NYPD Blue (season 3)

NYPD Blue Season 3
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	22
Broadcast
Original channel	ABC
Original run	October 24, 1995 – May 21, 1996
Home video release
DVD release date	February 21, 2006
Season chronology
← Previous NYPD Blue season 2 Next → NYPD Blue season 4

Main Cast of NYPD Blue Season 3, l-r Turturro, Smits, Delaney, McDaniel, Miceli, Clapp, Franz

Episodes

Season #	Series #	Title	Writer(s)	Director	Original airdate
1	45	"E.R."	David Mills & David Milch	Mark Tinker	October 24, 1995 (1995-10-24)
Greg and James bust up a robbery when one of the men on scene shows them a badge, then gunshots ring out and James is wounded. Greg gets him to the hospital and he has surgery. The squad investigates and Andy and Bobby manhandle a suspect until he gives up his contact, who turns out to be the guy with the badge. The DA doesn't want to prosecute because the badge-holder is a guard at Riker's who is providing information on crooked corrections officers. Andy gets a tip that the guard is full of it and planning to skip town, and leaks the detail through Bobby's reporter ex-girlfriend so the deal falls through and the guard will get the book thrown at him. James initially has no feeling in his leg, but later regains some in a sensitive area that shows he's on the mend. With the go-ahead from her AA sponsor, Diane decides the time's ripe to renew dating Bobby. And Sylvia surprises Andy with the news that...she's late. Notes Melina Kanakaredes guest stars as Benita Alden. Isaiah Washington guest stars as Antonio Boston.
2	46	"Torah! Torah! Torah!"	Theresa Rebeck & Bill Clark	Donna Deitch	October 31, 1995 (1995-10-31)
Sylvia is indeed pregnant, and swears Andy to secrecy, but he manages to blab the news to the entire squad and annoys his wife. A young woman is stabbed to death on her first floor apartment. Her father seems convinced that his mentally unstable son did the killing, but Bobby zeroes in on a rude, supercilious young man who was acting strangely in the vicinity of the murder site. He and Diane are able to use some fast footwork to get access to his trunk of bloody knives, and Bobby then manipulates him into talking about how he stalks women with big breasts and then murders them. Andy is busy on a case with Greg where a priceless Torah has been stolen from a synagogue. Andy goes undercover as a rabbi and busts the thief. Notes Sam Rockwell makes an appearance in this episode. Rebeck and Clark won an Edgar award in the category of "Best Mystery Teleplay from a Series" for this episode.
3	47	"One Big Happy Family"	Gardner Stern	Michael M. Robin	November 7, 1995 (1995-11-07)
The return of Silky, a former pimp now seeking to live on the straight and narrow, leads Andy and Bobby to a guy who fits the description of a serial rapist. Later that night, a young woman is raped and murdered by a fake deliveryman, and the cops figure out he was trying to kill one of his previous victims. They set up a sting where the rapist attacks Diane but is quickly subdued (and nearly beaten to a pulp) by Bobby, who later puts his feelings aside long enough to scare the guy into confessing. Diane has a difficult enough day because her alcoholic father got arrested for trashing a bar her beaten-down brother works at. She gets the charges dropped and the family tries to have a quiet evening together, but her father's anger towards her helpless mom and broken brother leads her to flee, then drink before she calls Bobby to come help her. James, Greg and Adrienne catch a case where a schlub has repeatedly survived assassination attempts. They find out it's his rotten wife who's behind the attacks, but he won't believe it or press charges. And Adrienne fends off Greg's awkward efforts to set her and James up on a date by telling Greg she's a lesbian.
4	48	"Heavin' Can Wait"	Leonard Gardner & Bill Clark	Elodie Keene	November 14, 1995 (1995-11-14)
Tension mounts between Simone and Sipowicz as they investigate the drug-connected execution-style slaying of two small children, because Sipowicz is upset that Russell turned to Simone when she fell off the wagon, and he's powerless to help Costas overcome her debilitating morning sickness. Bobby nearly throws down with Andy over his abusive treatment before the case gets solved, and Andy tries to apologize afterwards.
