Homicide Episode Guide: Forgive Us Our Tresspasses

Written by Tom Fontana

Directed by Alan Taylor

It has always been difficult to know with any degree of certainty, when Fontana and company knew that Season 7 was going to be the last one. I have always held the belief that they had been informed, due to the continually shrinking ratings and the fact that support for the series, which had always been borderline, was diminishing at the executive level. Even now, though, they seem to hold that they were preparing for a Season 8 regardless. As someone who had been a long time viewer, though, I had always made the supposition that Homicide was on its last legs by the spring of 1999, and that the writers were finishing up accordingly.

Admittedly, Forgive Us Our Trespasses doesn’t play like the typical series finale, but let’s be honest, Homicide never played by the rules when it came to anything else, so why should they do so when they were writing their last chapter? And to be perfectly honest, there are a lot of things in this episode that seem like Fontana is saying goodbye to the show he basically created. (There’s no final scene of a young boy looking at the squadroom through a snow globe, but I think even Fontana knew you could only ring that bell once.) So, let’s consider this as if were the end.

Bayliss and Sheppard are seen going to the court repeatedly to try and see Luke Ryland brought to justice for the murders he committed a few months back. No courtroom is available the first time, the defendant isn’t brought from pre-trial detention, and the last time, Danvers isn’t there. Russom (proving again he’ll represent anybody) brings up a loophole in the law, and Ryland walks through it. Bayliss and Sheppard confront Danvers angrily on this, and in a rare show of frustration, Ed complains openly at just how unfair the Baltimore prosecutor’s office is.  But Bayliss, who is usually so equitable about this, snarls at him, and when Danvers snarls back, Tim assaults him, a move which shocks even Sheppard.

Meanwhile, Giardello is, believe it or not, finally being promoted to Captain – a move that somehow brings Theresa, the only Giardello child we haven’t met yet in from out of town. (Multiple Tony winner Audra McDonald makes one of her earliest TV appearances as Theresa.) Gee is feeling equal parts reminiscent and uneasy. He calls Tim into his office, and relates how he got the nickname ‘Gee’ – and despite everything we’ve assumed during the life of the series, it’s not because of a simple shortening of his first name. When he waxes back to his rookie days, and tries to convince Bayliss to apologize to Danvers, Tim refuses. We don’t know why Tim is taking this particular murder skirting justice so seriously – he’s seen far worse happen over the course of the series. – but the implication seems to be that he misses Frank. Sheppard picks up on this very quickly, and whereas she mocked Pembleton the first time, now she diagnoses that Tim, who has been all over the place this season, is rudderless without Pembleton influence. Bayliss admits that he thought that Frank’s resignation last year was for show (and considering that’s what happened the first time he resigned, he has every reason to hold to that), and its very clear he’s still holding on to this.

With all this, there’s actually a murder to be solved going on, and Lewis and Falsone are investigating. In a throwback to early days, the victim is a drug dealer named Joanna McQueen, who looks ten years older than her date of birth. Unable to locate her husband to ID the body – at his home, they speak through the door to a woman who claims to be holding a shotgun on them, and when they bust the door open, it’s a woman in a wheelchair with a golf club – they end up tracking down her sister. When they find her sister, they are stunned to learn that she is a woman of the cloth, who has spent the last year believing Joanna has been married to an architect. Falsone doesn’t want to tell her the truth, but Lewis knows he has too. They don’t, however, until they arrest her murderer after he’s caught killing the man Joanna was sleeping with.

All of these stories are, in true Homicide tradition, running concurrently. The first to resolve is Al’s who, now that the promotion he’s longed for is his, can’t find it in himself to take. In that sense, Al is an outlier for a series that held itself to realism. When you get a promotion in any department, you take it. Al’s ultimate refusal may be fitting in with the character we’ve come to know, but it still seems wrong somehow. Mike’s saying that he’s proud of his father doesn’t make any less false.

Another element comes when Meldrick and Bayliss have a faceoff after he takes another opportunity to bring up Sheppard’s beat down. Bayliss tells Lewis he’s never been able to let anything go, and Lewis (who’s always had issues with him) tells him that Tim has always taking every murder, ever since Adena Watson, far too personally.

While all of this is going on, Munch’s wedding day to Billie Lou has arrived, and compared to all the drama going on everywhere else, this one actually goes with less trauma. Munch brings up his usual conspiracy theories about the Vatican, when he announces he’s marrying her in the church, and Lewis seems a little grateful not to be in the wedding party, saying that you have a better chance of survive a nuclear holocaust than having a happy marriage. At the time, we assume he’s talking about himself and Falsone, but it turns out he has Munch’s number.

