Season 1 (1982)
POP USED TO WORK CHINATOWN
Five men, part of a Chinatown gang, rob a bank and get away, but not before Cagney and Lacey manage to shoot at the getaway car. Cagney’s father, Charlie, a retired police officer, involves himself in the accident, as Chinatown was once his beat.
Through a series of leads and through Charlie’s former connections, the two detectives solve the case and catch the gang, although the driver of the getaway car dies as a result of the earlier shoot-out. (It was determined that he was killed by a shot fired by Lacey.)
STREET SCENE
An elderly man is accused of murdering a member of a street gang, and Cagney and Lacey eventually prove his innocence through the victim’s brother —— but not before Lacey faces her own prejudice against the Latino gang members.
BETTER THAN EQUAL
Sparks fly when Cagney and Lacey are assigned to protect Helen Granger, an anti-feminist, Phyllis Schlafly-type who is being harassed by an obscene phone caller bent on killing her.
SUFFER THE CHILDREN
In rescuing a four-year-old girl from a seventh—floor window ledge, Cagney and Lacey discover she’s a victim of parental abuse in a family whose older daughter has disappeared -- possibly raped and murdered by the father two years before.
Cagney and Lacey search for evidence pertaining to the missing daughter’s murder and are later able to arrest the father via the mother’s confession of his abuse toward all the members of the family.
BEYOND THE GOLDEN DOOR
Cagney and Lacey help an illegal alien from Guatemala locate her sister who disappeared while being smuggled into New York by boat. When the sister turns up dead, the two detectives go undercover in the garment industry in order to track down her murderers.
BANG. BANG. YOU’RE DEAD
A series of prostitute murders brings Cagney and Lacey to the rescue as undercover decoys. In stalking their prey, they hook up with “Cleo,” a real prostitute, who, they hope, will help them flush out their target.
Under Cleo’s lead they work the Times Square area, meeting all the relevant riff raff: a drunk, a priest, a cigar-chomping fat man, et al. When Cleo is killed by the maniac, the case gets a lot more personal.
Shortly thereafter the murderer appears at the window (they’re all staying at the local fleabag as an undercover set-up) and crashes through. Cagney bags him, along with lots of help from her chums, and all ends well.