dialogue and story. Levinson and Fontana also allowed humor to be incorporated into the show, particularly through the interactions between the detectives; Levinson said of the first episode, "We have to inform the audience, but at the same time you want to do it with a sense of humor so you don't seem too pretentious, in a way." Several long-standing character traits were established in "Gone for Goode", including Kay Howard's extraordinary streak of solved cases and the antagonism between Felton and Pembleton, which is demonstrated when the two argue loudly after being assigned to a case together. The animosity between Felton and Pembleton is based on the real-life Detective Donald Kincaid, who was the inspiration behind Felton, and the strong dislike Kincaid had for Harry Edgerton, as chronicled in Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. Howard's perfect streak is based on a similar (although shorter) lucky streak experienced by the real-life Detective Rich Garvey, who is also featured in David Simon's book.
. Shortly before "Gone for Goode" was filmed, the Baltimore Police Department stopped using Cavaliers as their regular brand of police car, and agreed to sell their collection of leftover Cavaliers to the Homicide show for $1. Although the cars were used as props in the episode, only two of the cars were actually drivable. The scenes set in the medical examiner's office were filmed in the actual Baltimore's Office of the Medical Examiner. The actors, particularly Jon Polito, hated performing in the morgue because they found the atmosphere unsettling. Ned Beatty said of filming there, "The one thing you can't get on camera is, oh boy, it smells." The identification pictures of suspects that Munch looks through were all pictures of photos of members of the Homicide crew. One of the final scenes in the episode, featuring Polito, Johnson and Belzer speaking in an alley at night, was conceived, written and shot in one night simply because it was raining outside, and the Homicide crew wanted to take advantage of the location during a rainy night.
Levinson said he considered the interrogation scene in "Gone for Goode" between Braugher, Secor and Chaplin, to be the "defining scene" for Frank Pembleton's character because it defined the character's intelligence, quirkiness, sharp instincts and sneaky interrogation style. While filming that scene, Levinson commented to Tom Fontana that the acting was so effective, an entire episode could be filmed revolving strictly around an interrogation. The comments partially inspired Fontana to write the first-season episode, "Three Men and Adena
", which became one of the most critically acclaimed Homicide episodes. The final scene of the episode features Bayliss responding to the murder scene of Adena Watson in a rainy alleyway. The body was wrapped in a red raincoat, and Levinson worked with colorists to bleed out all the colors except that red to give the film a stark look. "Gone for Goode" originally included a scene with Gee and Bayliss discussing detective work at the police station. The scene, which was cut from the final episode, featured Gee comparing the work to challenges faced by literary character Sherlock Holmes
, as well as Gee mistakenly referring to Holmes' antagonist Moriarty
as "Murray".
"Gone for Goode" marks the first performance of Richard Belzer as Detective John Munch, a character the actor has played in more than 300 television episodes in a number of shows, including Homicide and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
. Levinson said Belzer was a "lousy actor" during his first audition with the "Gone for Goode" script. Levinson asked Belzer to take some time to reread and practice the material, then come back and read it again. During his second reading, Levinson said Belzer was "still terrible", but that the actor eventually found confidence in his performance. "Gone for Goode" included guest appearances by actors who later become much more widely known. Steve Harris
, who later achieved fame playing Eugene Young
on the ABC
legal drama The Practice
, played an uncooperative suspect who repeatedly lies to Munch during questioning. Alexander Chaplin
, who later played speechwriter James Hobert on the ABC sitcom Spin City
, portrayed the alleged murderer Johnny in "Gone for Goode". The comedic confession scenes involving Jim Grollman as accused murderer Jerry Jempson were almost entirely improvised.
The editing process for "Gone for Goode" proved difficult due to audio problems that forced producers to re-shoot several scenes. However, the cast and crew also found the atmosphere fun during editing, so much so that Barry Levinson's mother brought in home-baked snacks and the crew had to be asked to stop visiting because they were slowing down the edit sessions. When the cast finally watched the last cut of "Gone for Goode", they hugged each other in celebration.
of Abraham Lincoln
, the 16th president of the United States. Crosetti disputes the accepted theory that actor John Wilkes Booth
killed Lincoln and instead theorizes that Jefferson Davis
, the president of the Confederate States of America
, organized the murder. Crosetti's assassination theories about Lincoln would be a recurring theme throughout the rest of the first season. Crosetti's fascination with the Lincoln assassination was based on Tom Fontana's real-life obsession with it. During an early scene in which a suspect tries lying to Munch, the detective berates the suspect for treating him as if he were Montel Williams
instead of Larry King
. King is a long-time television journalist and host of CNN
's Larry King Live
, whereas Williams is a more tabloid-style television show host. Williams is also a Baltimore native, which becomes a point of discussion between Munch and Bolander. Munch tells a lying suspect that his false story has an "Elmore Leonard
quality", a reference to an American novelist and screenwriter.
When Munch wonders how Romans
become Italians, he asks when "Friends, Romans, countrymen; lend me your ears" turned into "Hey, yo!" The former line is from the William Shakespeare
play Julius Caesar
. Munch says, "Great, let's arrest Axl Rose
", a Guns N' Roses
musician, when he is told the suspect in a murder is blond. During one scene, the detectives eat steamed
crab
s. This was deliberately included in the episode to reflect the culinary culture of Baltimore, where eating crabs is extremely popular. During a discussion about Pembleton, Crosetti compares him to the lone wolf character played by actor Gary Cooper
in the 1952 western film High Noon
; when trying to recall the title of the film, Crosetti said the character had a New York City
type of attitude, prompting Lewis to believe he is referring to the 1942 baseball film The Pride of the Yankees
, also starring Cooper.
. Having consistently placed third in the Nielsen ratings
during prime time since September 1992, NBC hoped a large football audience coupled with an extensive advertising campaign would allow Homicide: Life on the Street to give the network a large ratings boost. The network ran numerous television commercials advertising the premiere episode, some of which focused on the involvement of Barry Levinson with the hope of capitalizing on the feature film director's household name.
