"DOWNTIME" Good Timing January 30, 1998

by
Gordon Hom

NASH BRIDGES seems right in sync with the current headlines in the character of Lynnette, ex-wife Lisa's younger sister. She's wildly flirtatious with no seeming means of support. She's a demure Monica Lewinsky, teasing and luring attractive and powerful men. Lynnette walks around the apartment in her nightie, to which a not-so-blind Nash responds by telling her to put on more clothes. She teases Nash in the 'Cuda, reminding him that she kissed him in his make-out mobile at the tender age of fifteen (see quote in synopsis). Most of all, Lynnette involves herself in Nash's business, that is, police business. Lynnette sees the face of one of the robbers, and later spots him again, forcing Nash to kill him. She's one of those potentially dangerous women that men like Nash keep their distance from. And, of course, Nash completely denies ever having kissed her...

The humor of "Downtime," of course, comes from Joe Dominguez. Joe switches smaller sized shoes on Rick, keeping his feet in agony and the audience in stitches. The shot of Rick with his big, smelly feet on his desk (not only that, his feet look wet, and there's a big hole in his sock with big toe exposed). The Nash and Joe relationship take on the hilarious overtone of a comfortably married old couple. Joe comes to visit Nash and asks "And how was your day, dear?"

This episode seems to mark the final appearance of the incompetent Rick Bettina, with Rick being sent away to the Hall of Justice. But wait, Rick's got a hard-driving, venal mom who's got big plans for her boy as she says to Nick "Well, that momma's boy is on his way to the top. We winners...Rick and I." We get to see more of an oblivious police bureaucracy in the character of Chief Rooney, a man more interested in pleasing his wife than doing the job. What's this say about this fictional SFPD? I mean, Mayor Brown was just in the previous episode. Nash ends this sorry look at the police higher-ups by saying "That's the arrangement the Chief and I had for years," responding to Rick's comment that "You're going to do all the work, and I'm going to get all the credit." There's real blue-collar cynicism here, a working class view of a benignly corrupt system, a system we can all recognize, but only acknowledge in silence. Nash is the worker's hero, smashing the time clock and ending Bettina's reign of tyranny.

For more, see synopsis for Episode 46

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