The ceremony however goes on fine. It’s the wedding night that’s the problem. Munch shows up in the Waterfront late at night, and eventually tells Lewis that the vow of celibacy that he bitched about two episodes ago really backfired. He got into bed, and in his words: “World series, bottom of the ninth… I swing before she pitches the ball.”

The last ten minutes seem to cover a lot of ground.  Joanna’s sister upon learning the truth feels heartbroken, but wants to meet her brother-in-law ‘to offer her forgiveness’ Meldrick is so stunned by this that when Falsone tells him to consider it for Sheppard, he seems to take it seriously

Mike and Al have another conversation about Mike’s future now that he’s quit the Bureau. As a domestic disturbance unfolds around them, Mike says that as his father belongs to the streets, so does he. He doesn’t know how he’s going to get back there, and neither do we, but we eventually find out.

Bayliss has a confrontation with Ryland telling him they will get him. Ryland remains unrepentant, saying he’s heading to New Orleans, where he intends to continue his killing. And then, sometime later, Bayliss shows up at the Waterfront, and has a conversation with his partner where he brings up Gordon Pratt, who shot Felton, Howard and Bolander in Season3, never was charged, and ended up dead. Munch tells Bayliss that he believed Pratt should’ve died, and that his murder should have gone unsolved. Bayliss tells him about all of the drama he’s gone through this year, and that when he shot Larry Moss, he knows what it means to be a killer, like whoever killed Adena Watson. He then says Frank said he would never be a good murder police because he didn’t have a killer’s mind, something that even now still galls him. And then, he casually tells Munch that he always thought he killed Gordon Pratt. When Munch gets pissed (but gives nothing away) and asks why he bringing up Gordon Pratt, Tim draws back and says. “Just thinking about it”

Bayliss wraps up his night, by telling Danvers: “I want you to know I’m sorry. Truly sorry, for what I’ve done.” We know there’s a darker implication there, but Danvers accepts his apology. And when he tells him we’ll get Ryland. Bayliss says he knows. And that as a murder police, he knows that Justice is a bitch.

The next day seems like a typical day. Gharty and Stivers separately announce they’re going on vacation, which leads Falsone to start flirting with Ballard again. (Ick.) Lewis gets a call, and asks Sheppard to partner with him. Bayliss is seen cleaning up, saying he’s just ‘getting rid of some things he doesn’t need anymore’. He finishes up with his name plate. And the last three minutes of the episode are what make me certain Fontana was wrapping up the show. Bayliss walks through the squadroom the same way he was walking through it in the pilot. He goes to the door, and in a series of flashes, the editors seems to show at least one scene from every episode of the series it about a minute. You’ll have to play the DVD frame by frame to be sure but it always seemed that way to be, with the editors pausing on certain dramatic moments – the shooting of Bolander, Felton and Howard, Bayliss shattering the box window, Frank’s stroke, Luther Mahoney being shot, the squadroom being shot up, and Bayliss taking a bullet. And then, over his idealistic speech to Giardello, about Homicide always being where he wanted to be, he leaves.

The scene shows Sheppard and Lewis looking over the body of Luke Ryland. It seems to be a stone cold killing, with no clues or witness. When Sheppard says whoever it is knew what he was doing, Meldrick says “He or she.” Then Lewis says: “If I could just find this thing, I could go.” Sheppard: “You won’t find it. It’s a mystery. “Lewis: “What?” Sheppard: “Life. It’s a mystery.” Meldrick: “That’s what’s wrong with this job. It’s got nothing to do with life.” Word for word (albeit with Lewis saying Crosetti’s lines and Sheppard saying Lewis’) those are the lines from the first scene of the show. And as Meldrick and Renee look over a darkened crime scene with flashlight, the camera pulls up on an alley, and the credits roll

In that sense, this last scene seems like a goodbye. We’ve come full circle; even though it’s hard argue that anything has really changed in one way or another in Baltimore. The characters have grown, some in a bad way, some not. And while the implication is that Bayliss has killed Ryland and has left the squad because he can’t handle the guilt, the ambiguity that has been so much a part of Homicide all these years is still. Maybe Bayliss killed Ryland. Maybe Munch killed Gordon Pratt. Without evidence or witnesses, there’s no way to know. If this had really been Homicide’s final statement, I think I would still have been satisfied by it.

So why doesn’t Forgive Us Our Trespasses not achieve perfection? Well, basically because it wasn’t the end. All of the performances are excellent; especially Secor and Kotto, and the writing and cinematography are excellent. I realize that a bunch of people might have been upset that they didn’t get closure on a lot, but Homicide has never been about giving us closure. The last scene proves that – the circle is closed, but nothing has ended. That the fans wanted an ending is great. That the network gave them one… well, we’ll get to that.

My score: 4.5 stars.