Something is REALLY wrong in this episode, despite the fact that it's basically a solid, "big-heist" crime drama.
One of the guest stars in this episode, Timmy Everett, was a highly successful young actor and dancer in New York at the time. He had won two consecutive Theater World awards, one for his performance in Inge's "Dark at the Top of the Stairs, with a top-notch cast directed by Elia Kazan. Everett was also a member of the Actor's Studio, who would go on to play the role of Tommy Djilas in the big-budgeted film version of "The Music Man" in 1962. The kid was really good--one of those "restless young man" types that were in vogue at the time.
So Everett gets hired for the role of Burt Roan, who is extremely upset over his parent's impending divorce---so upset, in fact, that he goes ABSOLUTELY CRAZY, a violent, force-of-nature that TRASHES the precinct office, pummeling 3 or 4 stunt doubles, before being subdued by 6 or 7 officers. It is a shocking, even traumatic way to begin Act 1 of the show.
The remainder of the episode plays out in fine series fashion, including a scene with young Mr. Everett strapped into a strait-jacket, convulsing in a hospital bed, before finally expiring. OK---so it's a grim, serious story, and the level of dramatic intensity JUSTIFIES the extreme, brutal fate of Timmy Everett's character......or so we think.
The final scene of the show, however, takes----how shall I say this?--- a distinctly different tone, as actor Sorrell Booke, using his best caricatured, cartoon-y, overblown "Oi, Veh" Jewish merchant shtick---experiences his OWN meltdown which, without becoming an IMDB "spoiler", explains the episode's title.
So the episode is "bookended", if you will, by TWO emotional breakdown scenes: the explosive, hysterical assault by the psychotic son played by Tim Everett --which ends tragically, and the silly, slapstick-style tantrum of pint-sized Sorrell Booke at the end, which basically tells us, the viewers, that the whole thing was just a big joke.
So why the extreme level of shock and violence in the earlier scene?? If it turns out that the show is actually a comedy, why put everyone (characters and viewers) through the trauma? Maybe one of Timmy Everett's stage roles featured a similar berserk breakdown scene that Naked City's producers just HAD to include in their script to showcase the actor's talents.
Whatever the reason, the final scene really cheapens the emotional effect of Everett's earlier scene and also, in a way, betrays us, the viewer.
Bad judgement on the part of Herbert B. Leonard and crew. LR