Television Review: Lines of Fire (Homicide: Life on the Street, S7X20, 1999)

Lines of Fire (S07E20)

Airdate: 7 May 1999

Written by: James Yoshimura
Directed by: Kathryn Bigelow

Running Time: 45 minutes

The creators of popular television shows have long operated within a precarious balance of artistic vision and external pressures, a reality exacerbated during the broadcast television era. In an age when episodes could be censored, rescheduled, or outright scrapped due to unforeseen real-world events—whether wars, natural disasters, or cultural upheavals—the creative process was often a hostage to forces beyond the writers’ control. Nowhere was this tension more pronounced than in the late 1990s, when the Columbine High School massacre of April 1999 reshaped American media landscapes. The tragedy not only intensified debates over gun control but also triggered a self-censorship campaign within Hollywood, as studios and networks began sanitising violence in mainstream films through the increasingly hypocritical PG-13 rating. For Homicide: Life on the Street, a show renowned for its gritty realism, the fallout from Columbine proved devastating, derailing the finale of its final season and underscoring the fragility of even the most respected dramas when confronted with societal panic.

The most immediate casualty of Columbine’s aftermath was Homicide: Life on the Street, whose seventh and final season teetered on cancellation even before the massacre. The episode Lines of Fire, originally slated for airing in April 1999, became an unwitting victim of network nervousness. NBC executives, fearing public outrage over parallels between the episode’s plot—a standoff involving a barricaded gunman with hostages—and the Columbine tragedy, opted to replace it with Identity Crisis, an episode that had been intended as the penultimate instalment. This decision created a narrative knot: Identity Crisis concluded with the abrupt resignation of FBI liaison Mike Giardello, a character central to the show’s DNA. The network’s intervention, though well-intentioned, left the series with a continuity problem, one resolved only belatedly through reruns and DVD releases that restored the original broadcast order.

Lines of Fire centres on FBI Special Agent Mike Giardello (Giancarlo Esposito), still embedded within the Baltimore Police Department’s Homicide Unit, and his efforts to defuse a volatile situation. A uniformed officer is shot during a domestic disturbance call, leading to a standoff with the shooter, Emmet Carey (Ron Eldard), a recently unemployed shipyard worker who barricades himself in his apartment with his young son and stepdaughter. Carey, driven to despair by financial ruin and familial strain, threatens to detonate a gas leak unless his grievances are addressed. Giardello, paired with Detective Stuart Gharty (Peter Gerety), is tasked with negotiating with Carey, even as the Quick Response Team urges a militarised intervention. The episode’s tension escalates when Carey’s wife, Lucy (Marianne Hagan), breaches the police perimeter in a frenzied attempt to reach her children, leading to a tragic accident when Carey fires at her in panic. Although Giardello manages to win release of Carey’s stepdaughter, the standoff’s resolution is as bleak as its premise, underscoring the episode’s willingness to embrace moral ambiguity.

While Lines of Fire drew ire for its post-Columbine release, Homicide had actually tackled similar themes years earlier in Hostage, a Season 5 two-parter from 1995. That episode depicted a school takeover by a mentally unstable man, a scenario that eerily prefigured Columbine’s violence. Yet Lines of Fire does not feel derivative or exploitative; its differences from Columbine are stark. The hostage situation here is rooted in personal rather than ideological motives, and the episode’s focus on the negotiator’s psychological toll, the socioeconomic pressures on Carey, and the bureaucratic inertia of law enforcement lends it a groundedness absent in the real-world tragedy. The parallels with Columbine lie largely in the paramilitary police response and media frenzy—common tropes in crime dramas of the era—but the episode’s restraint avoids sensationalism, instead probing the human cost of despair.

Written by James Yoshimura, Lines of Fire shares structural similarities with his earlier Homicide episode The Subway (Season 6). Both are “bottle episodes”, confined to a single location with a limited cast, yet Yoshimura’s script excels in generating high-stakes drama from minimal resources. The tight setting amplifies the tension, forcing characters into confrontations that reveal their vulnerabilities. Ron Eldard’s performance as Carey is particularly standout, portraying a man whose desperation spirals into self-destruction; his monologues about lost dignity and failed fatherhood are raw and compelling. Giancarlo Esposito’s Giardello and Peter Gerety’s Stuart Gharty provide a steady counterpoint, their calm professionalism contrasting with Carey’s unraveling. Yoshimura also subtly weaves in Baltimore’s racial and ethnic fault lines: the characters’ discussions of Irish, Italian, and Black heritage underscore the city’s complex social fabric, a hallmark of Homicide’s world-building.

The episode’s most controversial element—and likely the reason for NBC’s intervention—is its grim, irreversible ending. In a series already known for its unflinching realism, Lines of Fire pushes tragedy to its limits. Every character makes catastrophic choices: Carey’s initial act of violence, Lucy’s reckless breach of the police line, and, most controversially, Giardello’s decision to block a clear shot at Carey, believing negotiation is still possible. This last choice leads to two additional deaths, a conclusion that feels less like organic storytelling and more like a contrived downer. While Homicide rarely offered tidy resolutions, the episode’s relentless pessimism strains credibility. The cumulative effect is less a tribute to realism than a concession to melodrama, as if the script demands audiences endure unnecessary suffering to underline its message.

Lines of Fire remains a compelling, if imperfect, part of Homicide’s final season. Its strengths—Eldard’s performance, Yoshimura’s taut dialogue, and the show’s signature focus on human frailty—make it a standout episode. Yet its artificiality in service of tragedy prevents it from achieving the series’ highest echelons.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)

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