"Gone for Goode" was seen by 18.24 million viewers. It earned an 18 rating, which represents the percentage of television-equipped homes, and a 31 share, which represents percentage of sets in use. This marked the best ratings performance of a preview or premiere following a Super Bowl since The Wonder Years
in 1988. It was also the largest viewership of the first season, in large part due to its 10:25 p.m. time-slot immediately following the Super Bowl. Nevertheless, NBC considered it a disappointing performance, based on the amount of advertising and press coverage the episode received. The episode received less than half the audience that the Superbowl itself did. Levinson later said the Super Bowl crowd might not have been perfectly suited to Homicide: Life on the Street. In particular, regarding the episode's complex story lines and distinctive visual style, he said, "I imagine anyone who has been drinking a lot at a Super Bowl party might have trouble following the show."
said, "One word about 'Gone for Goode' - wow." Littlefield praised the episode for dropping the viewer into the middle of an episode with complex characters and storylines without getting too confusing. People
magazine reviewer David Hiltbrand called the episode "extraordinary" and gave it an A grade. He complimented the realism, the hand-held camera work and the cast, particularly Belzer. Lon Grahnke of the Chicago Sun-Times
complimented the cast and praised the show for not depending on car chases or action sequences. Grahnke also said the show "has the spice, dry wit and ethnic diversity of the Hill Street Blues
crew, with even more eccentricities and a heightened sense of realism". John Goff of Daily Variety
said the episode was well filmed and edited, and included a strong cast with performances "above normal level of series work". Entertainment Weekly
writer Bruce Fretts particularly praised Andre Braugher's performance: "It's not often you actually witness a TV star being born... The moment the galvanic actor steps onto the screen, though, he owns it." The New York Times
television critic John J. O'Connor
praised the performance of Jon Polito, and said the role could be "the kind of career break Joe Pesci
found in the Lethal Weapon
movies".
Mike Boone of The Gazette
praised Belzer's performance and the hand-held camera style of photography, adding, "But if your picture tube blew Sunday night, you could still listen to an hour of the hippest, funniest dialogue on TV." Not all reviews were positive. Some critics considered the photography style of jump cuts and hand-held camera movement too jarring; some said it made them feel seasick. James Endrst, television columnist for The Hartford Courant
, felt the episode was over-hyped and said "seen it, done it, been there before" of the filming techniques otherwise being praised as cutting edge. Endrst, however, praised the performances of Braugher, Belzer, Polito and Secor in particular. Time
reviewer Richard Zoglin said the episode had a strong cast and that he appreciated the lack of two-dimensional violence, but said, "the characters are too pat, their conflicts too predictable", particularly the rookie character Bayliss.
"Gone for Goode" was identified by The Baltimore Sun
as one of the ten best episodes of the series. Sun writer David Zurawik wrote: "'Gone for Goode' is not just a well-crafted pilot, it is one of the best in the history of the medium. It introduced a sprawling cast of complicated characters and made us want to come back and visit this world again." "Gone for Goode" was also among a 1999 Court TV marathon of the top 15 Homicide episodes, as voted on by 20,000 visitors to the channel's website.
for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series
for his direction in "Gone for Goode". It was one of two Emmys Homicide: Life on the Streets received during the 45th Primetime Emmy Awards
season, with Tom Fontana also winning an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series for the episode "Three Men and Adena". Levinson was also nominated for a Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Direction in a Drama Series
for the episode, but lost to Gregory Hoblit
for his direction of the pilot episode of the police drama NYPD Blue
. Paul Attanasio was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award
for his "Gone for Goode" script. It competed in that same category with Fontana's Homicide script "Night of the Dead Living
", which eventually won the award.
on May 27, 2003 for $69.95. The set included an audio commentary by Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana for the "Gone for Goode" episode, as well as a collection of the commercials that advertised the episode during the Super Bowl.
Homicide: Life on the Street
Homicide: Life on the Street is an American police procedural television series chronicling the work of a fictional version of the Baltimore Homicide Unit. It ran for seven seasons on NBC from 1993 to 1999, and was succeeded by a TV movie, which also acted as the de-facto series finale...
. It originally aired on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
in the United States on January 31, 1993, immediately following Super Bowl XXVII
Super Bowl XXVII
Super Bowl XXVII was a football game played on January 31, 1993 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California to decide the National Football League champion following the 1992 regular season. The National Football Conference champion Dallas Cowboys defeated the American Football Conference champion...
. The episode was written by series creator Paul Attanasio
Paul Attanasio
Paul Albert Attanasio is an American screenwriter and producer of film and television, who is currently an executive producer on the television series House.-Life and career:...
and directed by executive producer Barry Levinson
Barry Levinson
Barry Levinson is an American screenwriter, film director, actor, and producer of film and television. His films include Good Morning, Vietnam, Sleepers and Rain Man.-Early life:...
. "Gone for Goode" introduced regular cast members Daniel Baldwin
Daniel Baldwin
Daniel Leroy Baldwin is an American actor, producer and director. He is the second oldest of the four Baldwin brothers, all of whom are actors. Daniel Baldwin is known for his role as Detective Beau Felton in the popular NBC TV series Homicide: Life on the Street...
, Ned Beatty
Ned Beatty
Ned Thomas Beatty is an American actor who has appeared in more than 100 films and has been nominated for an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, an MTV Movie Award for Best Villain and a Golden Globe Award; won a Drama Desk Award....
, Richard Belzer
Richard Belzer
Richard Jay Belzer is an American stand-up comedian, author, and actor. He is perhaps best known for his role as John Munch, which he has portrayed as a regular cast member on the NBC police drama series Homicide: Life on the Street and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, as well as in guest...
, Andre Braugher
Andre Braugher
Andre Braugher is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Thomas Searles in the film Glory, as the fiery detective Frank Pembleton on Homicide: Life on the Street from 1993 to 1998 and again in the 2000 made-for-TV film Homicide: Life on the Street, and as Owen Thoreau Jr...
, Wendy Hughes
Wendy Hughes
-Career:Hughes began her career on television in the early 1970s with appearances in Homicide, Number 96, Matlock Police and in 1976, ABC Mini-Series, Power Without Glory...
, Clark Johnson
Clark Johnson
Clark Johnson , sometimes credited as Clark 'Slappy' Jackson, Clarque Johnson, and J. Clark Johnson, is an American actor and director who has worked in both television and film.-Early years:...
, Yaphet Kotto
Yaphet Kotto
Yaphet Frederick Kotto is an African-American actor, known for numerous film roles , and his starring role in the NBC television series Homicide: Life on the Street .-Early life:Kotto was born in New York City, the son of Gladys Marie, a...
