City On A Hill Season 1 Finale Recap

What happened in the season 1 finale of City On A Hill? Early 1990s Boston is the setting for Showtime’s City On A Hill and given their affection for their hometown it shouldn’t be too surprising Boston natives Ben Affleck and Matt Damon serve as executive producers on the show. The gritty crime drama takes a cue from a real-life slice of Boston history when the city was rife with crime and corruption and focuses on idealistic and politically ambitious Assistant District Attorney DeCourcy Ward (Aldis Hodge) and corrupt, cocaine-fueled FBI agent Jackie Rohr (Kevin Bacon) – two very different men with different ways of getting things done.

In City On A Hill’s first season, DeCourcy and Jackie formed an uneasy alliance to bring down a gang of armored car robbers headed by Frankie Ryan (Jonathan Tucker) whose latest heist left three security guards dead. As the unlikely duo closed in on the gang with the help of Frankie’s live wire brother turned informant Jimmy (Mark O’Brien), DeCourcy found his morals tested while Jackie’s debauchery resulted in his personal life teetering on the edge of destruction. By the penultimate episode of the Showtime drama, the Ryan brothers were in police custody following a botched robbery and Frankie had figured out that Jimmy ratted him out while Jackie’s interference in the robbery left detective Hank Signa (Jere Shea) dead.

Much of the season 1 finale of City On A Hill – titled “Mayor Curley And The Last Hurrah” – concentrated on the Ryan brothers’ trial. Jimmy demanded Ward gave him blanket immunity in exchange for testifying against his brother but that backfired in a big way when Jimmy confessed to the murder of a missing associate on the witness stand, making Ward look a fool and jeopardizing his hopes for a political career. In the end, Jimmy walked free while his brother Frankie was found guilty of murder, grand larceny and a few other charges that should put him behind bars for the foreseeable future.

Elsewhere in City On A Hill’s season 1 finale, Jackie seemed practically bulletproof despite his many misdeeds. Not only did the slippery FBI agent survive a botched attempt on his life via a car bomb, but it also looked like his long-suffering wife Jenny (Jill Hennessy) was considering taking him back after kicking him out earlier in the season for getting his mistress pregnant. However, in the last few scenes of the finale, it seemed as though Jackie might soon get his comeuppance when Hank’s investigator Rachel (Sarah Shahi, Person Of Interest) presented DeCourcy with a file containing evidence of Jackie’s corruption.

Luckily, Showtime has already renewed City On A Hill for a second season so fans of the crime drama can expect to pick back up with Hodge’s good guy DeCourcy Ward and Bacon’s bad guy Jackie Rohr soon. While plot details and a release date have yet to be confirmed, hopes are high City On A Hill will produce a sophomore season just as gritty and compelling as its first.