Jack Blessing as Dr. Swan Bill Brochtrup as John Irvin Leonard Gardner as Bar Customer Lola Glaudini as Dolores Mayo Cristian Guerrero as Bobby Simone's son David Kriegel as Mitchell Wolf James Luca McBride as Officer Mike Shannon (as James McBride) Debra Monk as Katie Sipowicz Brad Sullivan as Patsy Ferrara Tony Gomez as Priest "Hearts and Souls" is the fifth episode of the sixth season and 115th overall of the American crime drama NYPD Blue.
"Hearts and Souls" originally aired in the United States on ABC on Tuesday, November 24, 1998, at 9:30 pm Eastern time as a 90-minute special.
The episode was directed by Paris Barclay and written by Steven Bochco, David Milch, Bill Clark and Nicholas Wootton.
Many emotional portrayals are included to represent the feelings of loved ones, friends and colleagues when someone that they care about is suddenly in dire medical need.
In another storyline, the episode simultaneously highlights the stress that can be caused when alcoholism afflicts a family through a critically acclaimed guest appearance by Debra Monk as the ex-wife of Sipowicz.
The episode begins with a special five-minute extended "Previously on NYPD Blue" segment that retraces Simone's (Jimmy Smits) whole character history.
[1][2] The final portion of the prologue presents Lt. Arthur Fancy's (James McDaniel) prior episode persuasion of a police widow to directly donate her husband's heart to give Simone a chance to live.
[2] Greg Medavoy (Gordon Clapp) has a scene where his verbal aggression with a citizen complainant provides a respite and represents the frustration and helplessness of Simone's friends and colleagues.
[4] After one season on NYPD Blue, David Caruso decided to leave his role as Detective John Kelly and pursue a movie career when he was unable to secure a salary increase from $80,000 (US$164,454 in 2023 dollars[7]) per episode to $100,000 (US$205,568).
[27] Based on the first two episodes, Dave Matheny and Neal Justin of the Star Tribune determined that Simone would endure a worsening mysterious illness.
[34] On L.A. Law, Smits had returned to the show for critically acclaimed guest appearances during sweeps episodes after leaving his regular role.
However, this led to doubt among critics who did not feel it was possible to have a sensible storyline that retained the services of Kim Delaney in the role of Simone's wife Detective Diane Russell.
[30] He explained to his hometown newspaper, The Buffalo News, that the five-story arc was chosen because a surprise event would not have worked in this media age with the audience's expectation of the character's departure.
[33] According to Kim Delaney, during the filming of this episode the cast was repeatedly breaking down emotionally as if they were experiencing a personal death in the family.
[45] The 90-minute special extended into the Sports Night time slot that preceded NYPD Blue during the 1998–99 United States network television season.
[50] Jane Kass won an American Cinema Editors Eddie Award in the category Best Edited One-Hour Series for Television for this episode.
[55] John Levesque of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer said "the whole six-episode arc strikes me as a B or B-minus effort that got bogged down in one character and gave us all-too-familiar subplots that were lacking in imagination.
[56] Associated Press Television critic Frazier Moore found the entire story arc to be "a dramatic and fitting farewell for the character - and a proud performance by Smits".
He noted that Greg Medavoy's (Gordon Clapp) "...frustration epitomizes the concern of the precinct crew as it monitors Bobby's Simone's battle for life."
He describes the Sipowicz subplot as the only "viable" one in the episode, stating that Monk's performance had "a frantic loneliness that almost brings the show back to its dark, gritty-streets realism".
He summarized the episode as "well written (by Nicholas Wootton) and generally well acted, with several characters having to experience a range of emotions", but was most disappointed in Delaney's performance as Russell.
[56] Kevin Newman of ABC's Good Morning America described the finale as "very touching" and noted that Smits, himself, claimed to have warned his own mother not to watch because it would be "too emotional".
[4] Immediately before the finale, The Boston Globe's Gilbert praised the episode as "one of the series' most memorable" and "a highly emotional and yet restrained 90 minutes, with a satisfying resolution".
They note that the "acting is uniformly excellent", praising Smits in particular for conveying emotion without much dialogue as well as Delaney for "capturing Diane's anxiety and heartache".
[2] Monica Collins of the Boston Herald said the episode "lives up to the hype" with "high melodrama" that offset "graceful, gutsy storytelling".
Sipowicz endured heartfelt suffering due to the friendship that had grown beyond his imagination, while his ex-wife needed his emotional support and connections regarding her legal situation.