Lies and Other Truths
Directed By: Nick Gomez
Story By: Anya Epstein and David Simon
Teleplay By: Noel Behn
Bayliss and Pembleton investigate the case of someone buried alive, and are drawn into a society calling themselves the Sons of the Silent Service, led by Nelson Broyles (John Glover), who runs a spy paraphernalia shop. Kellerman and Munch get a road rage case, where a state-owned maintenance vehicle ran another vehicle into a truck, killing both drivers and leaving Mrs. Dietz, the passenger of the private vehicle (the wife of the dead driver) paralyzed. Since Mrs. Dietz has filed suit against the state, Dr. Cox gets pressured by her boss to change the blood alcohol level of the driver of the passenger vehicle so the state won't be liable. Not only does Dr. Cox refuse, she arranges to leak the story to the press, and as a result, gets fired. Falsone loses his custody battle, but ends up making up with his ex-wife to the extent she allows him to keep their son for a week.
This episode contains examples of:
- Back Story: Giardello was apparently a POW during The Vietnam War. Not only that, but Sam Dunn, then a Soviet KGB agent, attempted to recruit him, but instead, Giardello got Sam to defect.
- Bittersweet Ending: For the murder Kellerman and Munch investigate - Mrs. Dietz settles the lawsuit with the state, so she gets enough money to take care of herself for the rest of her life. However, Dr. Cox gets fired as a result.
- Book Ends:
- In Dr. Cox's first episode, she's driving into Baltimore while Los Lobos' "Georgia Slop" plays on the soundtrack. In her last episode, at the end, she's seen driving out of Baltimore while the same song plays.
- Lampshaded in dialogue — in her first episode she ended up sacking a medical examiner who, to help a lazy homicide detective, passed off an obvious murder as an accidental drug overdose, as a result of which the killer went on to claim a second victim. In this episode, she's sacked for refusing to falsely claim that a man killed by a city-employed lorry driver in a car crash was over the legal limit.
- Buried Alive: The fate of the murder victim Bayliss and Pembleton investigate. Supposedly, it was part of a training exercise, except Broyles decided to do it for real.
- Call-Back:
- Dr. Cox remembers how she had to fire one of her staff members for falsifying evidence.
- Kellerman tells Dr. Cox Giardello has discreetly leaked stories to the press before.
- Chekhov's Dynamite: The dynamite vest Broyles shows the detectives in his shop is the same one he wears when he shows up at the Homicide unit near the end of the episode.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The driver of the state maintenance vehicle responds to getting cut off by ramming the car into another vehicle.
- Foreshadowing: Ballard tells Falsone whatever the result of his custody battle, she'll buy him dinner, which foreshadows the two of them getting together in season 7.
- Gilligan Cut: As he's being led to the box, Broyles claims thanks to sophisticated techniques he's studied, he won't confess to murder. In the next scene, in the box, he says, "I confess," and admits to committing murder.
- Honor Before Reason: Even though she knows there will be consequences, Dr. Cox leaks the story to the press rather than falsify evidence. As a result, she gets fired.
- Off with His Head!: The driver of the passenger vehicle gets decapitated.
- Put on a Bus: Dr. Cox (though she actually drives away), who would not return until the movie.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: A milder version than most, but after Broyles confesses to murder, and claims he's carrying on a tradition (see Why We Are Bummed Communism Fell below), Bayliss quietly but firmly tells him, "You're nothing like your father. You're a failure."
- Taking You with Me: Broyles shows up at the Homicide unit wearing dynamite strapped to his chest and threatens to blow them all sky high. Bayliss manages to talk him down so he can disconnect it.
- Wannabe Secret Agent: Broyles and his fellow members of the Sons of the Silent Service were all turned down by whatever law enforcement agency (CIA, FBI, the police) they applied for, so they decided to form the Sons of the Silent Service. However, they prove quite incompetent.
- Wham Episode: What happens to Dr. Cox.
- Why We Are Bummed Communism Fell: The members of the Sons of the Silent Service claim they are playing spy games because they have to be ready for the next Cold War, when really they're just upset they weren't able to follow in the footsteps of their fathers and be actual secret agents.