5	49	"Dirty Laundry"	David Milch & Nicholas Wootton	Mark Tinker	November 21, 1995 (1995-11-21)
Andy and Bobby investigate a shooting death at a laundromat, and Andy's shocked to find out that Holly Snyder is involved (she was the young girl who was molested by her serial-rapist uncle in Season 2's "The Bank Dick"). She was the subject of a cruel bet that ended with a scumbag shooting her new boyfriend for not paying back lost bets. Andy tries to help her but she's now addicted to heroin. Bobby is pulled off the case to investigate an older detective named Detective Drucker, whose been moved to the 15th while IAB puts together a case on him. Bobby's not happy to be working with him and his fears are borne out when they investigate bogus molestation charges against an impotent old man--Detective Drucker doesn't pay any attention to the case, and later the old man commits suicide. IAB decides the time has come to arrest Drucker, but when they try to do it at the 15th guns come out and the corrupt detective is gunned down. Elsewhere, PAA John Irvin confirms with Andy that Adrienne Lesniak is gay, and tries to help her out, but she angrily says she was lying to get James off her back about maybe going out on a date.
6	50	"Curt Russell"	Bill Clark & Leonard Gardner	Jim Charleston	November 28, 1995 (1995-11-28)
Andy and Bobby find an Indian woman dead in her car. Despite Andy's numerous unkind comments about Indian people and Indian food, the case ultimately rests on a forbidden love gone wrong. Bobby gets way too overprotective when Diane is tasked to work undercover on an OD case, and she later tells him off for it. The OD turns out to be a sad family story with no real villains and no positive resolution. Greg and James bust a spaced-out weirdo who turns out to be linked to a credit-card scam, and Greg reveals his grandmother was Russian.
7	51	"Aging Bull"	David Mills	Davis Guggenheim	December 12, 1995 (1995-12-12)
A normal guy who's also a publishing millionaire is abducted, and the FBI makes it clear to the 15th that they are not wanted anywhere near the investigation. While the Feds can do no right in Andy's eyes, he and Bobby pretend to be Special Agents when two-timing Steve the Snitch returns with some information. Shockingly, this information turns out to be critical in resolving the case, though it's not a straight line to getting the millionaire back alive and safe. Bobby's heart is breaking when he learns his childhood mentor, a boxer named Patsy Ferrara, is suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer's Disease.
8	52	"Cold Heaters"	Bill Clark & Theresa Rebeck	Adam Nimoy	December 19, 1995 (1995-12-19)
Bobby reluctantly meets with his old "friend" Ray DiSalvo, who wants out of his admittedly unfair long stay at Rikers and has hard facts about an old robbery case that left two retired cops dead. Bobby runs with the case only to see that IAB is already there, but has to face two hard truths: IAB's Sgt. Martens is a non-idiot who knows what the hell he's doing, and Ray sold him out earlier. Bobby tells Ray that after he gets his deal, he never wants to see him or speak to him again. Lt. Fancy takes center stage when a shooting at a bodega leaves a Latino punk dead, and he learns the punk beat up a good citizen's kid before a shootout. Fancy and Andy work together seamlessly to make sure the citizen won't face jail time. Greg handles a dispute between a young actor and the abusive, egocentric star who's been giving him hell on the set of a play, and manages to get both parties to live and let live. Notes Anthony Stewart Head guest stars as Nigel Gibson.