, Melissa Leo
Melissa Leo
Melissa Chessington Leo , is an American actress. After appearing on several television shows and films in the late '80s, her breakthrough role came in 1993 as Det. Sgt. Kay Howard on the television series Homicide: Life on the Street for the show's first five seasons from 1993 – 1997...
, Jon Polito
Jon Polito
Jon Polito is an American actor and voice artist, who is known for working with the Coen Brothers, most notably in the major supporting role of Italian gangster Johnny Caspar in Miller's Crossing. He also appeared in the first two seasons of Homicide: Life on the Street and on the first season of...
and Kyle Secor
Kyle Secor
Kyle Ivan Secor is an American television and movie actor, best known for his role as Detective Tim Bayliss on the crime drama Homicide: Life on the Street.-Early years:...
.
The episode connects several subplots involving the detectives of a Baltimore Police Department
Baltimore Police Department
The Baltimore Police Department provides police services to the city of Baltimore, Maryland and was officially established by the Maryland Legislature on March 16, 1853...
homicide unit and establishes story arcs that continued through the first season. Among them are an investigation by Meldrick Lewis
Meldrick Lewis
Meldrick Lewis is a fictional character on the television series Homicide: Life on the Street played by Clark Johnson. The character was in the series for its full run and had the very first and last lines of the series...
(Johnson) and Steve Crosetti
Steve Crosetti
Det. Steve Crosetti is a fictional character on the television drama series Homicide: Life on the Street portrayed by actor Jon Polito for the show's first two seasons. He is believed to be based on Baltimore Police Department Det...
(Polito) into a widow killing husbands for insurance money, as well as rookie Tim Bayliss
Tim Bayliss
Timothy Bayliss is a fictional detective on Homicide: Life on the Street. He was a primary character, and was played by Kyle Secor. He was loosely based on the real-life Det...
(Secor) being assigned the murder of an 11-year-old girl for his first case. Both of those subplots were taken directly from Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets is a 1991 book written by Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon describing a year spent with detectives from the Baltimore Police Department homicide squad...
, the 1991 David Simon
David Simon
David Simon is an American author, journalist, and a writer/producer of television series. He worked for the Baltimore Sun City Desk for twelve years. He wrote Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets and co-wrote The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood with Ed Burns...
non-fiction book from which the series was adapted.
"Gone for Goode" was seen by 18.24 million viewers, the largest viewership of the first season, although NBC was initially disappointed with the ratings. The episode received generally positive reviews upon its original broadcast. Barry Levinson won an Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for his direction in "Gone for Goode", and was nominated for a Directors Guild of America Award. Paul Attanasio received a Writers Guild of America Award
Writers Guild of America Award
The Writers Guild of America Award for outstanding achievements in film, television, and radio has been presented annually by the Writers Guild of America, East and Writers Guild of America, West since 1949...
nomination for the episode's script.
Plot summary
The episode opens with LewisMeldrick Lewis
Meldrick Lewis is a fictional character on the television series Homicide: Life on the Street played by Clark Johnson. The character was in the series for its full run and had the very first and last lines of the series...
(Clark Johnson
Clark Johnson
Clark Johnson , sometimes credited as Clark 'Slappy' Jackson, Clarque Johnson, and J. Clark Johnson, is an American actor and director who has worked in both television and film.-Early years:...
) and Crosetti
Steve Crosetti
Det. Steve Crosetti is a fictional character on the television drama series Homicide: Life on the Street portrayed by actor Jon Polito for the show's first two seasons. He is believed to be based on Baltimore Police Department Det...
(Jon Polito
Jon Polito
Jon Polito is an American actor and voice artist, who is known for working with the Coen Brothers, most notably in the major supporting role of Italian gangster Johnny Caspar in Miller's Crossing. He also appeared in the first two seasons of Homicide: Life on the Street and on the first season of...
) looking for a projectile a few yards away from the body of a man shot to death. The man's girlfriend (Oni Faida Lampley), who was shot in the head during the incident but survived, tells police during questioning that her aunt Calpurnia Church hired a hitman to kill her for insurance money. The detectives learn Church previously collected life insurance from five deceased husbands. Suspecting Church of murdering her husbands, Lewis and Crosetti have the body of her most recent husband exhumed for an autopsy, but reach a dead-end when it turns out to be the wrong body in his grave.
Felton
Beau Felton
Det. Beauregard D. 'Beau' Felton is a fictional character on the television drama series Homicide: Life on the Street portrayed by Daniel Baldwin for seasons 1-3. He was loosely based on Det...
(Daniel Baldwin
Daniel Baldwin
Daniel Leroy Baldwin is an American actor, producer and director. He is the second oldest of the four Baldwin brothers, all of whom are actors. Daniel Baldwin is known for his role as Detective Beau Felton in the popular NBC TV series Homicide: Life on the Street...
) hesitates to take a new murder case because he fears it will be too difficult to solve, so it is taken on by his partner Howard
Kay Howard
Kay Howard is a fictional homicide detective from Homicide: Life on the Street. She was played by actress Melissa Leo. In the first two seasons of the show her character was the only female detective or member of the main cast. This was in keeping with the book and the actual Homicide unit in...
(Melissa Leo
Melissa Leo
Melissa Chessington Leo , is an American actress. After appearing on several television shows and films in the late '80s, her breakthrough role came in 1993 as Det. Sgt. Kay Howard on the television series Homicide: Life on the Street for the show's first five seasons from 1993 – 1997...
), who has recently experienced a perfect streak of solving 11 consecutive cases. They investigate the body of a man dead in a basement, and much to Felton's bewilderment, Howard solves the case easily. The owner of the house, Jerry Jempson (Jim Grollman), literally calls her at the house while she is investigating and agrees to a police interview, during which he acts extremely nervous and is eventually charged with the murder.
Munch
John Munch
Sergeant John Munch is a fictional character played by actor Richard Belzer. Munch first appeared on Homicide: Life on the Street. Upon that series' cancellation, the character was transplanted to Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, the first spin-off of the Law & Order franchise...
(Richard Belzer
Richard Belzer
Richard Jay Belzer is an American stand-up comedian, author, and actor. He is perhaps best known for his role as John Munch, which he has portrayed as a regular cast member on the NBC police drama series Homicide: Life on the Street and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, as well as in guest...
