Cagney and Lacey Had an Unusual, But Charming, Christmas Adventure

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We continue our look at some notable 1980s Christmas episodes by looking at an unusual, but charming, Christmas episode of Cagney and Lacey.



We continue our look at some notable 1980s Christmas episodes by looking at an unusual, but charming, Christmas episode of Cagney and Lacey.

Cagney & Lacey received many awards over the years (including an ASTONISHING six straight Best Actress in a Drama Series Emmys, split between the two leads, Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless, three in a row for Daly, then two by Gless, and then one more by Gless), but struggled in the ratings throughout its run. The series was canceled after its first season, where Cagney and Lacey were played by Meg Foster and Tyne Daly (after Loretta Swit played Cagney in the hit TV movie that launched the series), but the network was convinced to bring it back with a new Cagney (I’ll repost an old bit I did about the gross reason why the original Cagney was replaced). Sharon Gless took over as Cagney for Season 2. The show was then canceled again after its second season, but fan outcry saved it for a shortened third season. It did well and its Season 4 was popular. The series was then canceled for a third and final time after Season 7 (the series ended on a cliffhanger).

Daly is pretty clearly the superior actor to Gless, but eventually Gless was given some really juicy storylines (as she deals with alcoholism) that led to Gless winning her back-to-back Emmys, and even when Daly was winning all of the awards, it wasn’t like Gless was just sitting there like a loser. She was doing a fine job, too. Daly is just amazing, though.

The show was almost all character-driven storyline, and that’s what we see in this episode, where their commanding officer, Lt. Samuels, is prepared to let them all go home early on Christmas Eve, but then a prisoner (a scam artist dressed as Santa Claus, played by the great Richard Masur) escapes, and now Samuels’ career might be ruined, and obviously no one can go home early for their Christmas plans.

Meanwhile, Det. Petrie (the brilliant Carl Lumbly) is forced to rush to the hospital where his wife is overdue to give birth, and she has now started to bleed.

Lacey’s mind is reeling seeing her friend in so much pain, and she has to take a break to visit her husband and her two kids. Harvey Lacey (John Karlen) is one of the all-time great TV supporting characters. He’s this brash working class guy, but he’s also EXTREMELY liberal. So his scenes were always a delight.

Masur’s character is weird. The show makes it clear that he isn’t literally mentally handicapped (except, of course, they use the R-word. It was 1982, even the progressive shows sucked with this stuff), but he sure isn’t working on all cylinders, either, but neither is his wife. In the end, the detectives conspire to basically get him out of trouble once they catch him, and even use a pickpocket to steal $200 from an Internal Affairs officer (who was doing the annual “leave out a wallet filled with cash to see if an officer tries to steal it” test that disgust all of the other cops) to fund the guy’s new life with his wife and kids.

At the end of the episode, everyone’s ready to finally go home (and we find out that Petrie’s wife delivered their daughter safely), but a lonely Samuels asks Cagney and Lacey to have some eggnog with him, and they agree, and that’s how the show ends. Sweet stuff.