Episode
Hill Street Blues: The Best Defense
Overview
Chaos reigns as the P.D.'s job action continues; Hunter faces his demotion and takes over as roll call sergeant for the ailing Jablonski; the detective LaRue tried to bust as a fence transfers to the Hill; Flaherty and Bates try to defuse a man who promises to blow himself up for money; and Joyce walks a tightrope as she tries to end the job action and cut a deal for her client that would put away the violent mugger.
Details
- Series
- Hill Street Blues
- Season
- Season 7
- Episode
- Episode 3
- Air date
- 1986-10-16
Episode context
The Best Defense is Episode 3 in Season 7 of Hill Street Blues. It aired on 1986-10-16.
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Episode 2: A Case of Klapp
On his way to work, Hunter shoots a boy robbing a convenience store; Jablonski refuses to follow his doctor's orders about heart surgery ; the P.D.'s go on strike over job cuts by the city council; Belker struggles to protect senior citizens victimized by a violent mugger; and LaRue and Washington stake out a luscious young woman suspected of being a fence.
Episode 4: Bald Ambition
Goldblume is visited by an old friend, who is mugged and rejected by a publisher; Bernstein saves Joyce from an escaped prisoner and confesses he has a tremendous crush on her; Daniels warns Furillo that Calletano's station house is on the edge of a racial meltdown; and Russo loses an arrest in her undercover assignment because she slept with the subject.
More episodes from this season
Episode 1: Suitcase
Sid and Buntz wrestle with 80 lbs. of cocaine found in a suitcase at the site of a small plane crash; Goldblume looks into a suspected case of aspirin tampering; Belker goes under to look into a hotel owner scamming city housing chits from vagrants; Hill and Renko handle a domestic call concerning a woman abusing her invalid grandparents.
Episode 5: I Come on My Knees
Goldblume's friend freaks out and shoots a mugger and a cop; Calletano loses his command and threatens to take his story to the press; Sid moves in with Buntz for protection; and a premature vice cop spoils a massage parlor sweep.
Episode 6: Say Uncle
Buntz is in charge of efforts to protect a convicted mobster on his way to jail from a killer hired by his nephew; Russo's undercover places her in another sexually fraught position; LaRue and Washington bust a guy who confesses to several unsolved murders; Jablonski helps Belker bust a bus bandit; and Calletano resigns from the force.
Episode 7: Amazing Grace
Councilman Wade spends the day exposing and exploiting the crack problem on the Hill; Grace Gardiner returns as Sister Charity and recruits Flaherty; Belker goes under in a seafood joint serving soul food to locate drug traffickers; Goldblume receives an offer to publish Steve Merkur's book; and the manpower shortage delays Buntz' loan shark arrest and costs him part of his finger.
Episode 8: Falling from Grace
Daniels pushes Furillo to drop the Wade investigation; a literary agent offers Goldblume a chance to write his memoirs; Sister Charity works her old magic on Flaherty; and Buntz ties up his loan sharking sting by busting the shylock that cut off his finger.
Episode 9: Fathers and Guns
Furillo faces a moral and emotional dilemma when his father is shot. LaRue sets the health department on a restaurant owner. Belker has nightmares about nuclear destruction and helps a father find his child. A cemetery plot salesman solicits business at the station.
Episode 10: More Skinned Against than Skinning
Racial tensions rise again when a white undercover officer shoots his black partner; a temporarily blind Buntz goes undercover with Belker as a beggar; Hill and Renko find several skinned bodies; and Joyce tries to defend a shopkeeper who has adapted Nazi paraphernalia as a deterrent against robbers.
Episode 11: She's So Fein
Belker wrecks a car belonging to LaRue's brother-in-law; a new public defender asks Washington for a date; and a dissatisfied client takes Davenport as a hostage.
Episode 12: A Wasted Weekend
Buntz reassures Officer McBride about her shooting of an armed robber; Goldblume is kidnapped while trying to start a short vacation; and Hill, Renko, and Jablonski take a disaster-prone hunting trip.
Episode 13: City of Refuse
Hill almost starts a riot at a drug kingpin's funeral; Russo and Flaherty try to deal with an angry old deaf man; LaRue and Washington pass Sid off a chemist to keep a cocaine case from being dismissed; and Hunter gets back into action when Ballantine takes a hostage