{"id":255,"date":"1999-08-20T21:10:54","date_gmt":"1999-08-21T01:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nearbycafe.com\/foodandtravel\/island\/?p=255"},"modified":"1999-08-20T21:10:54","modified_gmt":"1999-08-21T01:10:54","slug":"a-good-thought-for-andy-sipowicz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/foodandtravel\/islandliving\/1999\/08\/20\/a-good-thought-for-andy-sipowicz\/","title":{"rendered":"A Good Thought for Andy Sipowicz"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was easy to mourn the \u201cdeath,\u201d in the winter of 1998, of Bobby Simone, the sweet-eyed detective who passed away prematurely of heart failure on NYPD Blue<\/em>.<\/p>\n

For those who watch this series regulary, Simone (played by Jimmy Smits) was the obvious hero: big, hunky, tender-hearted, caring, loving, miraculously uncompromised and uncontaminated by the frequent vileness of his work. He was a generous-spirited, affectionate, hot-blooded, slow-handed, overgrown boy, still raising pigeons in coops on the roof, watching out for his old mentor Patsy and his emotionally disturbed weasel of a tenant, consoling his ever-neurotic, recovering-alcoholic wife Diane, gallant to women, kind to children and animals, helping little old ladies across the street — a blend of Eagle Scout and the punchy Marlon Brando of On the Waterfront<\/em>. What was there not to love? What was there not to mourn?<\/p>\n

Contrast him with his partner, Andy Sipowicz (brilliantly portrayed by Dennis Franz), and you can see why Bobby\u2019s admirers grieved. Not only is Andy Sipowicz not presently a nice man, there\u2019s no evidence he ever was one. He\u2019s fully capable of turning into a raging asshole at the drop of a hat. Until he met his second wife, the assistant district attorney Sylvia Costas (Sharon Lawrence), the only other creatures for whom he seemed willing to take responsibility were his partners on the job and a dozen or so expensive tropical fish.<\/p>\n

Sipowicz is abrasive, blunt, tactless, rude, homely, balding, dumpy, and utterly lacking in any sense of style. Though he has the grudging professional respect of his colleagues and his boss (James McDaniel in the role of the African American Sgt. Arthur Fancy), no one but his wife Sylvia seems to want to spend any more time with him than is absolutely necessary. No one else finds him likeable, much less lovable, not to mention sexy — and that quirk of taste is the only thing that could make you question the judgment of this otherwise smart, savvy, perceptive woman he married.<\/p>\n

Which, in turn, is what made me look again at Andy Sipowicz, during that phase in the series some years ago when he and Sylvia Costas came together. They were a comparatively unlikely couple: she — executive-level, in her prime — surely could have done better than this middle-aged, mean ex-drunk rolling along on a slow train to nowhere. What did she see in this jerk that she\u2019d choose him as her husband and the father of her child?<\/p>\n

Sylvia was no sister of mercy, and no enabler either; she stopped Andy\u2019s abusive tendencies in their tracks every time, consistently telling him to shape up or ship out. He\u2019s not the first man to be redeemed by the love of a good woman, but Sylvia\u2019s wasn\u2019t maternal or unconditional love; it was a grown woman\u2019s tough love, and it proved to be just what Andy needed.<\/p>\n

But she needed him too, not just as a devoted partner but as a reality check. There was a telling moment in their relationship that occurred as they were preparing for their wedding. (The episode, titled “The Bookie and Kooky Cookie,” first aired on May 9, 1995.) They\u2019d agreed to be married by the Greek Orthodox priest who\u2019d been Sylvia\u2019s spiritual guide since her childhood, and they\u2019d gone to his office for the traditional pre-nuptial counseling. On the preliminary form he was asked to fill out, Andy left blank the answers to various questions concerning the state of his religious beliefs, and was even less than usually loquacious when the kindly, well-intentioned priest — in a one-on-one conversation without Sylvia present — sought to open up those issues for discussion.<\/p>\n

Eventually, Father Kankarides accepted Andy\u2019s terse, monosyllabic responses and silences on those subjects, gave the couple his blessing, and sent them home to prepare for their wedding. That evening, Sylvia probed Andy, delicately, about that interview. Reluctantly, Andy told her about a case he\u2019d once solved. To make a short story even shorter, it concerned the mysterious disappearance of a two-year-old child whose dissembling parents could not admit that the father had brutalized the infant so thoroughly that it had died, and had then commanded their guard dog to devour it — which animal, in turn, had to be killed and dissected on Andy\u2019s command and under his direct supervision in order to obtain the necessary evidence of the crime.<\/p>\n

