Remembering the legendary Abe Vigoda. We lost him on this day 7 years ago. There was absolutely no one like Fish. Abe not only made that character come to life, he made him larger than life. Fish was a man struggling to accept that he was getting closer and closer to retirement. Even though his body was telling him it had had enough, Fish hadn’t. He didn’t want to go and held on with everything he had. On the outside, he was world-weary and enigmatic, unflappable and unfazed even by the often chaotic squad room around him. Even finding out the police department erroneously classified him as deceased (a joke that would later actually happen to Abe for real, resulting in an epic joke that still lives on) didn’t rattle him too much.
Deep down he did have a soft and vulnerable side. While he often took the role of a long-suffering spouse, deep down, we all know he truly loved Bernice, and he truly loved the squad and his job too. We saw that when the day he dreaded finally arrived-retirement day.
“Fish, there is no more work! You are retiring today!” Barney says, exasperated.
“Oh no. No,no,no… you got it all wrong Barney, I’m not retiring so fast.”
“Fish , I know it’s painful and it’s even unfair… but you’ve got to face the reality, that IS the reality and you gotta face it or you’ll wind up like that ‘twinkie’ in the cage out there. Fish, you’ve earned the right to do something else, to do what you want to do, what you’d enjoy doing.”
Fish ignores him. “Anyway, I walked here from Brooklyn. I had a lot of time to think things over. You know, the trouble this city is in and you know how hard it is to get good men Barney.”
“The rules say you have to retire at 63.” Barney says gently.
“Rules are made by men and rules can be changed by men! I know the Commissioner, I’ve known him for 20 years and I’m going to have a talk with him… I’ll talk to him and everything’s gonna be alright.” Fish continues to ignore Barney.
“This is not the last day of your life Fish,” Barney says with desperation.
“I’m a man with a record Barney, you think they’re going to force ME out?”
Fish turns away.
“NOT ME! A man with my experiences? My accommodations? NOT ME!” he cries, his voice cracking as he can longer hide his pain.
Who didn’t get a lump in their throat when Fish revealed his grief at having to say goodbye to the career he loved?
Later, as he says goodbye to the others, we see his true affection for them, especially Wojo, who tries to say goodbye but can only offer a hug instead. Fish returns it warmly.
“My very words.” he says simply.
Fish also gave the show some of its funniest moments, like when he, along with the others, gets accidentally high on hash brownies. While the other guys slowed down and mellowed out, Fish became full of life.
“The old guy just went Bang! Zoom! Boom!” says the thief he and Wojo brought in. Barney looks at Fish in shock.
“Yeah!” he says happily.
“How’d you do that?,” the thief continues, “that’s gotta be 12 feet across!”
“What? You think you’re playing with KIDS?” Fish replies forcefully.
Then, when Barney breaks the news about the brownies, Fish sighs with a mixture of disappointment and amusement.
“First time in 20 years I feel really good, and it’s gotta be illegal!”
He doesn’t miss a beat though when Levitt, holding two swords the detectives confiscated asks, “Sergeant, what are these for?”
“Crowd control,” he says, heading for the bathroom.
Finally, when asked if he’s okay taking over booking the thief, he seems to be really enjoying himself.
“Sure! C’mon criminal person!” he replies cheerfully.
Fish also gave us some of the most memorable moments in the series.
When, on his way to the bathroom, he finds out Wojo and Harris are chasing a man through the city sewer system:
“I’d better wait. I might be obstructing justice!”
When he returns to the squad room after being taken away in an ambulance after collapsing during a city smog alert:
“I didn’t go to the hospital. I had a little oxygen in the ambulance and felt okay So, I asked them to let me out.”
“What are you talking about? No ambulance would let you out on the street!” Barney exclaims.
“The gun helped.”
And when he discovers a bomb in the squad room, who can forget the way he sprinted limberly around the squad room, leaping on chairs and trying to kick out the window before deciding to put the bomb in the safe?
“You know, there was petty cash in there. Forty bucks,” Barney says jokingly.
“Take it out of my check.” Fish replies, not missing a beat.
Fish returns after retirement in two episodes. In one, he’s the only one who gains the trust of a man who took his deceased friend out of a funeral home to bury him in Central Park as it was his final wish. Fish sits in the cage with him and the two talk as Fish gently and deftly coaxes the man into giving him the location.
In his second visit, he helps talk down a woman who is holding the squad room hostage with a homemade bomb.
At the end, Barney thanks him for “Reminding us all how it’s supposed to be done.”
Abe showed us all how it was supposed to be done, and the laughter and legacy he left behind will always be a wonderful reminder of that. Here’s to you Abe!