Television Review: Forgive Us Our Trespasses (Homicide: Life on the Street, S7X22, 1999)

Forgive Us Our Trespasses (S07E22)

Airdate: 21 May 1999

Written by: Tom Fontana
Directed by: Alan Taylor

Running Time: 44 minutes

The most revered television series often conclude in ways that leave their most ardent fans unfulfilled, and Homicide: Life on the Street’s final episode, Forgive Us Our Trespasses, is no exception. While the show’s cancellation after seven seasons was inevitable—NBC’s indifference to its gritty, unflinching realism had long been evident—the decision to produce a seventh season at all rankled fans. This final instalment, written by series co-creator Tom Fontana, compounded the frustration. The seventh season had already become a litany of missed opportunities, its narrative direction increasingly prioritising ratings-driven sensationalism over the raw, procedural authenticity that defined David Simon’s original vision. Characters like Detective Sheppard, a vacuous “eye candy” role thrust into the ensemble by producers, and Lt. Mike Giardello, whose poorly executed family melodrama diluted the show’s focus, underscored a creative bankruptcy. For many, the seventh season felt like a desperate, unnecessary afterthought, and Forgive Us Our Trespasses did little to reverse that impression.

Despite its flaws, the episode occasionally glimpsed the brilliance that once made Homicide groundbreaking. However, these fleeting moments—often tied to the series’ core themes of moral ambiguity and institutional failure—were insufficient to salvage either the season or the finale itself. The show’s decline was by then too entrenched, its scripts bloated with underdeveloped subplots and tonal whiplash. Even in its final moments, the episode seemed to grasp at relevance without truly reconnecting with the soul of the series.

The episode’s opening sequence, a direct sequel to the season’s weak Homicide.com, immediately signals its mediocrity. Detectives Sheppard and Bayliss return to a courtroom to observe the trial of internet killer Luke Rayland, whose case has been repeatedly postponed. When the judge finally dismisses the charges on technicalities, Bayliss—already frayed by recent trauma, including being shot and a subsequent self-defence killing—lashes out violently at Assistant State Attorney Danvers. This physical confrontation, coupled with Bayliss’s subsequent humiliation by Rayland (who vows to livestream new murders in New Orleans), amplifies his psychological unraveling. Yet the scene feels rushed, its emotional weight undercut by the crassness of Rayland’s taunts. The subplot’s resolution—Rayland’s mysterious murder, investigated by Lewis and Sheppard—is equally underwhelming. While Lewis notes the killer’s attention to evidence concealment, the thread is abandoned, leaving the audience with little closure.

Parallel to this main narrative, the episode introduces a side story involving the death of Johanna Foster McQueen, a heroin addict found in a derelict house. Detectives Falsone and Lewis quickly arrest her husband, Shane McQueen, for the murder of his friend Teague Ford, whom he suspected of an affair with Johanna. The true revelation, however, arrives with the arrival of Johanna’s sister, Sister Mary Catherine (Jessica Hecht), a nun unaware of her sibling’s sordid life. Her insistence on forgiving Shane in prison injects a faintly redemptive note, though the subplot is underdeveloped. Sister Mary Catherine’s presence, while intriguing, is never fully explored, reducing her arc to a didactic moral lesson.

Forgive Us Our Trespasses also undertakes the gruelling task of tying up lingering character arcs. Munch’s wedding to Billie Lou, a subdued Catholic ceremony, is juxtaposed with his post-nuptial complaint about his “performance” on their wedding night—a joke that feels both crass and tonally jarring. Meanwhile, Lt. Giardello’s promotion to captain and transfer to Property Crimes is treated as a perfunctory conclusion to his poorly received storyline. These resolutions feel rushed, as if the writers were ticking boxes rather than honouring the characters’ journeys.

Fontana, however, deserves partial credit for avoiding the pitfalls of earlier episodes. By sidelining Falsone—a character increasingly disliked for his smugness and narrative centrality—he shifts focus to Bayliss, the series’ moral centre. The episode traces Bayliss’s metamorphosis from earnest rookie to a man haunted by guilt and institutional disillusionment. Alan Taylor’s direction employs rapid flashbacks, reminding viewers of Bayliss’s evolution, while Kyle Secor delivers a nuanced performance, capturing the detective’s simmering rage and existential despair. The suggestion that Bayliss crossed the line into vigilantism adds a provocative layer to his character, though it feels underexplored.

The remainder of the episode, however, devolves into uninspired filler. Munch’s marital woes and Giardello’s family dynamics are handled with little insight, their inclusion seeming more about padding runtime than thematic depth. Even Sister Mary Catherine’s arc, while thematically rich, is underutilised, her forgiveness subplot resolving too abruptly to resonate. The finale’s weakest moments reveal the series’ creative exhaustion, its writers grasping for relevance in a season that should never have existed.

The episode’s closing scene, a deliberate nod to the pilot’s opening, underscores its cyclical themes. Detective Lewis, while investigating Rayland’s killing, repeats the exact dialogue he had at the very beginning of the first episode Gone for Goode. This circular structure, while fitting the series’ ethos, feels less like a satisfying conclusion and more like an admission of defeat. Homicide had always resisted the slickness of police procedurals, preferring to dwell in the moral murk of real-world policing. Yet by its final episode, even this ethos felt diluted, replaced by melodrama and contrivance.

Ironically, Forgive Us Our Trespasses was not the true end. NBC resurrected the series months later with Homicide: The Movie, a two-hour TV film that divided fans. Some viewed it as a fitting coda; others dismissed it as another cash-grab. Regardless, the episode and its sequel remain relics of a show that had outlived its creative vitality.

Despite its flaws, Homicide: Life on the Street’s legacy endures. Its unflinching realism, character depth, and influence on later series like The Wire—often hailed as its spiritual successor—cement its place in television history. Forgive Us Our Trespasses may not be a fitting farewell, but it serves as a reminder of what the series once was: a groundbreaking exploration of urban decay and institutional failure, undone only by its own prolonged twilight. For all its mediocrity, the finale’s final moments echo the series’ core truth—that on the streets of Baltimore, little ever truly changes. And perhaps, in that unchanging cycle, lies the show’s enduring power.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

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