User Reviews

****SPOILERS**** Tragic "Naked City" episode of an out of work and non English speaking Puerto Rican immigrant Jaime, Alejandro Rey, who desperately needs a job any job to support himself and his wife Isabel, CoCo Rameriz, who's about to give birth to the couples first child. Jaime is promised a job by a local neighbor hustler Patillas, Vigor Junqera, after he hands over $50.00 to him for him getting it for him. Not only doesn't Jamie get the job as a sweep-up man in the Manhattan Garment District but is shown to or thrown out the door by the factory manager Mr. Wastein, John J. Regin. To make things even worse Jaime also doesn't get back his hard earned $50.00 that he gave Patillas who guaranteed, not in writing of course, to give it back to Jamie if he doesn't get the sweep or clean-up job!

Angry depressed and almost suicidal Jamie is on his way back to his cold water walk-up apartment on the lower East Side of Manhattan and finds himself smack in the middle of a full scale riot against the NYPD over a shooting of an armed robber, who gunned down two women, at a local bodega. During all this violence Jamie unexpectedly finds both kindness and hope for the future from a number of elderly and blind residents headed by Old Aaron, Zvee Scooler, from the neighborhood Jewish Home for the Aged Blind & Infirmed. With one of the members of the congregation having just passed away those at the Jewish Home for the Aged needed a tenth man, it didn't matter if he was Jewish or not, for a minion to give the prayer for the deceased. And as things turned out Jaime, who had no idea what was going on, was the person, or 10th man, that was picked! With all this going on there's a been warrant issued out for Jamie's arrest in his threatening that two timing creep Patillas who screwed him out of his last $50.00 for a job that he didn't get him.

***SPOILERS*** Sad ending in that all the hope love and kindness, including $15.00 and a gold pocket watch, that Jamie found and got from the elderly people at the Jewish Home for the Aged was quickly canceled out, together with his life, in the violence he soon found on the outside. Caught in a downpour of bricks rocks cans and bottles Jamie's life came to an sad and tragic end on the mean and angry streets of New York. And the most tragic things about all that, besides losing his life, was that Jamie never got to know his new born son whom, by innocently getting himself involved in all this street violence, he never lived to see!

"Social Reality" rules in this episode, featuring an UNBELIEVABLE -6 minute opening neighborhood RIOT scene that must have involved 150 people in the streets, throwing junk (and deadly projectiles) from several rows of apartment/tenement windows, etc. A real TOUR-DE-FORCE of chaotic, violent action, very well staged and filmed...and especially impressive for a weekly, hour-long TV drama.

HOWEVER-- what does this have to do with the main story-line? Not much, unfortunately. Basically the episode features an uneven mix of elements that one might expect from "East Side/West Side", the distinguished, gritty "reality" TV drama of the day that focused on the trials and hardships of the racially/ethnically diverse citizenry of NYC.

Here we have TWO minority communities-- Puerto Rican and Orthodox Jew-- that are coupled together in an odd, rather improbable way, in a plot that seems somewhat contrived; it just seems to STRETCH too much to make the case for poor Alejandro Rey's plight in the big, cruel city-- where his total unfamiliarity with the English language and his trusting, gullible personality make him a lightning rod for misfortune and ultimately, tragedy.

In the end, it all seems to be too patched together: the massive riot scene, the poor Puerto-Rican family (families?) living in one big apartment, the sad situation at the Jewish Old Folk's home and Alejandro's unexpected (and moving) involvement in it, all of which the author attempts to combine into a convincing, compelling drama.

Much of the individual scenes are convincing, thanks to the staging and direction, and the fine performances of the leads (too bad about the cotton-candy beard on Old Aaron). However, when it's time to wrap up the show with a tragic ending, the director yelled "ACTION", and the tenement dwellers, who were waiting for their cue, immediately started throwing projectiles from their windows. I suppose this justifies the opening riot scene, since we now know that the denizens of the tenement are prone, at a moment's notice, to erupt in neatly choreographed violence, which in this case provides an unexpected, cruel twist to the end of the story.

And then-- no surprise-- there's the cry of the newborn babe from the window above. I wanted to be moved, but ultimately felt, somehow, that the author and director didn't "earn it"; they needed a more plausible script that didn't try so hard to be emotionally and socially "relevant."; too many "hot-button" topics of the day, stirred together in a somewhat incoherent mix.

Still, the individual pieces of the show are impressive.. LR