HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET (1993) Three men and Adena

 This intense episode is one of the very best of many intensely fine episodes of TV's HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET (1993-99), packing as much top-notch writing, direction and acting into 50 minutes as any critically acclaimed motion picture. Eleven-year old Adena Watson has been brutally murdered, and Dets. Pembleton and Bayliss have only 12 hours to get a confession out of their prime suspect, a sly old produce vendor named Risley Tucker. Good-bad copped for hours in the “box,” Tucker (Moses Gunn) keeps his accusers – and us – guessing whether he's guilty or innocent, even after he's released for lack of hard evidence. Watch for Tucker's bitter exchange with Pembleton (Andre Braugher) accusing him of being one of the 500 ("a white nigger"), and one with Bayliss (Kyle Secor) in which he spits, "You got your dark side, and it terrifies you, and it frightens you. It scares you ‘cause it's powerful and it makes you capable of doing anything. Anything. Without it, you look in the mirror, and all you see is an am-a-toor." In both instances, Tucker pushes exactly the right button, and it’s great fun to watch Gunn out-gun the two. Better acting you'll never see than Gunn's (in one of his last roles), Braugher and Secor in this regularly repeated Sleuth cable station rerun. Tom Fontana deservedly won Emmys for Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series (Single Episode) and for Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series (Single Episode).