) is reluctant to follow up on the case of murdered drug addict Jenny Goode, who was run over by a car. The case has been cold for three months, but he is made to feel guilty by his partner Bolander
Stanley Bolander
Stanley Bolander is a fictional character in the American crime drama / police procedural Homicide: Life on the Street. He is portrayed by Ned Beatty and appears in the first three seasons and Homicide: The Movie.-Character overview:...
(Ned Beatty
Ned Beatty
Ned Thomas Beatty is an American actor who has appeared in more than 100 films and has been nominated for an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, an MTV Movie Award for Best Villain and a Golden Globe Award; won a Drama Desk Award....
) into reexamining it. Munch makes no progress after speaking with the family and reexamining notes. Based on witness accounts of a man with long blond hair and a black car, Munch spends all night looking through suspect photos until he finds a man with a black car with front end damage and long black hair, but blond eyebrows. Munch and Bolander question him, believing the suspect (Joe Hansard) to have dyed his hair to change his appearance after killing the woman. He quickly confesses to having hit her accidentally while driving drunk.
Gee
Al Giardello
Alphonse Michael Giardello, Sr. is a fictional character from the television drama Homicide: Life on the Street. The character was played by Yaphet Kotto...
(Yaphet Kotto
Yaphet Kotto
Yaphet Frederick Kotto is an African-American actor, known for numerous film roles , and his starring role in the NBC television series Homicide: Life on the Street .-Early life:Kotto was born in New York City, the son of Gladys Marie, a...
) tells Pembleton
Frank Pembleton
Francis Xavier "Frank" Pembleton is a fictional homicide detective on the television drama series Homicide: Life on the Street portrayed by Emmy Award winning actor Andre Braugher. He is a primary character of the show through the first six seasons...
(Andre Braugher
Andre Braugher
Andre Braugher is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Thomas Searles in the film Glory, as the fiery detective Frank Pembleton on Homicide: Life on the Street from 1993 to 1998 and again in the 2000 made-for-TV film Homicide: Life on the Street, and as Owen Thoreau Jr...
), an excellent detective but a lone wolf, that he must work with a partner. Pembleton ends up investigating the death of a 65-year-old man with rookie detective Bayliss
Tim Bayliss
Timothy Bayliss is a fictional detective on Homicide: Life on the Street. He was a primary character, and was played by Kyle Secor. He was loosely based on the real-life Det...
(Kyle Secor
Kyle Secor
Kyle Ivan Secor is an American television and movie actor, best known for his role as Detective Tim Bayliss on the crime drama Homicide: Life on the Street.-Early years:...
). Bayliss initially believes the death to be a heart attack, but Pembleton correctly determines it is a murder because the man's car is missing. Police later arrest a man named Johnny (Alexander Chaplin
Alexander Chaplin
Alexander Chaplin is an American actor. Chaplin's most prominent role was that of speechwriter James Hobert on the sitcom Spin City...
) who is found driving the dead man's car. During an interrogation, Pembleton fools Johnny into waiving his Miranda Rights
Miranda warning
The Miranda warning is a warning given by police in the United States to criminal suspects in police custody before they are interrogated to preserve the admissibility of their statements against them in criminal proceedings. In Miranda v...
, then sneakily persuades him into confessing to the murder. Bayliss, although convinced of Johnny's guilt, nevertheless questions the ethics of Pembleton's approach, prompting Pembleton to yell angrily at him in front of the other officers. The episode ends with Bayliss responding to his first homicide as the primary detective: the brutal murder of an 11-year-old girl named Adena Watson.
Development and writing
Paul Attanasio
Paul Albert Attanasio is an American screenwriter and producer of film and television, who is currently an executive producer on the television series House.-Life and career:...
and directed by executive producer Barry Levinson
Barry Levinson
Barry Levinson is an American screenwriter, film director, actor, and producer of film and television. His films include Good Morning, Vietnam, Sleepers and Rain Man.-Early life:...
. Levinson was seeking to create a television series based on Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets is a 1991 book written by Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon describing a year spent with detectives from the Baltimore Police Department homicide squad...
, a 1991 non-fiction book by David Simon
David Simon
David Simon is an American author, journalist, and a writer/producer of television series. He worked for the Baltimore Sun City Desk for twelve years. He wrote Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets and co-wrote The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood with Ed Burns...
based on one year he spent with Baltimore Police Department
Baltimore Police Department
The Baltimore Police Department provides police services to the city of Baltimore, Maryland and was officially established by the Maryland Legislature on March 16, 1853...
homicide detectives. Levinson and fellow executive producer Tom Fontana
Tom Fontana
Tom Fontana is an American writer and producer.-TV career:Fontana has been a writer/producer for such series as Oz , The Jury, The Beat, The Bedford Diaries, Homicide: Life on the Street, St...
hired Attanasio to adapt elements of the book into the teleplay for the first episode. It was first television script Attanasio ever wrote. The episode was shot by director of photography Wayne Ewing. Stan Warnow started out working as editor, but departed before the process was done due to creative differences with Levinson. Tony Black finished the editing for "Gone for Goode", but did not return for the rest of the season, and Jay Rabinowitz
Jay Rabinowitz
Jay Andrew Rabinowitz was an American lawyer, jurist, and Chief Justice of the Alaska Supreme Court four non-consecutive terms remaining active as a justice from February 1965 to February 1997.-Early life and career:Rabinowitz was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to a Jewish-American family...
worked as editor for the remaining episodes. The costumes for the episode were designed by Van Smith
Van Smith
Van Smith was an American costume designer and make-up artist. He worked primarily in the films of John Waters, designing the costumes and make-up for every John Waters film from 1972 to 2004...
, but he also did not return to work on subsequent episodes. Although it was first episode of Homicide: Life on the Street, it was not technically a television pilot
Television pilot
A "television pilot" is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell the show to a television network. At the time of its inception, the pilot is meant to be the "testing ground" to see if a series will be possibly desired and successful and therefore a test episode of an...
because the network had already ordered a full season of episodes before "Gone for Goode" was produced. The first episode was noted at the time for weaving four separate storylines into a single episode, the first in a trend of multiple subplots in each Homicide show. NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
executives indicated to Attanasio and Levinson they would have preferred the script to focus on a single homicide case rather than four, but ultimately allowed the script to be filmed with all subplots included. Additionally, despite intense advance promotion of the Homicide premiere, Attanasio deliberately sought to introduce the show with little fanfare, avoiding sensational gimmicks in favor of character-driven plot, quirky dialogue and morbid dark humor.
