Homicide Stories: Ep 108 &109

Trials, and conspiracies and asbestos, oh my!

My dear cohost, Reed Diamond, and I have come to the end of the first season of our podcast, Homicide: Life On Repeat. It’s been an uproarious, emotional, challenging, and ultimately fulfilling five months of our lives.

The last two episodes we watched were And the Rockets Dead Glare (with Bai Ling) and Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.

My query is this: what in the name of Edgar Allen Poe happened? Did Homicide go off the rails towards the end of that first season, or was it just a case of a show continuing to find its way?

It’s the New Year season —a time for moving forward, forgiveness, empathy, tenderness, compassion, peace, love, and understanding. So, I’m going for understanding.

Ah, remember the salad days of early season one? Those fantastic, outta-left-field episodes ramping up to Three Men and Adena. The actors were finding their characters, the writers were finding their tones. We were hailed as genre-busting! Homicide was lined up to end its first season on a high note.

Did it? Or was it an uneven, less sure-handed note? And did the much-maligned NBC brain trust, who switched out 104 for 109 (with 109 becoming 108), actually save the season?

Without (or with very little) judgment and with generosity of spirit, let’s do a little breakdown on why these episodes might have been necessary in the Big Picture and where I think they went off track.