TV Club 10: Homicide: Life On The Street's most unforgettable episodes

With TV Club 10, we point you toward the 10 episodes that best represent a TV series, classic or modern. They might not be the 10 best episodes, but they’re the 10 episodes that’ll help you understand what the show’s all about. 

One of the greatest mysteries of the streaming era was why NBC’s Homicide: Life On The Street wasn’t a part of it. When the show’s breakout star Andre Braugher passed suddenly in 2023, almost every story about his death noted the tragedy of being unable to see his work, a performance with an impact that still ripples through the industry. Braugher anchored a drama that didn’t just directly spawn other influential shows like Oz and The Wire, but also took an ensemble approach to hot-button issues in a manner that never spoke down to viewers like so much TV of the ’90s. How great was Homicide? Anyone old enough to watch it when it originally ran can vividly recount details of its best mysteries and traits of its most fascinating characters. The blend of procedural storytelling and character-driven ensemble work made it anything but disposable, a program that was impossible to forget. And now we can all revisit it on Peacock.

Homicide: Life On The Street started as a nonfiction book by future The Wire creator David Simon, which he sent to the Oscar-winning director Barry Levinson in the hope of adapting it into a film. The Rain Man director saw more potential in episodic storytelling, pulling some cases directly from real life in the first couple of seasons. Eschewing the typical copaganda of the day, Homicide dealt directly with controversial topics and the impact of violence on the people who investigate it. Filmed almost entirely on location in Baltimore with handheld 16-millimeter cameras, Homicide didn’t look or sound like anything else on TV, and that’s probably why it faced the threat of cancellation for its entire seven-season run. 

The ensemble of Homicide would change radically over those seasons, with only four regulars surviving the all of them: new guy Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor), Lieutenant Al “Gee” Giardello (Yaphet Kotto), and Detectives Meldrick Lewis (Clark Johnson) and John Munch (Richard Belzer). They were joined in the first season by an incredible crew of performers, including Melissa Leo as Kay Howard, Daniel Baldwin as Beau Felton, Jon Polito as Steve Crosetti, and Ned Beatty as Stanley Bolander. The entire ensemble rocked, but the instant breakout was Andre Braugher, whose Frank Pembleton made it onto the Mount Rushmore of fictional TV cops before the end of the first season. Braugher’s performance is alternately subtle and explosive, one that shifts seamlessly from nuanced internal monologues to intense interrogations in “The Box.”  

Over the years, other notable performers would clock in to the BPD, including Michelle Forbes, Reed Diamond, and even Giancarlo Esposito, and the show would become well-known for guest performances, a common practice in network cop shows that the writers of Homicide usually found a way to elevate above stunt casting. And with more than 100 episodes and even a movie to close it out, where does one even start? It’s incredibly difficult to narrow a show this memorable down to 10 episodes, but these offer a great sampler pack of what Homicide did better than anyone at the time—and arguably ever since.

It’s worth noting that NBC often aired episodes out of production order—sometimes creating truly weird continuity errors, especially in the second season—but Peacock has restored the intended order, so those are the episode numbers reflected below. 

“Three Men And Adena” (season 1, episode 6)

The series premiere of Homicide ended with Pembleton and his new partner Bayliss responding to the case that would really shape the entire series: the vicious murder of Adena Watson, an 11-year-old girl. It would particularly haunt Bayliss through the run of the Homicide, and this is the episode that defined the first season and the ambition of the program as a whole. Almost a bottle episode, the majority of “Three Men And Adena” depicts an interrogation conducted by Bayliss and Pembleton of a man named Risley Tucker (Moses Gunn), their No.1 suspect. With only 12 hours to go before they have to release Tucker, Bayliss and Pembleton keep turning up the heat on their suspect, resorting to some techniques that could politely be called questionable.

A winner of the Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series (for Tom Fontana)—a prize that helped get the low-rated show a renewal—“Three Men And Adena” is arguably the definitive Homicide episode. Braugher, Secor, and Gunn are all completely present in their heated interactions, giving viewers the feeling that they’re eavesdropping more than watching a manufactured mystery. And the fact that they don’t get their man would haunt the rest of the series. 

“Black And Blue” (season 2, episode 2)

Photo: NBCUniversal

The first season of Homicide was such a disappointment to NBC that they only gave the show a four-episode sophomore run, which aired in its entirety in January 1994. Each installment is really good, especially this masterpiece, which producer/writer James Yoshimura said is his favorite episode of the show. It picks up the case of the previous hour, “See No Evil”: the homicide of Charle Courtland Cox, a dealer who Pembleton suspects was killed by Baltimore police officers when a raid went wrong. Braugher breathtakingly balances issues of police corruption and racial dynamics in Baltimore in his performance, which culminates in one of the show’s greatest scenes, the interrogation that shouldn’t really be an interrogation.