"Gone for Goode" included several storylines, and even exact bits of dialogue, adapted straight from Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. Among them were the investigation into Calpurnia Smith, an elderly woman suspected of murdering five husbands in order to collect their life insurance policies. This was based on the real-life case of Geraldine Parrish, who was also accused of killing five husbands for insurance money, and was eventually convicted for three of their deaths. A scene involving a funeral director accidentally exhuming the wrong body while investigating the Church case mirrored a similar situation described in Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets from the Parrish case. The Adena Watson murder case, which is assigned to Bayliss in the final scene of "Gone for Goode", was adapted from the unsolved 1988 slaying of Latonya Kim Wallace, which made up a major part of the book. The Watson case became an important story arc throughout the first season which ended without the case being solved. The hit-and-run murder of Jenny Goode was also based on Simon's book, and the murder of the elderly man was inspired by a case featured in the book in which a young homosexual man killed his elderly lover and stole his car.
Attanasio also based the characters in Homicide on the detectives featured in Simon's book. The difficulties Bayliss experienced with the case, as well as the extremely personal approach he took in attempting to solve it, were inspired by the real-life Baltimore detective Tom Pellegrini, who was the primary detective in the Wallace case. Most of the detectives featured in the Homicide book said they were happy with their on-screen counterparts, although Detective Harry Edgerton
Harry Edgerton
Harry Edgerton is a former detective of the Baltimore Police Department. He is notable for his work in the Homicide Unit and on the investigation of drug dealerMelvin Williams with former BPD Detective Ed Burns and the Drug Enforcement Administration...
, the inspiration for Frank Pembleton, objected to a scene in "Gone for Goode" in which the character drinks milk in a bar, something Edgerton said he never does.
The episode opens with Crosetti and Lewis looking for clues in a dark alley. Levinson and Attanasio specifically wanted a dialogue-driven prologue scene that did not immediately clarify the fact that the two men were detectives or what they were looking for. The dialogue and staging of the scene were imitated in the final scene of the last Homicide episode, "Forgive Us Our Trespasses", which aired on May 21, 1999. In that final scene, Detective Rene Sheppard
Rene Sheppard
Rene Sheppard is a fictional police detective of the Baltimore Police Department on Homicide: Life on the Street, played by Michael Michele. At 29, Sheppard first appeared in Season 7. Rene was Miss Anne Arundel County sometime prior to joining the Baltimore Police Department...
(played by Michael Michele
Michael Michele
Michael Michele is an American film and television actress. She played Dr. Cleo Finch on the medical drama ER and Det. Rene Sheppard on the police procedural Homicide: Life on the Street...
) says to Lewis, "Life is a mystery, just accept it", a line spoken by Crosetti in the first episode. Lewis also said, "That's what's wrong with this job. It ain't got nothin' to do do with life", a line also spoken by Crosetti in the first episode. Early scenes in "Gone for Goode" also involved Giardello introducing rookie detective Bayliss to the homicide unit. Attanasio sought to use Bayliss' orientation as a way of introducing exposition and background about the show to the viewer as well.
In writing the script, Attanasio, Levinson and Fontana wanted the dialogue to reflect the kinds of things detectives would talk about when not discussing murders or cases, which led to the inclusion of several scenes in which detectives talk casually among themselves during lunch or around the office. Fontana, who compared the scenes to Levinson's 1982 film Diner
Diner (film)
Diner is a 1982 comedy-drama film written and directed by Barry Levinson. Levinson's screen directing debut, Diner is the first in his "Baltimore films", which also include the subsequent Tin Men, Avalon and Liberty Heights.-Plot:...
, said, "That really made the show different from other shows, because we had the room to have conversations that seemingly didn't (storywise) connect anything, but they did reveal a lot about the characters." Levinson specifically asked that the body by Howard and Felton be badly decomposing and attracting flies because he felt other police dramas did not portray corpses in a realistic way.
Photography style
Levinson and Fontana sought to establish many of the stylistic elements in the episode which would define the series for its entire run. Among them were near-constant movement with hand-held Super 1616 mm film
16 mm film refers to a popular, economical gauge of film used for motion pictures and non-theatrical film making. 16 mm refers to the width of the film...
cameras to give the episode a naturalistic documentary look and an editing style involving jump cut
Jump cut
A jump cut is a cut in film editing and vloging in which two sequential shots of the same subject are taken from camera positions that vary only slightly. This type of edit causes the subject of the shots to appear to "jump" position in a discontinuous way...
s that was unusual for television at the time. Levinson said this camera and editing style was partially inspired by Breathless, the 1960 Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
film. The scenes were shot on-location in Baltimore, as would be the case throughout the duration of the series. The use of hand-held cameras allowed the film to be shot more easily in the city, rather than on a sound-stage in Los Angeles or New York City, where most shows are typically shot. Levinson said being on location at all times allowed Baltimore "to be a character in the show".
While filming the episode, Levinson said he would simply allow the actors to perform while he switched back and forth between them with the hand-held camera instead of filming carefully planned shots and individual scenes from multiple angles. This camera style largely persisted through the end of the series in 1999. Some individual scenes involved a number of jump cuts repeated several times in fast succession. Another unusual stylistic element used in the episode involved sudden changes in jump-screen direction; a shot with an actor looking from left to right might immediately jump to another shot of the same actor looking from right to left. This process was born during the editing sessions for "Gone for Goode", where Levinson insisted that the footage be edited to include the actor's best performances. During editing, Tony Black cut together two shots that did not match and began looking for a cutaway shot he could use to disguise the edit. Levinson, however, liked the technique that came from cutting the two conflicting shots together and insisted it stay in.
In addition to stylistic touches, the episode established several narrative motifs that stayed with Homicide: Life on the Street throughout the duration of the series. Among them was the white board where detectives kept the names of their open cases in red and their closed cases in black. The names of NBC employees and friends of the Homicide crew were used on the white board. The episode was noted for its deliberate lack of gunplay and car chases in favor of dialogue and story. Levinson and Fontana also allowed humor to be incorporated into the show, particularly through the interactions between the detectives; Levinson said of the first episode, "We have to inform the audience, but at the same time you want to do it with a sense of humor so you don't seem too pretentious, in a way." Several long-standing character traits were established in "Gone for Goode", including Kay Howard's extraordinary streak of solved cases and the antagonism between Felton and Pembleton, which is demonstrated when the two argue loudly after being assigned to a case together. The animosity between Felton and Pembleton is based on the real-life Detective Donald Kincaid, who was the inspiration behind Felton, and the strong dislike Kincaid had for Harry Edgerton, as chronicled in Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. Howard's perfect streak is based on a similar (although shorter) lucky streak experienced by the real-life Detective Rich Garvey, who is also featured in David Simon's book.