9	53	"Sorry, Wong Suspect"	Bill Clark & Gardner Stern	Michael M. Robin	January 9, 1996 (1996-01-09)
Andy and Bobby investigate when a young Chinese girl is found dead. They initially suspect a gangster of the crime and bring in Det. Harold Ng to see about that, but the actual answer is much sadder. James stands up for the wheelchair-bound wife of a prostitute-visiting husband, and later he and Adrienne share a smile and maybe a date. Greg's ex-wife Marie visits the 15th and has an ugly argument with Donna, before shocking her husband with some lingerie. Andy nearly causes his own divorce when he doesn't attend Sylvia's first sonogram with her, but they end the evening regarding the picture of their unborn baby boy.
10	54	"The Backboard Jungle"	William L. Morris & David Mills	Mark Tinker	January 16, 1996 (1996-01-16)
A neighborhood basketball game with controversial origins (it's in memory of a young man who died while in NYPD custody and the chief organizer is an outspoken community activist) ends in disaster when gunshots erupt and two men are dead. Andy and Fancy immediately don't see eye to eye on the case, and when Andy runs into the activist things get very ugly. The activist makes a racial remark which Andy throws back at him, unwittingly in front of a reporter. The activist gets Fancy angry enough to toss Andy off the case but not to kick him out of the 15th, so Bobby (who was disgusted by Andy's comments) and Diane take on the investigation with help from James and Greg. They find out a notorious drug dealer was behind the shootings in retaliation for men leaving the drug trade without his permission. Fancy tells Andy that he won't transfer him out because he believes his white bosses will send him another bigot to replace Sipowicz (as a message to Fancy) and doesn't want to take the chance that the replacement won't be able to do the job that Andy can. Andy finds out the reporter was shot and gets confirming information about the earlier killings before the reporter dies. Sylvia, who has seen Andy making an offensive hand gesture regarding African-Americans, sternly tells him he had better NEVER talk or act like that in front of their son.
11	55	"Burnin' Love"	Bill Clark & Leonard Gardner	Perry Lang	January 30, 1996 (1996-01-30)
Andy and Bobby catch a case of a young woman who was tied up and burnt almost beyond recognition. They learn her girlfriend's lowlife husband was behind it after a failed ransom attempt. Greg is assigned to guard a longtime numbers runner who's had a contract put out on him. Greg wins a lot of money at poker while doing the bodyguarding, only to find that the contract-setter has been killed his own self. Notes Poppy Montgomery appears in this episode as Lisa.
12	56	"These Old Bones"	Theresa Rebeck	Donna Deitch	February 6, 1996 (1996-02-06)
Diane's father is shot to death and her brother claims responsibility. However, Diane later finds out that her mother was the one who did it. Bobby investigates the story while Andy keeps a devastated Diane from drinking, and they learn the truth about what really happened. ADA Leo Cohen makes his debut by insulting Bobby and nearly getting punched for it. Greg needs a new place to stay and enjoys the chance to look at new neighborhoods while he and Andy check out an abused wife's claims that her husband killed a kid nine years earlier. They learn the victim wasn't a person of virtue and manage to stop another killing in the nick of time.
13	57	"A Tushful of Dollars"	Bill Clark & Nicholas Wootton	Elodie Keene	February 13, 1996 (1996-02-13)
Diane continues to wrestle with her mother's uncertain legal future and takes out her anger on ADA Leo Cohen, who is reluctantly prosecuting her mother in the shooting of her dad, and later on the troubled son of a rich alcoholic who may have shot and killed his wife. Her mom's attorney works out a deal for her mom to get probation, but Diane doesn't handle the son well at all and it costs her a chance to solve the case. Bobby later grabs Cohen by the neck and threatens him if he smirks about Bobby and Diane's relationship again. In legal news, the honest working son of a Mafia boss is shot to death. Some other robbery-homicides and a revelation about the other son being gay lead to his arrest, not that he's sorry or cares about the people he's murdered and the lives he's destroyed.