When a woman reveals that her grandson Lane (Isaiah Washington) witnessed the shooting, Gee insists that he is confronted more as a suspect, clearly trying to sweep away a case that could look bad for the BPD. Pembleton plays along, leaning into Lane’s interrogation so hard that he gets what is obviously a false confession. Gee ultimately does what’s right, but confronting how easily a talented detective like Pembleton could use his skill for evil this early in the show was daring. You didn’t see the guys on Hill Street Blues do that kind of thing. There’s also a fun subplot in here in which Beatty gets to shine even if the age gap between him and a new love interest played by Juliana Margulies would be the talk of social media today.

“Bop Gun” (season 2, episode 4)

While it now sits in the fourth spot, this was actually the first episode aired in the second season, an attempt by NBC to woo viewers with a major guest star, a buddy of Levinson’s from Good Morning, Vietnam: Robin Williams. The legendary performer plays a tourist who watches his wife get shot to death in front of him and their two kids when they stumble into the wrong neighborhood. Directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal, it also features one of the first turns by his son Jake as one of the traumatized children.

Rather than just underlining the melodrama of this kind of unimaginable trauma, “Bop Gun” unpacks how easy it can be for police officers to dehumanize their victims. Williams is emotionally raw, an open well of grief, but the officers around the BPD are just going about solving another case. It’s a reminder that victims aren’t just names in black or red on a board. They’re people with families that will never be the same. And this is also a reminder of how much we lost when we lost Robin Williams, a truly gifted human being.

“Crosetti” (season 3, episode 4)

The story goes that NBC insisted on pushing aside Jon Polito, who so memorably portrayed the Lincoln-obsessed Steve Crosetti in the first two seasons, but that Fontana wanted to find a way to bring him back until the actor openly criticized the Powers That Be, leading to Crosetti’s off-screen death. While losing Polito was a blow to the series in terms of quality, the decision to off his character led to one of the best hours of TV in the ’90s, an episode that addresses the epidemic of suicide in law enforcement and also allows its characters to reflect on grief in a manner that doesn’t feel like traditional TV melodrama. 

The key to this episode’s brilliance is in how it recognizes how pain is personal. While Bolander channels his into an investigation of what is an obvious suicide, Lewis convinces himself it’s a homicide. Meanwhile, Gee fights his superiors to get Crosetti the honored by the city, and Pembleton struggles with faith to such a degree that he won’t attend the church service. It’s a different series of emotional chords that play in harmony, rising to a note in the final scene that’s one of the most memorable of the series: Pembleton doing what he thinks is right for the occasion. It’s all he can do.

“End Game” (season 3, episode 15)

Guest stars became a prominent part of the Homicide brand. And it makes sense. Back then, it was common for shows like Law & Order and ER to bring out familiar faces during sweeps season, and Homicide was a show struggling to make an impact in the ratings. Some of the best episodes of Homicide are defined by their special guests, including memorable chapters with David Morse, Charles Durning, J.K. Simmons, Dean Winters, and others. 

In this case, it’s the amazing Steve Buscemi as Gordon Pratt, a racist POS who tries to go head-to-head with Pembleton and loses badly. “End Game” is actually the culmination of a sharp three-episode arc (another big trend in the ’90s) that starts with a stunning ambush in “The City That Bleeds.” While serving a warrant on a suspected pedophile, gunfire erupts on Bolander, Howard, Felton, and Munch, who is the only one of the four who ends up uninjured. As three detectives cling to life and Russert tries to figure out how this could have happened, Pembleton eventually fingers the shooter, a walking time bomb played by Buscemi. The way Braugher breaks down his suspect’s manufactured superiority makes for one of the most riveting interrogations on the show. 

“Fire: Part 2” (season 4, episodes 2)

Homicide underwent a major overhaul to start the 1995 season with the departures of Daniel Baldwin and Ned Beatty, which required some new blood in the BPD. So why not start with a two-part season premiere? “Fire” introduces arguably the best performer on the show who wasn’t there from the beginning in Reed Diamond as the morally questionable arson investigator Mike Kellerman, who is dragged into an unforgettable case with the Homicide division when it appears fires are being used to cover up murders. The resolution of the investigation in this case is one of the show’s most dispiriting, one that’s so evil it leaves even Pembleton shaken. 

And then Braugher reminds everyone what he can do with a great script. It turns out that impending fatherhood has shifted Pembleton’s view of the cruel world. He knows more about actual malevolence than most people, seeing it every day on his job. What would that do to a father? How could you let your kid out of the house when you know what people are capable of doing to one another? Almost directly to camera, Braugher gives one of TV’s great monologues, asking, “How am I gonna protect my baby, Tim?” It’s an impossible question without a reasonable answer.