Filming
The episode was filmed over the course of seven days in Baltimore. The scene in which Pembleton and Felton try to find the correct police car in a large garage was filmed in a rundown early 20th-century ballroom. The scene features dozens of white unmarked CavaliersAMC Cavalier
The AMC Cavalier was a concept car built by American Motors in 1965. It was innovative by its symmetrical design and use of interchangeable body parts.- Origin :...
. Shortly before "Gone for Goode" was filmed, the Baltimore Police Department stopped using Cavaliers as their regular brand of police car, and agreed to sell their collection of leftover Cavaliers to the Homicide show for $1. Although the cars were used as props in the episode, only two of the cars were actually drivable. The scenes set in the medical examiner's office were filmed in the actual Baltimore's Office of the Medical Examiner. The actors, particularly Jon Polito, hated performing in the morgue because they found the atmosphere unsettling. Ned Beatty said of filming there, "The one thing you can't get on camera is, oh boy, it smells." The identification pictures of suspects that Munch looks through were all pictures of photos of members of the Homicide crew. One of the final scenes in the episode, featuring Polito, Johnson and Belzer speaking in an alley at night, was conceived, written and shot in one night simply because it was raining outside, and the Homicide crew wanted to take advantage of the location during a rainy night.
Levinson said he considered the interrogation scene in "Gone for Goode" between Braugher, Secor and Chaplin, to be the "defining scene" for Frank Pembleton's character because it defined the character's intelligence, quirkiness, sharp instincts and sneaky interrogation style. While filming that scene, Levinson commented to Tom Fontana that the acting was so effective, an entire episode could be filmed revolving strictly around an interrogation. The comments partially inspired Fontana to write the first-season episode, "Three Men and Adena
Three Men and Adena
"Three Men and Adena" is the fifth episode of the first season of the American police drama television series Homicide: Life on the Street. It originally aired on NBC in the United States on March 3, 1993. The episode was written by executive producer Tom Fontana and directed by Martin Campbell...
", which became one of the most critically acclaimed Homicide episodes. The final scene of the episode features Bayliss responding to the murder scene of Adena Watson in a rainy alleyway. The body was wrapped in a red raincoat, and Levinson worked with colorists to bleed out all the colors except that red to give the film a stark look. "Gone for Goode" originally included a scene with Gee and Bayliss discussing detective work at the police station. The scene, which was cut from the final episode, featured Gee comparing the work to challenges faced by literary character Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
, as well as Gee mistakenly referring to Holmes' antagonist Moriarty
Professor Moriarty
Professor James Moriarty is a fictional character and the archenemy of the detective Sherlock Holmes in the fiction of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Moriarty is a criminal mastermind, described by Holmes as the "Napoleon of Crime". Doyle lifted the phrase from a real Scotland Yard inspector who was...
as "Murray".
"Gone for Goode" marks the first performance of Richard Belzer as Detective John Munch, a character the actor has played in more than 300 television episodes in a number of shows, including Homicide and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is an American police procedural television drama series set in New York City, where it is also primarily produced...
. Levinson said Belzer was a "lousy actor" during his first audition with the "Gone for Goode" script. Levinson asked Belzer to take some time to reread and practice the material, then come back and read it again. During his second reading, Levinson said Belzer was "still terrible", but that the actor eventually found confidence in his performance. "Gone for Goode" included guest appearances by actors who later become much more widely known. Steve Harris
Steve Harris (actor)
Steve Harris is an American actor who has appeared in a number of films including; Quarantine, Tyler Perry's Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Bringing Down The House, The Rock, The Mod Squad, and Minority Report. He is most famous for his role as Eugene Young on the legal drama The Practice...
, who later achieved fame playing Eugene Young
Eugene Young (character)
Eugene Young is a fictional character played by Steve Harris on the American legal drama, The Practice created by David E. Kelley. Eugene was one of the original cast members and stayed as a main character until the end of the series, which ran between 1997 and 2004.At the opening of the series,...
on the ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
legal drama The Practice
The Practice
The Practice is an American legal drama created by David E. Kelley centering on the partners and associates at a Boston law firm. Running for eight seasons from 1997 to 2004, the show won the Emmy in 1998 and 1999 for Best Drama Series, and spawned the successful and lighter spin-off series Boston...
, played an uncooperative suspect who repeatedly lies to Munch during questioning. Alexander Chaplin
Alexander Chaplin
Alexander Chaplin is an American actor. Chaplin's most prominent role was that of speechwriter James Hobert on the sitcom Spin City...
, who later played speechwriter James Hobert on the ABC sitcom Spin City
Spin City
Spin City is an American sitcom television series that aired from September 17, 1996 until April 30, 2002 on the ABC network. Created by Gary David Goldberg and Bill Lawrence, the show was based on a fictional local government running New York City, and originally starred Michael J. Fox as Mike...
, portrayed the alleged murderer Johnny in "Gone for Goode". The comedic confession scenes involving Jim Grollman as accused murderer Jerry Jempson were almost entirely improvised.
The editing process for "Gone for Goode" proved difficult due to audio problems that forced producers to re-shoot several scenes. However, the cast and crew also found the atmosphere fun during editing, so much so that Barry Levinson's mother brought in home-baked snacks and the crew had to be asked to stop visiting because they were slowing down the edit sessions. When the cast finally watched the last cut of "Gone for Goode", they hugged each other in celebration.
Cultural references
Throughout the episode, Crosetti discusses with Lewis various conspiracy theories about the assassinationAbraham Lincoln assassination
The assassination of United States President Abraham Lincoln took place on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, as the American Civil War was drawing to a close. The assassination occurred five days after the commanding General of the Army of Northern Virginia, Robert E. Lee, and his battered Army of...
of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
, the 16th president of the United States. Crosetti disputes the accepted theory that actor John Wilkes Booth
John Wilkes Booth
John Wilkes Booth was an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre, in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. Booth was a member of the prominent 19th century Booth theatrical family from Maryland and, by the 1860s, was a well-known actor...
killed Lincoln and instead theorizes that Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Finis Davis , also known as Jeff Davis, was an American statesman and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, serving as President for its entire history. He was born in Kentucky to Samuel and Jane Davis...