14	58	"The Nutty Confessor"	Bill Clark & Gardner Stern	Mark Tinker	February 20, 1996 (1996-02-20)
A young woman is found dead in her apartment, disemboweled with bizarre messages written on the walls in blood. Andy and Bobby first suspect a Meals on Wheels worker, but then get a lead on a creep whom they arrest in Atlantic City. The creep tries to pretend he's insane to avoid jail time, but Andy poses as a psycho to get him to admit he's not insane, just a psychopathic killer. A doctor with a battleaxe for a wife gets shot by punks while visiting his office assistant/mistress, and the cops have no sympathy for the wimply doctor, his domineering wife, or his stupid mistress. They do crack the case with some help from an older guy who wants his car taken out of the impound lot. James and Adrienne consummate their relationship, Greg pretty much tells the whole squad about it, and Adrienne turns clingy to the point where James is sheepish and everyone else looks embarrassed for him. Notes Jenna Elfman guest stars as Patty Snow.
15	59	"Head Case"	David Mills & Bill Clark	Randall Zisk	February 27, 1996 (1996-02-27)
An NYU professor is found in his apartment, having been decapitated. Andy and Bobby tell his mother, who seems more concerned about finding the car they owned together. The case comes together when a mentally-unbalanced former student is located and interrogated, but it hits home when the man's mother collapses upon realizing her son is really dead. Porn starlet Vanessa Del Rio is getting harassing phone calls, and James finds the twerp who's doing so. He also gets some pictures of Del Rio for his friend Manny, whom everyone assumes is not real, but a guy named Manny does show up to claim the pics. Andy is in knots all day because Andy Jr. is showing up that night and Andy thinks his son's in trouble with the Air Force. He finds out that Andy Jr. got an honorable discharge after tearing his rotator cuff and is going to join the Hackensack, NJ police force.
16	60	"Girl Talk"	Bill Clark & Theresa Rebeck	Perry Lang	March 19, 1996 (1996-03-19)
A series of brutal crimes where young children are raped and then thrown from rooftops to their deaths brings a cop played by Wanda de Jesus to the 15th; Bobby is glad to be working with her again, but Andy's angry because she got a promotion to Detective 1st Grade that he felt should have been his. The parties clash at times but the case is ultimately closed on a solo interrogation by Andy. James get a date-rape complaint and asks Diane for help, only to have her (and every other woman in the office) angrily castigating his approach to the case. Andy gives Andy Jr. an impromptu lesson in the details of street police work.
17	61	"Hollie and the Blowfish"	Bill Clark & David Simon	Davis Guggenheim	March 26, 1996 (1996-03-26)
Simone finds his best informant ever, a drug addicted stick-up man Ferdinand Hollie, casing out some Colombian drug runners. After coming to the 15th for a chat, Hollie gives them info that checks out, but Andy's worried about Hollie's law-breaking activities and his lifetime of needle drug use. Andy is irritated when a cop named Ray Kahlins shows up and to request Diane's help on a Federally-funded investigation into the murder of a young girl by a drug gang. Diane and Bobby quickly learn Kahlins is less interested in solving that case than dragging it out to earn a lot of overtime pay. When Bobby learns Hollie has HIV, he is sad, but Hollie says he'll carry the weight, then does Bobby a favor by providing data that leads to the murder's closure. Fancy agrees to overlook Hollie's activities in exchange for his cooperation with Kahlin's drug unit. After finding drugs on Hollie's information Kahlins gives up Hollie's identity to one of the gangs and isn't sorry given Hollie's criminal activities. Andy gets angry later when Kahlins is lying that he was Andy's brother in arms during the Vietnam War, and tells Kahlins to tell all the lies he wants about everything but not about Vietnam. Andy and Bobby then get word that Hollie robbed the Colombians, who refuse to cooperate with police, but then hear he was shot twice. Bobby arrives to find out Hollie recognized the shooters as the gang members, tells Bobby he hasn't left any bodies on the streets, and dies. Upset over Hollie's death, Bobby goes back to the bar Kahlins is at and beats the hell out of him. In the B story, Greg and James investigate the murder of a "white magic" priest and find out he was killed by an ex-convict who lost his mind when an "invisibility potion" the priest concocted for him failed to work as advertised. Notes Danny Trejo appears in this episode. Giancarlo Esposito guest stars as Ferdinand Hollie. Daniel Von Bargen guest stars as Sgt. Ray Kahlins.
