A Thousand Points of Life is the twentieth episode of the first season on NBC series Third Watch which was aired on May 1, 2000. It was directed by Michael Fields and written by John Ridley.
Synopsis[]
Doherty shows his bravery trying to save the mother of two young children from a fire. Meanwhile Bosco and Faith are out looking for the man suspected of starting the fire in the first place. Davis tries to set Sully up on a blind date. Davis and Sully try to find Malcolm after his sister gets beaten up by her pimp, to prevent him from killing the man who did it. Carlos' girlfriend problems escalate and Doc's relationship looks like it's going to the next stage.
Full Summary[]
Firefighters, paramedics and police respond to a major fire at a motel for transients. Two boys, 12-year-old Steve and his 8-year-old brother Danny tell Bosco that their mother is still inside. Doherty rescues her, but her injuries are severe, and she later dies at Mercy Hospital. Steve says that he knows his abusive dad set the blaze but adds that the two brothers left the hotel as soon as he arrived.
Burns in Steve's lungs make Detective Kyser suspicious. Bosco gets the truth from Danny. The boys' drunken mother passed out while smoking a cigarette and inadvertently started the fire. The boys escaped but let her burn because she failed to intercede when their father beat them. They blamed him for the blaze to avoid living with him. Bosco pleads with a social worker to keep the brothers together in the same foster home.
Malcolm, a boy Davis befriended, and his sister, Tisha, are in trouble again. Severely beaten up by bookie boyfriend Sunder Walker, Tisha asks to see Davis after being admitted to Mercy. With Tisha heavily sedated, her friend Val relays the message to Davis that Malcolm has a gun and plans to kill Walker. Davis and Sully arrest Walker, who tells them that his men are already hunting for the youth.
Davis and Sully search for Malcolm and find him as Walker's goons chase him. Malcolm pulls his gun on one of them, but Davis steps between the two and takes the gun from Malcolm. Though still skeptical of Davis, Malcolm agrees to do what he tells him.
Meanwhile, after Carlos suggests that Vangie get an abortion, she makes a halfhearted suicide attempt. Frustrated in their apartment search, Doc and Morales decide to move into his dad's place. Davis arranges a "blind date" for Sully via the Internet. Bosco introduces girlfriend Nicole to his mother at her 50th birthday party.
Cast[]
Main[]
| Portrayed by | Name | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Michael Beach | Monte Parker | FDNY Paramedic |
| Coby Bell | Ty Davis | NYPD Officer |
| Eddie Cibrian | Jimmy Doherty | FDNY Firefighter |
| Bobby Cannavale | Bobby Caffey | FDNY Paramedic |
| Molly Price | Faith Yokas | NYPD Officer |
| Kim Raver | Kim Zambrano | FDNY Paramedic |
| Anthony Ruivivar | Carlos Nieto | FDNY Paramedic |
| Skipp Sudduth | John Sullivan | NYPD Officer |
| Jason Wiles | Maurice Boscorelli | NYPD Officer |
Also Starring[]
- Lisa Vidal as Dr. Sarah Morales
- Monica Trombetta as ER Nurse Dana Murphy
- Nahanni Johnstone as Nicole
- Patti D'Arbanville as Rose Boscorelli
- Tasha Lawrence as Detective Kyser
- Samantha Buck as Vangie Evans
- Eva LaRue as Brooke Carney
Guest Starring[]
- Johnny Cenicola as Danny
- Dan Chen as Han
- Glenn Cruz as Attendant
- Staci Francis as Val
- Ra Hanna as Brother #1
- Ezra Knight as Sunder Walker
- Sarah Knowlton as Shauna
- Katrina Lantz as Sunny
- Karen Tsen Lee as Arlene Yoshida
- Max Ligosh as Steve
- Charles Page as Boots (credited as Charlie H. Page)
- Remy K. Selma as Principle
- Shakai Shepard as Tisha
- Robert Turano as Battalion
- Edmund Wilkinson as Frank Gorzach
- Jade Yorker as Malcolm Lewis
Trivia/Notes[]
None
Music[]
- Guided by Voices: "Hold on Hope"
- Kelis: "Caught Out There"
- Amber: “Sexual”
- Mary J. Blige: “Sweet Thing”
- Glen Campbell: “Don't Pull Your Love”
Gallery[]
.jpg "A Thousand Points of Light (1).jpg (14 KB)")
Quotes[]
Doc [to Carlos]: What's going with you and your girl?
Carlos: She's not my girl.
Doc: Okay, fine. What's going on between you and Vangie?
Carlos: Nothing.
Doc: Nothing? That's why we're parked in front of her place, waiting for her to come home 'cause nothing's going on between you two.
Carlos: Vangie's not my problem.
Doc: Not your problem?! She's carrying your baby.
Carlos: So she says.
Doc: You don't believe her?
Carlos: The girl is four short of a six pack. For all I know, she could show up nursing a Tickle-Me-Elmo, telling me how it looks just like me.