, the president of the Confederate States of America
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
, organized the murder. Crosetti's assassination theories about Lincoln would be a recurring theme throughout the rest of the first season. Crosetti's fascination with the Lincoln assassination was based on Tom Fontana's real-life obsession with it. During an early scene in which a suspect tries lying to Munch, the detective berates the suspect for treating him as if he were Montel Williams
Montel Williams
Montel Brian Anthony Williams is an American television personality, radio talk show host and actor. He is best known as host of the long-running The Montel Williams Show, and more recently as a spokesperson for the Partnership for Prescription Assistance...
instead of Larry King
Larry King
Lawrence Harvey "Larry" King is an American television and radio host whose work has been recognized with awards including two Peabodys and ten Cable ACE Awards....
. King is a long-time television journalist and host of CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
's Larry King Live
Larry King Live
Larry King Live is an American talk show hosted by Larry King on CNN from 1985 to 2010. It was CNN's most watched and longest-running program, with over one million viewers nightly....
, whereas Williams is a more tabloid-style television show host. Williams is also a Baltimore native, which becomes a point of discussion between Munch and Bolander. Munch tells a lying suspect that his false story has an "Elmore Leonard
Elmore Leonard
Elmore John Leonard Jr. , better known as Elmore Leonard, is an American novelist and screenwriter. His earliest published novels in the 1950s were westerns, but Leonard went on to specialize in crime fiction and suspense thrillers, many of which have been adapted into motion pictures.Among his...
quality", a reference to an American novelist and screenwriter.
When Munch wonders how Romans
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
become Italians, he asks when "Friends, Romans, countrymen; lend me your ears" turned into "Hey, yo!" The former line is from the William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
play Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar (play)
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, also known simply as Julius Caesar, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1599. It portrays the 44 BC conspiracy against...
. Munch says, "Great, let's arrest Axl Rose
Axl Rose
W. Axl Rose is an American singer-songwriter and musician. He is the lead vocalist and only remaining original member of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he enjoyed great success and recognition in the late 1980s and early 1990s, before disappearing from the public eye for several years...
", a Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses is an American hard rock band, formed in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, in 1985. The band has released six studio albums, three EPs, and one live album...
musician, when he is told the suspect in a murder is blond. During one scene, the detectives eat steamed
Steaming
Steaming is a method of cooking using steam. Steaming is considered a healthy cooking technique and capable of cooking almost all kinds of food.-Method:...
crab
Crab
True crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" , or where the reduced abdomen is entirely hidden under the thorax...
s. This was deliberately included in the episode to reflect the culinary culture of Baltimore, where eating crabs is extremely popular. During a discussion about Pembleton, Crosetti compares him to the lone wolf character played by actor Gary Cooper
Gary Cooper
Frank James Cooper, known professionally as Gary Cooper, was an American film actor. He was renowned for his quiet, understated acting style and his stoic, but at times intense screen persona, which was particularly well suited to the many Westerns he made...
in the 1952 western film High Noon
High Noon
High Noon is a 1952 American Western film directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. The film tells in real time the story of a town marshal forced to face a gang of killers by himself...
; when trying to recall the title of the film, Crosetti said the character had a New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
type of attitude, prompting Lewis to believe he is referring to the 1942 baseball film The Pride of the Yankees
The Pride of the Yankees
The Pride of the Yankees is a 1942 American film directed by Sam Wood and starring Gary Cooper, Teresa Wright, and Walter Brennan. The film is a tribute to the legendary New York Yankees first baseman Lou Gehrig, who died only one year before the film's release, at age 37, from amyotrophic lateral...
, also starring Cooper.
Original broadcast and ratings
"Gone for Goode" was scheduled to premiere on January 31, 1993, in the time slot immediately following Super Bowl XXVIISuper Bowl XXVII
Super Bowl XXVII was a football game played on January 31, 1993 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California to decide the National Football League champion following the 1992 regular season. The National Football Conference champion Dallas Cowboys defeated the American Football Conference champion...
. Having consistently placed third in the Nielsen ratings
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
during prime time since September 1992, NBC hoped a large football audience coupled with an extensive advertising campaign would allow Homicide: Life on the Street to give the network a large ratings boost. The network ran numerous television commercials advertising the premiere episode, some of which focused on the involvement of Barry Levinson with the hope of capitalizing on the feature film director's household name.
"Gone for Goode" was seen by 18.24 million viewers. It earned an 18 rating, which represents the percentage of television-equipped homes, and a 31 share, which represents percentage of sets in use. This marked the best ratings performance of a preview or premiere following a Super Bowl since The Wonder Years
The Wonder Years
The Wonder Years is an American television comedy-drama created by Carol Black and Neal Marlens. It ran for six seasons on ABC from 1988 through 1993. The pilot aired on January 31, 1988 after ABC's coverage of Super Bowl XXII....
in 1988. It was also the largest viewership of the first season, in large part due to its 10:25 p.m. time-slot immediately following the Super Bowl. Nevertheless, NBC considered it a disappointing performance, based on the amount of advertising and press coverage the episode received. The episode received less than half the audience that the Superbowl itself did. Levinson later said the Super Bowl crowd might not have been perfectly suited to Homicide: Life on the Street. In particular, regarding the episode's complex story lines and distinctive visual style, he said, "I imagine anyone who has been drinking a lot at a Super Bowl party might have trouble following the show."