Andy told this ghastly tale simply, without embellishment, but it was clear to the viewer — and to Sylvia — that he\u2019d stared long and hard into the heart of darkness, had come to live with the horror. At the end of the scene, Sylvia put her arms around him from behind. Andy said of the priest — not angrily, not mockingly, just resignedly, as one speaks of those who\u2019ve led hopelessly sheltered lives — \u201cThat priest wanted to know if I\u2019ve lost my faith.\u201d He paused, then clumsily patted Sylvia\u2019s hands, telling her, \u201cI got faith in you.\u201d<\/p>\n

That, I think, is the key to Andy Sipowicz. He\u2019s your average citizen, reeling from the pummeling of this culture\u2019s terrible contradictions, trying to stave off disaster with nothing more than a badge, a gun, and a fundamental sense of right and wrong. He looks, not infrequently, like a trapped and frightened animal preparing to fight yet uncertain how to go about it — not an experienced predator but a cornered marsupial, a koala bear with nowhere left to hide. He seethes with anger, and not infrequently lets it spill over onto the innocent people around him, including his co-workers and even his beloved wife. But he knows they deserve better, and though he doesn\u2019t apologize gracefully or easily he does apologize, always, and he makes you know he means it. He takes full responsibility for himself and his actions, makes amends for his failures past and present, tries to keep a clean slate, and never goes easy on himself.<\/p>\n

He works hard at his job, a dirty job at best, and he\u2019s very good at it. He knows his own limitations and weaknesses, but trusts his instincts, which are usually reliable. Once earned, his loyalty is fierce and unflagging, as is his love. He\u2019s a man fighting daily against the inclination to let his sarcastic, bitter disillusionment turn into cynicism, despair, and the protective shield of uncaring. So he\u2019s one raw open wound, raging against the system that grinds him down, refusing to succumb to being chewed up and spat out. He\u2019s determined to stay indigestible.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if Andy Sipowicz is Everyman, or every American, but if he is then my estimation of us as a country goes up a couple of notches. I keep my eye on Andy Sipowicz, because I have faith in him. I think he\u2019s the hope of this country. For all the obvious ugliness of the man, over the past six or seven years we\u2019ve watched him surmount his deep-rooted racism and homophobia, assorted varieties of machismo, an attempted assassination, chronic alcoholism, weight problems, prostate trouble and sexual dysfunction, the threat of cancer — no to mention public and private disappointments, betrayals, and losses too numerous to count, including the senseless murder of his grown son from his first marriage and the sudden death of his partner Bobby. Franz\u2019s wrenching portrayal of the contradictions ripping Andy apart as, covered with a junkie\u2019s puke, he almost went mad in the station-house bathroom over his helplessness at the ebbing away of Bobby\u2019s life was devastating in its intensity.<\/p>\n

Yet, through all of that, he\u2019s remained a model of commitment and an ongoing example of the painfulness — and the possibility — of continuing growth and change in each of us. And he\u2019s still clocking in for his shift, on time, every day. Not because he loves his job; I don\u2019t think he does now, if he ever did, but it\u2019s hard to imagine any other line of work for which he\u2019s fit. He\u2019s there because it\u2019s his duty, and Andy understands something deep and ancient about duty and honor from the foot soldier\u2019s point of view. And he\u2019s there because he truly has no place else to go.<\/p>\n

In this season\u2019s next-to last episode, Sylvia was accidentally shot in a courthouse corridor by a vengeful father run amok. Andy, present and on the job, missed his chance to protect her by a fluke, brought down the deranged shooter, then — somewhere between the end of that episode and the beginning of the next — got to watch his wife die before his eyes. About the only thing that hasn\u2019t been stripped from him now is his son by Sylvia, still an infant, whom he\u2019s been left to raise alone. At the end of the season finale, he was down on his knees at his baby\u2019s bedside, hands clasped in rusty, unpracticed prayer.<\/p>\n

Have a good thought for Andy Sipowicz. Something about the future of America is riding on his shoulders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was easy to mourn the \u201cdeath,\u201d in the winter of 1998, of Bobby Simone, the sweet-eyed detective who passed away prematurely of heart failure on NYPD Blue.<\/p>\n

For those who watch this series regulary, Simone (played by Jimmy Smits) was the obvious hero: big, hunky, tender-hearted, caring, loving, miraculously uncompromised and uncontaminated by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8],"tags":[20,24,36,57,78],"class_list":["post-255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-media","tag-andy-sipowicz","tag-bobby-simone","tag-dennis-franz","tag-jimmy-smits","tag-nypd-blue","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/foodandtravel\/islandliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/foodandtravel\/islandliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/foodandtravel\/islandliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/foodandtravel\/islandliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/foodandtravel\/islandliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/foodandtravel\/islandliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/foodandtravel\/islandliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/foodandtravel\/islandliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/foodandtravel\/islandliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}