Picket Fences was always a "guilty pleasure" of mine when it was on tv. It was weird in many ways but hey it tried to be original and creative and also it had such a great ensemble cast. This episode focuses on our favorite lovable curmudgeon Judge Bone. Ray Walston was typecast from My Favorite Martian for a long time but he made a great comeback with this show winning a late in life Emmy. Judge Bone's professionalism is tested like never before when a young hoodlum shoots and kills his friend Father Barret (I really got caught up in hating the little creep he is evil with a human face and like a lot of other real life hoodlums has a mother that enables him). The good father dies in the end and Judge Bone is forced to recuse himself from the case (there is a good scene where he goes off on the punk in the courtroom literally getting in his face). The episode has a semi happy ending with the pageant going on in the good father's memory.
Review of The Song of Rome