“A Doll’s Eyes” (season 4, episode 4)

The fourth season featured some of the most unexpected guest stars on Homicide, including Chris Rock, Lily Tomlin, Jeffrey Donovan, and even Jay Leno. The best of the year, and maybe the entire show, was Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden in this moving hour. Harden plays Joan Garbarek, wife to Paul (Gary Basaraba) and mother to Patrick (Stephen Francis Quinn). The trio are out at the mall on an ordinary day when shots ring out, one of them hitting the 10-year-old boy. As he clings to life, Pembleton and Bayliss try to find the random shooter as Patrick’s parents have to face the unfathomable.

Basaraba is also very good here, especially in early scenes in which he questions why Homicide is even there if doctors are trying to keep his son alive, but it slowly becomes Harden’s episode as Joan is forced to decide what to do regarding Patrick’s life support. They could possibly keep him on it for years, but they could also use his organs to save other lives. If you don’t cry during the scene in which Harden says goodbye to her baby boy, there’s something wrong with you.

“Blood Ties, Part 3” (season 6, episode 3)

Once again, NBC pulled out the big guns to try and drum up ratings for one of its most struggling shows, giving Homicide a three-part season premiere with a famous face at its center: James Earl Jones. The prospect of watching Vader himself go toe-to-toe with Braugher in the box is thrilling enough, but add in a young Jeffrey Wright and you have some must-see TV. It’s also an episode that once again deals with race and power in a manner that most network television in the ’90s was afraid to confront. The plotting here is a bit more inconsistent than some of the show’s best episodes, but it’s a showcase for three phenomenal Black actors—four, really, given how good Kotto is in this trifecta too—at a time when that wasn’t exactly common on network TV.

The three-parter opens with the death of a housekeeper for a prominent Black family in Baltimore, led by Jones. Gee and Pembleton’s defensiveness regarding an investigation into such a beloved figure impacts how they approach the case, even as evidence starts to point to the patriarch or his son, played by Wright. The Jones/Wright material over these three episodes sometimes feels incongruent with the developing investigation into the Mahoney shooting that ended the fifth season, and a case involving a Yankees fan being shot at Camden Yards in the middle episode is kinda silly, but it’s on this list because of its closing scenes in this final episode of the arc, which display some truly powerhouse acting. 

“The Subway” (season 6, episode 4)

Arguably the most famous episode of Homicide: Life On The Street, this is the one that has cemented itself in the brain stem of anyone who has to ride the subway on a regular basis. Terrifying and tragic in equal measure, it’s almost a two-man show between Braugher and Vincent D’Onofrio as a guy who either trips or is pushed into an oncoming train, pinning him between the vehicle and the platform. Turning his legs around “like a rubber band,” the poor soul is basically being kept alive by his predicament. In other words, as soon as they move the train, he’s done.

What unfolds is a terrifying study in something that’s both unimaginable but also easy to comprehend for subway riders. As Bayliss tries to figure out exactly what happened and if there’s a homicide here to investigate at all, a man comes to terms with his final minutes on Earth. D’Onofrio is spectacular, ping-ponging through anger, denial, and pain as Braugher brilliantly cedes most of the big emotional beats to him. Pembleton is often remembered for being larger than life in loud interrogation scenes, but this is one of Braugher’s subtlest episodes. This was the only season for which Homicide won an acting Emmy for Braugher, and “The Subway” makes it easy to see why he was finally too undeniable to snub again.

“Lines Of Fire” (season 7, episode 20)

There were a lot of cool directors over the run of Homicide, including Levinson, Mark Pellington, Mary Harron, and Alan Taylor, but one of its best was a future Oscar winner: Kathryn Bigelow. She took the directorial reins on the standout episode of what could be called the lost season of Homicide. By this point, most of the original cast, including Braugher, had left the show, and the producers were desperately trying to fill roles with new faces, most notably Giancarlo Esposito as Gee’s son. In this one, Esposito goes against a fantastic Ron Eldard as a man who has taken his two children hostage and turned on the gas. Taking place almost entirely in the stairwell outside the hostage situation, it’s a tense hour of television, pumped up by its lead performances and Bigelow’s undeniable skill with pacing.

The rails had pretty much come off what Homicide used to be, and one could argue that it’s just not the same show without Braugher (who would return for the closure of Homicide: The Movie, along with almost everyone else), but the truth is that this hour of TV would be one of the best of 2024 if it aired today. It’s evidence of how far ahead of its time Homicide was when it came to storytelling, character, and world-building, packing more into even a past-its-prime episode than a lot of modern shows do into an entire season.