"Massage Parlor" has a popular premise, breaking up a massage parlor, which poor Fish is unable to do, as he couldn't get anyone to do anything to him, for any amount of money! Chano grumbles about the sex shops on his street, while on the corner is a 'Christian Science Reading Room' (Yemana: "God knows what goes on in there!"). Wojo wasn't any good, giggling as soon as the girl touched him, so it's up to Wentworth (Linda Lavin) to carry out the assignment, picking up a wannabe 'Midnight Cowboy' (Charles Frank), whose good looks have a jealous Wojo fuming. Wojo tells Nick that last night's dinner was 'degrading' (Yemana: "I think I know the restaurant!"). Harris wants Nick to buy an automatic coffee maker that 'filters out all the impurities' (Yemana: "we tried that once, but our water won't go through the filter!"). Best of all is Kenneth Tigar (6 episodes), a mugging victim whose black eye was delivered by an unusual suspect: "5'3, maybe 120 lbs, silver hair, between 65 and 70!" Chano expresses amazement that a reasonably healthy young man would willingly give up his wallet to a 65 year old woman with no weapons: "not without a fight, how do you think I got this?" Some interesting suspects arrive, one (Meg Wyllie) convicted of manslaughter in her husband's death ("he started it!"), another (Florence Halop, 6 episodes) taking a shine to Fish (she even calls Nick 'boy'). Kenneth Tigar next appeared in his most famous characterization, "Werewolf," howling in his cell to Yemana's distress. This was Linda Lavin's fifth and final episode as Det. Janice Wentworth, the only woman to successfully integrate in to the squad room, six months later starring in the long-running ALICE, which outlasted BARNEY MILLER by three years.
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