Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Sundays, I will be reviewing Homicide: Life On The Street, which aired from 1993 to 1999, on NBC!  It  can be viewed on Peacock.

This week, secrets are uncovered and trust is betrayed.

Episode 3.11 “Cradle to Grave”

(Dir by Myles Connell, originally aired on January 13th, 1995)

Police Commissioner James Harris (Al Freeman, Jr.) gives Pembleton a special assignment.  A congressman (Dick Stillwell) claims to have been temporarily abducted by a man in a van but he also says that he doesn’t want to press charges.  Both Harris and Pembleton suspect that the Congressman is lying and that he filed a false police report, which is itself a crime.  Pembleton’s investigation leads to the discovery that the abduction story was actually the congressman’s attempt to cover-up a quarrel between him and his lover (Christopher Glenn Wilson).  Pembleton goes to the congressman and offers to drop the investigation into the abduction so that the congressman’s personal life will not be exposed.  The congressman agrees.

Unfortunately, news of the false police report still gets out and Pembleton is sold out by Harris, who claims that he never gave Pembleton permission to drop the investigation, even though Harris made it clear that he wanted the problem to go away.  Outraged over being sold out by his boss and also by Giardello’s refusal to back him up (Giardello is upset that Pembleton lied to him about the investigation), Pembleton turns in his badge and quits the force.

Meanwhile, Lewis and Much investigate the murder of a biker.  What they discover is that the biker sacrificed his own life after it was discovered that his wife was an FBI informant.  In order to keep the gang from going after his daughter, the victim agreed to be killed in retribution.

And finally, Felton and Howard try to investigate a murder but …. where’s the body!?  It turns out that the body is on the move.  First, it’s accidentally sent to the hospital before Felton and Howard can get a look at it.  Then, it’s returned to the crime scene while Felton and Howard are heading to the morgue.  Apparently, this was based on a true story and I can believe it.  There’s no incompetence like bureaucratic incompetence.

This was not a bad episode.  Andre Braugher did a great job of capturing Pembleton’s pain at being betrayed by his mentor, Commission Harris.  Even the biker stuff was well-handled, with Timothy Wheeler giving a strong performance as the club’s “warlord.”  The biker stuff had an interesting subplot, with one of the bikers revealing himself to be an undercover FBI agent trying to make a RICO case.  As with the case involving the congressman, it helped to create a definite atmosphere of mistrust that ran through the entire episode.  Whether it was the FBI or the congressman or just the EMTs, no one could be trusted and no one knew what they were doing.

It’s a good episode.  I hope Pembleton reconsiders quitting.  The city needs him.