18	62	"We Was Robbed"	Bill Clark & Leonard Gardner	Mark Tinker	April 2, 1996 (1996-04-02)
A Mafia loan shark is found dead in the East River, and a nervous FBI agent thinks the killers came from a mob-connected social club. Andy and Bobby help install the Federal wiretap but get interrupted by two low-level hoods...whom they then rob! The hoods later come to the 15th with a vastly inflated tally of what got stolen. The focus shifts away from the mob to a very unlucky citizen who was deeply in debt and desperate. Donna's hairdresser comes to her for help when her rotten cousin is trying to help her violent ex-boyfriend rob her current man's truck. Donna arranges for Diane to help, and Diane calls in James for a sting operation. The op works perfectly, but Adrienne's jealousy (she becomes convinced James is having sex with or wants to date the hairdresser when he's only posing as her boyfriend for the sting) explodes in everyone's face and James has finally had enough, telling her that her behavior is idiotic and making it clear he's not interested in excuses about it. The lying hoods find out they barely got ripped off and will get charged for lying about it if they don't take their stuff and get lost. Andy tells Andy Jr. a story about how he nearly shot and killed an innocent person during his beat-cop days because he didn't know the details of a building in his post.
19	63	"Auntie Maimed"	Bill Clark & Nicholas Wootton	Michael Watkins	April 30, 1996 (1996-04-30)
Andy's on a knife's edge (which is where his emotional barometer usually settles anyway) as Sylvia's impending birth looms. He talks too much about 911 calls, the fact that Sylvia's doctor is Jewish, etc. etc. But he has time to teach Andy Jr. on the job, as he and Bobby investigate a break-in and robbery where an elderly woman was killed. They suspect her drug-addicted nephew, but print work leads to the guilty party. A bouncer is beaten to death at a strip club and James and Greg have to endure a brief hostage crisis to arrest the jealous ex-convict who killed him. Donna meets an Apple recruiter and considers a new career path. Adrienne knows James wants to break up with her, and when they finally sit down to talk he gently confirms that's the truth. Adrienne expresses regret for her behavior, but James forgives and tells her he will always be her friend. Sylvia goes into labor and gives birth to a healthy baby boy, deals with some brief bleeding and has Andy and his son sharing a hug.
20	64	"A Death in the Family"	Michael Daly	Mark Tinker	May 7, 1996 (1996-05-07)
Andy and Bobby go to the hospital to investigate a bar robbery where a man intervened to prevent the robbers from raping a waitress and got shot. To their horror and shock, the man who was shot and killed was Andy Sipowicz Jr. Andy can barely contain his shock, and Bobby resolves to work the case around the clock until they catch Andy Jr.'s killers. But Andy tells Bobby he wants the men who murdered his son dead, and Bobby is too shocked to respond before Andy leaves the 15th. He tells Syliva and his ex-wife Katie the horrible news and they both collapse in tears. Bobby works the case with Diane and after the murder weapon is found near a construction site, he orders her to not come with him as he busts into a trailer two vagrants are living in, but ends up pistol-whipping one of the men after a gun was brandished. Diane rips into Bobby for his actions and he tells her what Andy said. They resume working well together and find out the vagrants were not involved in Andy Jr.'s murder. Andy makes funeral preparations and continues blaming himself for his son's death, saying "What did I teach this kid?" Andy confronts Bobby and Diane and is furious when he learns that there are no suspects. Andy leaves Sylvia alone at home with their newborn son and goes to bar where he ends his long period of sobriety. In other sad news, Donna decides to leave the NYPD and take a job with Apple. Greg is clearly hurt but keeps his feelings to himself as the woman he loved walks out the 15th forever. Note This marks Gail O'Grady's last regular appearance in the show as Donna Abandando and Michael DeLuise's as Andy Jr.
