Title: The Bank
Directed by: Noam Pitlik
Written by: Tony Sheehan
Air Date: January 5, 1978
Previous: Atomic Bomb
Next: The Ghost
Guest Starring: Peter Jurasik, Jodie Mann, Sandy Sprung
"The Bank" is the 12th episode of the fourth season of Barney Miller.
Harris's extended search for an apartment reaches the breaking point. He had thought he was moving into a new place that very day, only to show up and find out that the couple who lived there have patched up their marriage, won't be vacating, and won't let him sublet the apartment after all. With a moving van packed with all his worldly posssessions parked outside the building and costing him money every hour, Harris boils over with frustration, talking rudely to Inspector Luger before stalking out of the squad room.
In the meantime the 12th gets a call of a man making a disturbance at a bank—not a regular bank, a sperm bank. It seems Mr. Philip Hamel, who had made a deposit at the sperm bank before getting a vasectomy, returned to the bank to check on his donation only to find out that it had gone bad. After finding out that he couldn't have children, he wrecked the place.
Tropes:
- Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: Alluded to by Mrs. Hamel, who tells her husband that he can't go to prison, because "Suppose if I meet someone?"
- Continuity Nod: In the previous episode Harris mentioned he had a lead on an apartment by a man named Nemmings. In this episode we learn that Mr. and Mrs. Nemmings have reconciled and will not be vacating their apartment, leaving Harris in the lurch.
- Hollywood Midlife Crisis: After Barney says that "You're really letting this apartment thing get the better of you," a frustrated Harris admits that it's not just the apartment. He had imagined that by the time he'd reach this point in his life (mid-thirties), he'd have made captain at the NYPD, would have had a novel published, and would have had a couple of screenplays optioned. Instead none of that has happened, and he's scraping by on a detective's salary and literally homeless.
- Identical Stranger: Mr. Hamel, a man with curly brown hair and glasses, is disconsolate after his sperm sample was ruined. At the end of the episode, Dietrich suggests he and his wife could find a man with similar physical characteristics for artificial insemination... and the wife looks at Dietrich with great interest.
- Innocently Insensitive: Harris is in a state of high agitation when clueless old Inspector Luger says he needs to talk to Harris "before you shuffle on off out of here." Luger doesn't mean anything by it—he uses the same phrase when referring to himself later—but Harris takes it as a racist joke and snaps, yelling at Luger in an exaggerated "sho' nuff" minstrel accent before stalking out of the office.
- Share the Male Pain: Harris grimaces when Mr. Hamel says that he got a vasectomy.
- Stealth Insult: Wojo says he was foolish to waste money on a new suit, pointing at Barney's and saying "You've been wearing that suit ever since I can remember."