Reviews
The debut episode received generally positive reviews. Kinney Littlefield of The Orange County RegisterThe Orange County Register
The Orange County Register is a daily newspaper published in Santa Ana, California. The Register is the flagship publication of Freedom Communications, Inc., which publishes 28 daily newspapers, 23 weekly newspapers, Coast magazine, and several related Internet sites.The Register is notable for its...
said, "One word about 'Gone for Goode' - wow." Littlefield praised the episode for dropping the viewer into the middle of an episode with complex characters and storylines without getting too confusing. People
People (magazine)
In 1998, the magazine introduced a version targeted at teens called Teen People. However, on July 27, 2006, the company announced it would shut down publication of Teen People immediately. The last issue to be released was scheduled for September 2006. Subscribers to this magazine received...
magazine reviewer David Hiltbrand called the episode "extraordinary" and gave it an A grade. He complimented the realism, the hand-held camera work and the cast, particularly Belzer. Lon Grahnke of the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
complimented the cast and praised the show for not depending on car chases or action sequences. Grahnke also said the show "has the spice, dry wit and ethnic diversity of the Hill Street Blues
Hill Street Blues
Hill Street Blues is an American serial police drama that was first aired on NBC in 1981 and ran for 146 episodes on primetime into 1987. Chronicling the lives of the staff of a single police precinct in an unnamed American city, the show received critical acclaim and its production innovations ...
crew, with even more eccentricities and a heightened sense of realism". John Goff of Daily Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
said the episode was well filmed and edited, and included a strong cast with performances "above normal level of series work". Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
writer Bruce Fretts particularly praised Andre Braugher's performance: "It's not often you actually witness a TV star being born... The moment the galvanic actor steps onto the screen, though, he owns it." The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
television critic John J. O'Connor
John J. O'Connor (journalist)
John J. O'Connor was an American journalist and critic.One of four sons born to Irish immigrant parents, he earned his bachelor's degree from City College of New York and his master's degree from Yale University....
praised the performance of Jon Polito, and said the role could be "the kind of career break Joe Pesci
Joe Pesci
Joseph Frank "Joe" Pesci is an American actor, comedian, and musician.He is known for playing a variety of different roles, from violent mobsters to comedic leads to quirky sidekicks...
found in the Lethal Weapon
Lethal Weapon (film series)
Lethal Weapon is a series of films starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover as a pair of LAPD detectives. All four films in the series were directed by Richard Donner, and also share many of the same core cast members.-Lethal Weapon :...
movies".
Mike Boone of The Gazette
The Gazette (Montreal)
The Gazette, often called the Montreal Gazette to avoid ambiguity, is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, with three other daily English newspapers all having shut down at different times during the second half of the 20th century.-History:In 1778,...
praised Belzer's performance and the hand-held camera style of photography, adding, "But if your picture tube blew Sunday night, you could still listen to an hour of the hippest, funniest dialogue on TV." Not all reviews were positive. Some critics considered the photography style of jump cuts and hand-held camera movement too jarring; some said it made them feel seasick. James Endrst, television columnist for The Hartford Courant
The Hartford Courant
The Hartford Courant is the largest daily newspaper in the U.S. state of Connecticut, and is a morning newspaper for most of the state north of New Haven and east of Waterbury...
, felt the episode was over-hyped and said "seen it, done it, been there before" of the filming techniques otherwise being praised as cutting edge. Endrst, however, praised the performances of Braugher, Belzer, Polito and Secor in particular. Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
reviewer Richard Zoglin said the episode had a strong cast and that he appreciated the lack of two-dimensional violence, but said, "the characters are too pat, their conflicts too predictable", particularly the rookie character Bayliss.
"Gone for Goode" was identified by The Baltimore Sun
The Baltimore Sun
The Baltimore Sun is the U.S. state of Maryland’s largest general circulation daily newspaper and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries....
as one of the ten best episodes of the series. Sun writer David Zurawik wrote: "'Gone for Goode' is not just a well-crafted pilot, it is one of the best in the history of the medium. It introduced a sprawling cast of complicated characters and made us want to come back and visit this world again." "Gone for Goode" was also among a 1999 Court TV marathon of the top 15 Homicide episodes, as voted on by 20,000 visitors to the channel's website.
Awards and nominations
Barry Levinson won an Emmy AwardEmmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series
The Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series is an Emmy presented to the best directing of a television drama series.-Best Direction of a Single Program of a Drama Series:*1959: Jack Smight – Alcoa-Goodyear Theatre ...
for his direction in "Gone for Goode". It was one of two Emmys Homicide: Life on the Streets received during the 45th Primetime Emmy Awards
45th Primetime Emmy Awards
The 45th Primetime Emmy Awards were held on Sunday, September 19, 1993. The ceremony was broadcast on ABC. It was hosted by Angela Lansbury.-Programs:-Lead roles:-Supporting roles:-Writing:...
season, with Tom Fontana also winning an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series for the episode "Three Men and Adena". Levinson was also nominated for a Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Direction in a Drama Series
Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing - Drama Series
The Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Dramatic Series - Night is one of the annual awards given by the Directors Guild of America.-1970s:*1971: Daniel Petrie - The Man and the City for "Hands of Love"...
for the episode, but lost to Gregory Hoblit
Gregory Hoblit
Gregory King Hoblit is an American Hollywood film director and TV producer.Hoblit was born in Abilene, Texas, the son of Elizabeth Hubbard King and Harold Foster Hoblit, an FBI agent. Much of Hoblit's work is oriented towards police, attorneys, and legal cases...
for his direction of the pilot episode of the police drama NYPD Blue
NYPD Blue
NYPD Blue is an American television police drama set in New York City, exploring the internal and external struggles of the fictional 15th precinct of Manhattan...
. Paul Attanasio was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award
Writers Guild of America Award
The Writers Guild of America Award for outstanding achievements in film, television, and radio has been presented annually by the Writers Guild of America, East and Writers Guild of America, West since 1949...
for his "Gone for Goode" script. It competed in that same category with Fontana's Homicide script "Night of the Dead Living
Night of the Dead Living
"Night of the Dead Living" is the ninth episode and first season finale of the American police drama television series Homicide: Life on the Street. It originally aired on NBC in the United States on March 31, 1993. In the episode, the homicide squad works the night shift on a summer evening, but...
", which eventually won the award.
DVD release
"Gone for Goode" and the rest of the first and second season episodes were included in the four-DVD box-set "Homicide: Life on the Street: The Complete Seasons 1 & 2", which was released by A&E Home VideoA&E Television Networks
A&E Television Networks is a U.S. media company that owns a group of television channels available via cable & satellite in the US and abroad...
on May 27, 2003 for $69.95. The set included an audio commentary by Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana for the "Gone for Goode" episode, as well as a collection of the commercials that advertised the episode during the Super Bowl.
External links
- "Gone for Goode" at TV.comTV.comTV.com is a website owned by CBS Interactive. The site covers television and focuses on English-language shows made or broadcast in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Japan...