You're a very funny man, lieutenant

4. Almost always is there a confession in the final minutes of each episodes. Almost every confession comes as a profound relief to the murderer; very rarely do they flail or protest. They have had their dignity and their humanity restored by justice; they are finally free of fear; they can finally begin the hard honest work of repentance. In the gospels, the “good news” almost always begins with the command to turn around; before the good news can become real, one must abandon ship, abandon course, abandon the future. Then life can begin. So too is almost every murderer finally, at the last, deeply grateful to the “lunchbox detective,” for releasing them from the need to lie, for releasing them from persecution, from fantasies of control and the delusion of power, for delivering them back to reality, terrible and wonderful. Other detective shows often pair arrest with despair; Columbo pairs arrest with relief, possibility, gentleness, graciousness, dignity, repair, and glad tidings.