The Same Coin
Directed By: Lisa Cholodenko
Story By: David Simon and James Yoshimura
Teleplay By: Sharon Guskin
The tensions between Gharty and Munch over Gharty's service in Vietnam finally boil over when Mike and Munch investigate the hit-and-run death of a Vietnam veteran and Gharty is interested in the knife belonging to the victim. Sheppard finally returns to duty after her beating, but Lewis is nervous about going back on the street with her, which makes her upset.
This episode contains examples of:
- Berserk Button: The killer in Lewis's and Sheppard's slum-dunker killed an acquaintance for calling him a "gimp". (He walked with a cane).
- Dream Sequence: In the beginning of the episode, Gharty imagines he's outside a convenience store with Ballard and witnesses a street thug kill the cashier, only for Ballard to be wearing Army combat gear all of a sudden, and he ends up following her to an alley where she's shooting a Vietnamese family - at which point he wakes up while in a strip bar.
- Foreshadowing: Munch puts in a Freedom of Information request for the files the FBI has on him, which comes up in a future episode.
- It's All My Fault: Gharty blames himself for not doing more to stop the massacre of the village, while Munch blames himself for not keeping his friend from going to Vietnam as a medic and getting himself killed.
- My Greatest Failure: Gharty blames himself for not shooting the officer who had the villagers massacred when he had the chance.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: While it seems as first the murder Mike and Munch are investigating involves Vietnam, it turns out the murder was an accident involving a boy who not only had trouble seeing over the wheel, but pressed the gas pedal by accident when he was trying to change the radio station.
- Sociopathic Soldier: The soldiers Gharty was serving with were like this, as they shot up a village of Vietnamese civilians.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Quite a few of them:
- Sheppard gets angry when she finds out Lewis traded cases with Falsone because he didn't trust her to handle going on the street again.
- Stivers gets upset with Falsone when she finds out he traded a slam-dunk case for a stone-cold whodunit because Lewis asked him to.
- Ballard gets angry with Munch because he's questioning Gharty's character, not to mention his Vietnam service.
