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Season One
Justice and the Happy Ending
- Jack's old detective partner and pal from the army, Tom Fellows, comes back to town. After a couple of hours of reminiscing and laughing over old stories, Jack finds out why Tom is really in town. He's scouting for the mobs that want to move in and wants Jack at his side. Before Jack can respond, Trixie comes back to the office, and Tom prepares to shoot her. Jack tells Tom to let him do it.Trixie: (panicking as Jack cocks his gun) Jack? Jack, put down that gun!
Jack: Don't make this harder than it is, Trixie.
Trixie: Jack, you can't do this!
Jack: Stop it! ... Sorry, partner.
Jack fires two shots. Trixie thinks she's about to die, then realizes that Jack shot Tom Fellows behind her, something neither she nor Tom expected.
Season Three
The Reunion
- Jane Carter's life is ruined twice by her twin sister Edie. First is when Edie steals the man Jane loved but was too shy to tell. Second is when Edie shows up several years later after the man of contention has died, leaving her a widow, and is completely unrepentant, leading to an argument in which Jane pushes Edie who hits her head and dies. Even if the jury does believe it was an accident, or at worst, in the heat of the moment, her life won't be the same.
- It's implied that Jack has a family member with whom he had a similar falling out, and that this might be why he both doubted certain aspects of Jane's story and why he also wanted to believe it. At the end, he's considering calling a number, presumably the family member he wants to make up with but decides not to. Throughout the series, Jack is never mentioned as having contacted his family, so presumably, this quarrel remained unresolved.
Season Five
Small Mercies
- An old friend of Jack and Trixie's is found shot and names his brother, another old friend, as the killer with his dying breath. Jack and Trixie find that the murderer was actually the wife over whom the brothers fell out. She decided she wanted to be single again and set up the brothers to kill each other (though a miscalculation meant she had to do the job herself and frame the survivor). At the end, one brother is dead and the other never gets the chance to reconcile with him.
- The episode ends with the younger brother, Ted, noting that he was so drunk at the time it all went down that not only did his own brother set him up to take the fall for his murder, but Ted himself couldn't be sure he was innocent. He laments that perhaps that tells a man all he needs to know about himself.
Season Six
Hush Money
- The episode starts humorously enough with Theo trying to act tougher like Jack to impress Trixie, but it takes a dark turn at the end when the trio realizes that the blackmail payoff they were hired to handle is actually a murder payoff. They figure it out in time and stop it, but Theo has to shoot a man (it's implied to be the first time he's killed someone) and is understandably disturbed afterward.
Auld Lang Syne
- Trixie's old friend from school Evie comes to town and needs their help with blackmailing ex-boyfriend. It's one of the few times we see Trixie acting genuinely fond and gentle with someone, and we learn that Evie was an innocent, the one everyone looked out for at Trixie's reform school, and of whom Trixie is still protective. Which only makes it more sad when it turns out that Evie is actually the blackmailer, and she put Trixie at risk carrying out her scheme.
The Albatross
- Jack and Trixie help Sabien solve the murder of a teenage, pregnant, black girl, Laverne, that no one else cared about. They arrest her murderer, a rich, white politician who had an affair with her and had her killed when Laverne wouldn't abort the baby, and hold him to account. But at the end, Laverne and her baby are still dead, and nothing Sabien can do will change that.
- This case is a very rough one for Sabien, Papa Wolf that he is. It's so bad Jack and Trixie drop the bulk of their snark when discussing the case and are completely sympathetic to what he's going through. When Sabien is confronting the politician, he is ready, willing, and able to shoot the man on the spot. Jack does everything he can to convince Sabien to not go through with it. Not out of any concern for the man Sabien wishes to kill, but because he knows it will only add to Sabien's burden, not lighten it.
Season Seven
The Score
- Jack loses another old friend when said friend, Packer, manipulates him into helping him burgle a Nazi-in-hiding by telling him another old army pal is dying and has nothing to leave to his family. It turns out Packer told a different sob-story to each member of their unit to convince them to help him with this job. When Jack realizes they've been had, he calls the police, cuts a deal for the innocent members and gives Packer a head start. Packer accuses Jack of selling him out, ignoring the fact that he lied to Jack in the first place.
- When explaining the background of the fugitive Nazi they're going after, Packer references their best sniper and describes him as a "stone-cold killer." That sniper was Jack. One of the points of friction between Packer and Jack is that Packer, like Tom Fellows a few seasons before, can't understand that Jack has changed. Jack himself says he's not that person any more, and he's never going back. Jack doesn't talk about his war experience, even in the narration, but given what he says (and given that it's a war period), it can't be easy on him.
Season Ten
The One That Got Away
- After seasons of hanging around Trixie and either wanting to date her, dating her, or having been warned off by gun shot, Theo finally moves on and gets engaged to a nice woman. When Trixie finds out, she insists she doesn't care but sounds teary. In the end, she wishes Theo well, and in the narration admits this might be one of the few times she's had regrets about her lifestyle. Made even more sad by the foreshadowing in Theo's very first episode where he's awkwardly trying to flirt with her and says that one of these days he's going to give up on her.