21	65	"Closing Time"	Bill Clark & David Mills	David Rosenbloom	May 14, 1996 (1996-05-14)
Andy has continued on a drunken bender after his son's murder, to the point where an angry Sylvia throws him out of their apartment. His behavior on the job is just as abysmal; during an interview with an admittedly hostile and unpleasant woman, Andy falls asleep and the woman chucks a soda can at him, leading to Andy nearly attacking her before Diane defuses the situation. Fancy hears about it and orders Andy to take lost time, saying he doesn't want to end Andy's career but will if he comes back a wreck again; when Andy insults the Lt., Fancy says "You're embarrassing the Job--and you're embarrassing your son's memory." Andy storms out of the 15th with unkind words for Bobby. However, Bobby and James get a break when a prostitute comes in with a story that might be useful. Bobby tells her to either give the whole facts or face a beating, and she pulls out a police badge that two creeps left at her place: it's a Hackensack PD shield, which matches Andy Jr.'s. She arranges a meeting to return the badge, but the creeps are about to beat up a passerby when Bobby walks up to them in the street. They both pull guns on him and Bobby shoots them both to death. Andy is getting tanked at a bar when he sees the news on TV, and he calls in to the 15th to confirm details. Afterwards, he spots a group of teens hanging out on a street corner and drunkenly orders them to get out, under the delusion that Andy Jr. is with him. They beat him up and take his gun. At the hospital, Bobby learns the doctor there kept Andy's identity a secret, but Bobby knows if news of the gun gets out his partner's career is over. Bobby has tough words for Andy's behavior and asks in anguish "Do you want people to HELP you, Andy?" Andy says yes, and Bobby gets to work. Officer Shannon knows the teens who beat up Andy and helps Bobby bring in their leader. When Fancy asks what's going on, Bobby tells him, and Fancy talks to the leader and brokers a deal where he gets the gun back and the kid walks. Fancy then talks to a badly beaten, sober, and sorrowful Andy and asks him what he wants to do. Andy says, sadly but clearly, that he now knows his son is dead and he wants to regain his job so he can do good again. Fancy gives him back his gun. Andy later thanks Bobby, noting he gave Bobby nothing but grief and his partner still stood up for him. He then goes home and tells Sylvia he wants to be with his family, and she says that she and their son want him back as he steps into the apartment. Note Future King of Queens star Leah Remini appears as an angry suspect who throws a soda can at a half-drunk Sipowicz during an interrogation. Remini and Sharon Lawrence appeared together on the sitcom Fired Up.
22	66	"He's Not Guilty, He's My Brother"	Bob Glaudini & Bill Clark	Michael M. Robin	May 21, 1996 (1996-05-21)
Andy begins his comeback on the job by teaming with Bobby and Diane to investigate a double-homicide at an auto repair store. The cops figure out the perpetrator is a veteran convict facing life without parole, but his good-citizen brother refuses to rat on his sibling. After Andy tells the convict the story of Andy Jr., he convinces the good brother to tell the truth. James, Greg and Adrienne Lesniak catch the case of two murdered junkies. They figure out that another junkie killed them, and the hard part is telling the truth about this to one of the victim's estranged husband, who still loved his wife and is devastated by her death. The new PAA is transferred out by Fancy because she's not competent, Greg finds a nice apartment he can afford, PAA John Irvin leaves the department to start his own business, Bobby and Diane decide to take some vacation time together, and Andy prays for the first time in a very long time during his son Theo's Greek Orthodox birthing ceremony. Notes Casey Siemaszko appears as Jim Bauerline. He would later appear as the squad's internal affairs nemesis, Captain Pat Fraker. This episode marked the last appearance on the show for Justine Miceli's character, Adrienne Lesniak.