The Ledger

6.2 Rebels

In this episode (6.2), the second one featuring Benjamin Bratt as Rey Curtis, an NYU student is stabbed to death at a biker bar.

Plot Summary

The episode opens with the guys, who are apparently supposed to be gay, checking out the biker bar. One tells the other, "Our bar is down the street." As they're leaving, the NYU student, Tommy Bell, staggers out of the bar, bleeding. When they ask the people remaining at the bar whether they saw anything, they all unconvicingly say they didn't. Curtis brings one remaining biker, who gives his name as "Rocky Mountain," for questioning, but he doesn't have much info. Meanwhile, Van Buren asks Briscoe whether Curtis is getting the hang of things. He's learning, he says. Soon after, a tourist from Kansas contacts the police and says he saw Bell and his girlfriend getting into an argument with some of the bikers. The tourist had entered the bar to use the restroom. Then the victim's father comes in and starts demanding answers. He is apparently quite wealthy and wants to throw his weight around the precinct and the DA's office. He also blames his son's girlfriend, Caridad, for what happens, and calls her trash.

At Bell's apartment, Curtis turns his attention to a website frequented by the biker community, and learns that Bell was supposed to go to the bar that night to meet a man selling his motorcycle. The detectives track down the girlfriend, and Curtis talks to her in Spanish, but doesn't get much info out of her. She says she was in the bathroom. Briscoe feels left out of the conversation, and jokes somewhat bitterly about Curtis's linguistic skills.

Meanwhile, a search of the neighborhood has turned up the murder weapon: an oil can opener with the guard removed. It's also used for puncturing beer cans, we learn. Briscoe and Curtis go to lunch, where they discuss this method of drinking. Curtis tells Briscoe about beer bongs, and Briscoe tells Curtis about "depth charges," where you drop a shot into a beer glass. Curtis says, "We should try it some time," and then says, "Sorry..." apparently referencing the fact that Briscoe is a recovering alcoholic -- information that Briscoe had not yet shared with Curtis. Briscoe, being a detective, notices this and accuses Curtis: "You checked up on me." They have a slightly awkward conversation about the matter, but the tension is not too heavy. It's in stark contrast to the initial tension between Briscoe and Green which was much angrier and foreboding, a tension which to some extent has never gone away.

In any case, Curtis continues using his techno-savvy to track down a biker named "Axel" who was going to sell the bike to Bell. Axel turns out to be a "Rubber," a nickname for "Rich Urban Biker," who is not involved in the killing, and who says he left because Bell was late to the meeting. He did, however, point out that he left a bit early because of the presence of some members of a biking gang known as the "Yankee Rebels." Curtis and Briscoe visit the Yankee Rebels clubhouse down on 4th Street in the East Village. (I am pretty sure the club house of a real biking club is right around there somewhere.) They run into Rocky Mountain again, and right behind him is "Igor," the apparent club leader who tells Curtis, "I don't talk to Spics unless I'm drunk." Curtis doesn't like that kind of talk one bit, and grabs Igor by the collar, slams him against the wall, and puts a gun in his face. "I'm buyin'," he says. Briscoe tries to keep everyone calm, and once the situation has settled down, tells Curtis that he doesn't like such confrontations. He has a point.

Curtis gets back on the BBS, finds an account of the stabbing, and learns that Caridad's ex-boyfriend was involved. Curtis talks to some of Caridad's Puerto Rican girlfriends to learn the unsurprising fact that Igor is her ex-boyfriend. So, naturally, they arrest Igor who denies knowledge of anything. Curtis again turns the computer and strikes up an email correspondence with the guy who wrote the account of the stabbing, who goes by the name of Stiletto. Apparently not knowing he's talking to a cop, Stiletto says he'll meet Curtis at an abandoned building's rooftop. Curtis and Briscoe get stood up, but they trace Stiletto via his email address and -- get this -- by driving around in a van with a police technician who is using an antenna and Ghostbusters-like device to "triangulate" the signal from Stiletto's cellular modem, with Curtis instant-messaging Stiletto all the while. It's high comedy to see the technician beep-beeping and listening to his bulky ear phones, cradling the "Yagi" antenna like it's his first born. The silly technique works, however, and they arrest Stiletto, who turns out to be a podiatrist named Milton Stillman.

When Stillman talks to McCoy, he insists he doesn't have to testify, even to a grand jury, because he says that posting to the BBS qualifies him as a journalist, and he has the rights of any journalist protecting his sources. There are several hearings to determine whether this is a legally valid argument. McCoy argues that the issue doesn't really matter, since even if he is ruled a journalist, he must still testify to those events he witnessed directly. For some reason that is not entirely clear, he confesses to the murder, though this makes no sense. Caridad later argues that Stillman did it because Igor pressured him to, but this is not logical. Is whatever Igor had in mind for Stillman worse than going down for a murder that you didn't commit? I don't think so.

In the meantime, Caridad finally agrees to testify to what she saw, and she says she saw Igor kill Bell. The motive is still at issue: it's not jealousy, but then it appears that the biker jacket Bell was wearing at the time had something to do with it. Kincaid starts investigating, and eventually learns the real motive for the murder: Bell was wearing a Yankee Rebels jacket that Caridad had given him. Igor didn't like it, and stabbed him to death. Oh.

It also seems that Caridad, upset because Bell had broken up with her earlier that night (at his father's urging and promise of financial reward), and she thought that giving him the jacket might get him in trouble. Way to go, Dadi. With this information, Briscoe and Curtis return to the Yankee Rebel clubhouse and arrest Igor.

Analysis

Couple of other interesting moments in the episode: (1) McCoy talks back to Schiff for requiring him to check in all the time. (Schiff wanted to know what was going on because of all the pressure from the victim's father.) (2) We see more of the grand jury proceedings than usual, and even see a grand juror ask a question of a witness via McCoy, who declines to pose the question to the witness.

Since this is the second episode featuring Det. Curtis, we get all kinds of garbage showing us how tech-savvy and fluent in Spanish he is. It feels really heavy-handed and unnecesarry, like the script is trying to cram down our throats what are sharp contrast there is between him and Briscoe. We get it already, so lighten up! They did the same thing when Det. Green came on board. Look how hot-tempered he is! Look, he's black! Give us a break.

Casting notes: Stillman is played by Robert Knepper, who I thought appeared as a biker in a motorcycle-themed episode of Homicide: Life on the Street, too, but I can't find evidence of this on his TV Tome profile.

The title of the episode refers to the motorcycle gang, and also to the rebellious attitude of the victim towards his father.

Posted by adm at March 10, 2004 12:35 AM

Comments

Post a comment

validate