Doc: What if she shows up with a baby that looks just like you?
Carlos: What am I supposed to do? I'm 22. I'm barely making ends now. I'm supposed to take on a wife and a kid? Look, there are some things that I want in life, and I'm not about to let some crazy girl and her maybe baby stop me from getting them.
Carlos: I've had time to things, and we should talk about your options. Maybe if there was something that you wanted to do...
Vangie: Something what?
Carlos: We're both young. This really isn't a time for either of us to be having a kid, so like I said, if... If there's something that you wanted to do.
Vangie: So, what are you gonna do? Gimme a 100 bucks and a ride to the abortion clinic?
Carlos: Maybe that'd be the best thing.
Vangie: You son of a bitch. You don't even care, and you can't even fake it. Hurt me now, miss me later.
Rose (about Nicole): She's a wonderful girl.
Bosco: You don't have to say that for me, Ma.
Rose: Anybody who can go drink for drink with me and stay standing is alright in my book. Especially since she's so in love with my son.
Bosco: Sometimes I think about after dad left. I think about... I think about how you raised us, by yourself. You still worked... but you were always there. You were always there for us.
Kim: Look... You hurt me in a lotta ways, Jimmy, but you've always have had faith in me. No matter how messed up things... No matter how messed up I got...
Jimmy: What are you talkin' about?
Kim: Let me just... I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all the times that I never believed in you. Maybe if I had, you and I would still...
Jimmy: Nah, don't. Don't blame yourself for me, Kim.
(Ty is reading emails from women after he set Sully up on an online dating site)
Sully: Davis, you don't seem to understand that I don't need your help meeting anybody, and I definatly don't need your help hooking up with some freak from a webnig... Whatever the hell it's called.
Davis: You know, you know how to suck the romance right out of internet dating.
(Davis is reading an email from a woman after he sent Sully up on an internet dating site)
Sully: Law enforcement official? You forget how to spell "cop"?
(cleaning out the ambulance looking for the watch)
Bobby: Anything?
Kim: 84 cents and a, oh... Britney Spears tape.
Bobby: I'll take the 84 cents.
Faith: I mean, about those kids. You're getting kind of hung up on that little one.
Bosco: And you're not?
Faith: I don't know, I'm kinda hung up on what kind of son of a bitch beats his own children.
Bosco: Same kind of son of a bitch who'd beat his wife, and steal from her, and start a fire to cover it.
Faith: Theory.
Bosco: You got a better one? I wanna know where the hell social services was on all this. They didn't know that those kids were gettin' beat?
Faith: The mother was probably gettin' abused herself and she's probably too afraid to tell anybody.
Bosco: What about school? Teachers?
Faith: You got 30 students a class, 6 classes a day. I mean, teachers are lucky they can remember their student's faces.
Bosco: Families don't work, schools don't work. The system's a joke. Who the hell's supposed to be looking out for kids?
Faith: Me. You.
Kim (about Vangie's suicide attempt): Looks like an overdose.
Bobby: Looks like a performance at the Met.
Sully: Sunder Walker, you’re under arrest.
Sunder: For what?
Davis: Assault in the second degree. I know it’s a tongue twister. You’ll have the next three to five to practice it.
Sully: Kids with guns. How'd it ever get to be when a 13-year-old goes out and gets a piece and thinks he has to do something about the guy who beat his sister up?
Davis: Well, maybe he thinks he's gotta do somethin' 'cause he figures that we wouldn't.
Sully: It's our job to do somethin'.
Davis: Yeah, but if you're young and you're black and you read about people taking 40 bullets and broomsticks from the cops who are supposed to be protecting you, then when there's trouble who do you trust? The cops or yourself?
Bobby: I miss winter.
Kim: You miss the cold?
Bobby: I miss the dark. I'm a night person.
Kim: Transfer to Alaska. It's dark all day in winter.
Bobby: Yeah, thought about it. You can't get good bagels in Alaska.
Kim: If city equipment were any less durable, it would be made out of tissue paper.
Malcolm: When have you ever once done right by me?
Davis: I’m doing it now.
Doc (to Morales): I'm trying to get past the things I've lost. Trying to learn how to appreciate the things I have. And I can't think of a better way to do both than by starting a life here, with you.
Bosco: Great, we get to direct traffic for the bucket boys. If this isn’t the start of a great day, I don’t know what the hell is.
Bosco: My mother's birthday is tonight. 50 years.
Faith: Aw, well tell her congrats from me.
Bosco: Nicole says that she wants to go to the party.
Faith: You asked her, good for you. It's about time that you introduce her to your family.
Bosco: I don't know.
Faith: What, you havin' second thoughts?
Bosco: I'm just not sure the night for Nicole to meet my mother is the night her bitter, divorced friends gather her up, get her drunk on light beer, and carve up a penis birthday cake, while some male stripper writes "Happy 50th, Rose" in the air with his unit.