Strait-laced Ella Metcalfe (the beautiful, talented and thoroughly Canadian Joanne Vannicola) witnesses her stoner brother Leon emerge from an alleyway (the one between Honest Ed's at Yonge and Bathurst) holding a bloody knife as his no-good buddy/accomplice Reggie lies motionless.
Ella hoofs it directly to her priest Father Jim Torres (the ubiquitous Tony De Santis) and tells him during her visit to the confessional. Toronto police Detective and former altar boy Frank Giambone (Jeff Wincott) is a childhood friend of the priest. Torres appears at the scene of the crime and guides Giambone and his partner Detective Kevin O'Brien (Scott Hylands) to Leon's house hoping Ella will, of her own volition, tell Giambone what she told him but she doesn't.
Sensing Torres knows more than he is saying O'Brien tries to get him to talk. Ella won't say with her basket-case mother (Canadian national treasure Chapelle Jaffe) around. Her big brother Leon demands she stay silent and is unconvinced when she informs him the only soul she has told - Torres cannot reveal what was said to him in confession.
Torres who once had a scuffle with Reggie discovers the murder weapon hidden inside the church rectory. Leon, more concerned with paying his drug-dealer (Tyrone Benskin) than helping police find him guilty, demands that they look at Torres as a potential suspect. Giambone of course is infuriated but they have to follow up. Will Torres violate the sanctity of the confessional and go on the record with what he heard Ella say? Fans of the show could note a consistency in Jeff Wincott's portrayal of Giambone - a judgemental hothead consistently frustrated by procedure and subjective interpretations of right and wrong. It is applied here in that tired cop show cliché of a priest keeping silent about something he heard in confessional.
Far from my favourite episode despite the presence of so many terrific Canadian actors as guest stars.
