Tropes:
- Accidental Murder: Finch's death; Hodge came across him preparing to blackmail Giles, tried to stop him, and in the struggle, accidentally struck Finch dead.
- All Gays Are Pedophiles: After Giles admits to being gay, Murdoch initially assumes that he also engaged the services of underage male prostitutes; a furious Giles points out the folly of this argument, making it clear that it is absolutely not the case.Murdoch: You lay with street boys!
Giles: Never! Never! You are conflating two perversions which are totally separate. Do you seek the company of little girls?
Murdoch: Of course not. - Asshole Victim: Finch was a crooked cop who murdered a boy and tried to blackmail Giles into taking the fall for it; despite his reputation as a hero, no one missed him when he was gone, and Murdoch isn't overly happy that Hodge and Giles have to suffer the consequences for his death.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: As soon as Giles is outed as a gay man, his career is over even before he's been solidly tied to any crime, and Finch's plan to blackmail Giles in the 1880s depended on outing him; if Finch did, Giles' word would be considered worthless compared to Finch's, evidence be damned.
- Dirty Cop: The late Constable Finch was a particularly nasty one; he extorted the street boys, arrested or beat them if they didn't pay up, murdered one of them and tried to frame then-Detective Giles for it, and tried to blackmail Giles so he could get away with his crime.
- Embarrassing Nickname: As a young constable, Brackenreid had the nickname "Tommy Two-Cakes"; after hearing it from Stockton, Brackenreid orders Murdoch to never say it again (though Murdoch does get one quick dig in).
- Foreshadowing: A senile Stockton refers to Brackenreid, Appleby, Perkins, and Hodge by their old nicknames; Hodge's turns out to be the last piece of the puzzle for Murdoch.
- Frame-Up: Finch tried to frame Giles for the death of the street boy Finch had murdered. Giles considered the set-up laughably poor and was intent on disproving it before Finch got a photo of Giles in bed with another man.
- Generation Xerox: Giles and Hodge's relationship in the 1880s seems to be a mirror for Murdoch and Crabtree in the present; both pairs were a dogged detective not entirely appreciated by his peers and an unbreakably loyal constable who served as his right-hand man.
- I Remember Because...: Stockton remembers his last meeting with Constable Finch (who vanished mysteriously before his dead body is found about 20 years later) because he was in a hurry to get to his anniversary party and told Finch it would have to wait until after he got back.
- Nerves of Steel: Giles knows from moment one whose body was discovered under the station house, but he never gives the slightest sign of worry or nervousness. Even when Murdoch has him under interrogation, Giles doesn't give up an inch willingly, even convincingly lying to try and make sure Hodge (who does not have Giles' nerve) doesn't get caught.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Giles and Hodge both suffer this in spades. Giles was just trying to stop Constable Finch from extorting, beating and murdering the street boys, and Hodge was just trying to get back the photo that Finch would use to out Giles. It gets both of them fired from the Constabulary and jailed when Finch's body is discovered several years later.
- Not So Above It All: Murdoch uses Brackenreid's old Embarrassing Nickname in a rare moment of trolling his boss.
- Not So Stoic: Giles keeps calm no matter how much pressure Murdoch puts on him about the murder, but he explodes when Murdoch accuses him of sleeping with the underage street boys. He points out that the heterosexual Murdoch doesn't molest underage girls, and even though he's gay he doesn't molest underage boys.
- Politically Incorrect Hero: Stockton refers to the street boys as "nancy", and is mentioned to have been indifferent when one of them was murdered.
- Saying Too Much: When Murdoch realises that someone helped Giles with Finch's death, despite Giles claiming to have acted alone, he demands to know who could be so loyal. Giles sarcastically names his old dog, Dodger... unaware that Murdoch had previously heard Stockton call Hodge "Dodger" (a reference to his loyalty to Giles), and his moment of sarcasm allowed Murdoch to put two and two together.
- Scatterbrained Senior: Former Chief Constable Stockton is "away with the fairies" (as Brackenreid puts it) by this point; he falls back into habits from when he was the Inspector at Station No. 4 and quickly loses the thread while talking to Murdoch, though his memories of the past are reasonably sharp.
- Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: Specifically averted when Chief Contable Giles insist on being treated the same as the other suspects.
- Those Two Guys: Constables Ernest Appleby and Albert Perkins come in to be interviewed together and have a clear rapport. They also worked together back in the early days of Station House Four, and, despite coming across as having been fairly capable cops, Stockton The Nicknamer called them Tweedledee and Tweedledum. To further drive it in, they call each other Bert and Ernie.
- Undying Loyalty: Hodge and Giles, towards one another; when Finch tried to blackmail Giles, Hodge did what he could to stop him, killing Finch by accident. Giles helped him bury the body under the station house, and when Finch's body is discovered and his culpability is uncovered, Giles is prepared to take the fall to protect Hodge.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Constable Finch took a bullet while responding to a bank robbery and was hailed as a hero by those who didn't know that he also extorted and abused underage prostitutes, to say nothing of him having murdered one and being willing to throw a fellow policeman under the bus to get away with it.
- You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: While giving his confession to Murdoch, Hodge earnestly calls him "William", driving home that he's telling the truth about Finch's death having been an accident.
