All episodes Season 9 S09E21 2002-05-14 60 min 1990s ABC

NYPD Blue

Dead Meat in New Deli

TV Flash files “Dead Meat in New Deli” as hour 195 of 261 in the TV Flash guide — NYPD Blue (1993–2005) on ABC, season 9, episode 21, aired 2002-05-14, 60 min.

From the desk

How this hour is filed

This leaf is S09E21: listed hour 195 of 261 in the NYPD Blue guide, hour 21 of 23 in season 9. It aired 2002-05-14 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “Oedipus Wrecked” (S09E20). Next is “Better Laid Than Never (1)” (S09E22).

NYPD Blue — Dead Meat in New Deli (S09E21)

Catalog log

Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.

Sipowicz and Clark investigate the murder of a deli owner but begin to question the integrity of a robbery detective who is helping them with the case. Meanwhile, McDowell and Ortiz stumble on a sex slave operation, and McDowell accepts Sipowicz's proposal to join him and Theo on a vacation to Walt Disney World.

Viewer FAQ

Where does Dead Meat in New Deli sit in the NYPD Blue guide?

S09E21 is listed hour 195 of 261 — hour 21 of 23 in season 9, season 9 episode 21.

When did NYPD Blue S09E21 air?

Dead Meat in New Deli aired 2002-05-14 and is listed at 60 minutes.

Why was it controversial?

It pushed mid-1990s network limits on profanity, partial nudity, and adult subject matter — the standards-and-practices war was weekly news.

In the series

Why this series still plays

Butts, badges, and Sipowicz — Bochco and Milch teaching broadcast how to be adult out loud. Dennis Franz's alcoholic detective is the decade's great network antihero badge: bigoted, broken, still the moral furnace. Twelve seasons of language fights, cast shakeups, and precinct grit that primed living rooms for flawed cops before cable took the patent.

Flash: September 21, 1993, ABC, Manhattan South. Butts, badges, and a language fight already in the EPK. Steven Bochco and David Milch did not ask the museum guard whether broadcast was allowed to be adult out loud. They put detectives on a shift where alcoholism, divorce, and precinct politics bleed into the case. Dennis Franz's Andy Sipowicz is the decade's great network antihero badge — bigoted, broken, still the moral furnace. Sources close to Standards & Practices were *unavailable for comment*. They were…

Open the NYPD Blue package · Season 9 hub

Filed against

Also in season 9

← Full episode guide · Show package · All shows