"Gone for Goode" introduced regular cast members Daniel Baldwin, Ned Beatty, Richard Belzer, Andre Braugher, Wendy Hughes, Clark Johnson, Yaphet Kotto, Melissa Leo, Jon Polito, and Kyle Secor.

The episode connects several subplots involving the detectives of a Baltimore Police Department homicide unit and establishes story arcs that continued through the first season.

Among them are an investigation by Meldrick Lewis (Johnson) and Steve Crosetti (Polito) into a widow killing husbands for insurance money, as well as rookie Tim Bayliss (Secor) being assigned the murder of an 11-year-old girl for his first case.

The episode opens with Baltimore Police detectives Meldrick Lewis (Clark Johnson) and Steve Crosetti (Jon Polito) looking for a projectile a few yards away from the body of a man shot to death.

The man's girlfriend (Oni Faida Lampley), who was shot in the head during the incident but survived, tells police during questioning that her aunt, Calpurnia Church, hired a hitman to kill her for insurance money.

Detective John Munch (Richard Belzer) is reluctant to follow up on the case of murdered drug addict Jenny Goode, who was run over by a car.

Munch and Bolander question him, believing the suspect (Joe Hansard) to have dyed his hair to change his appearance after killing the woman.

Lieutenant Al "Gee" Giardello (Yaphet Kotto) tells Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher), an excellent detective but a lone wolf, that he must work with a partner.

Bayliss initially believes the death to be a heart attack, but Pembleton correctly determines it is a murder because the man's car is missing.

Levinson and fellow executive producer Tom Fontana hired Attanasio to adapt elements of the book into the teleplay for the first episode.

Tony Black finished the editing for "Gone for Goode",[4] but did not return for the rest of the season, and Jay Rabinowitz worked as editor for the remaining episodes.

[6] Additionally, despite intense advance promotion of the Homicide premiere, Attanasio deliberately sought to introduce the show with little fanfare, avoiding sensational gimmicks in favor of character-driven plot, quirky dialogue and morbid dark humor.

[8] The Adena Watson murder case, which is assigned to Bayliss in the final scene of "Gone for Goode", was adapted from the unsolved 1988 slaying of Latonya Kim Wallace, which made up a major part of the book.

In that final scene, Detective Rene Sheppard (played by Michael Michele) says to Lewis, "Life is a mystery, just accept it", a line spoken by Crosetti in the first episode.

"[6] Levinson specifically asked that the body by Howard and Felton be badly decomposing and attracting flies because he felt other police dramas did not portray corpses in a realistic way.

Among them were near-constant movement with hand-held Super 16 cameras to give the episode a naturalistic documentary look and an editing style involving jump cuts that was unusual for television at the time.

[4] In addition to stylistic touches, the episode established several narrative motifs that stayed with Homicide: Life on the Street throughout the duration of the series.

[7] "Gone for Goode" marks the first performance of Richard Belzer as Detective John Munch, a character the actor has played in more than 300 television episodes in a number of shows, including Homicide and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

[19] Alexander Chaplin, who later played speechwriter James Hobert on the ABC sitcom Spin City, portrayed the alleged murderer Johnny in "Gone for Goode".

Crosetti disputes the accepted theory that actor John Wilkes Booth killed Lincoln and instead theorizes that Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America, organized the murder.

[23] The network ran numerous television commercials advertising the premiere episode, some of which focused on the involvement of Barry Levinson with the hope of capitalizing on the feature film director's household name.

In particular, regarding the episode's complex story lines and distinctive visual style, he said, "I imagine anyone who has been drinking a lot at a Super Bowl party might have trouble following the show.

"[12] In its first episode Homicide's sly mix of arresting cinematography, brutal, heart-tugging cases -- often infused with warped gallows humor -- and sharply written cop philosophy was fully formed.

Grahnke also said the show "has the spice, dry wit and ethnic diversity of the Hill Street Blues crew, with even more eccentricities and a heightened sense of realism".

[23] John Goff of Daily Variety said the episode was well filmed and edited, and included a strong cast with performances "above normal level of series work".

[3] Entertainment Weekly writer Bruce Fretts particularly praised Andre Braugher's performance: "It's not often you actually witness a TV star being born...

"[28] The New York Times television critic John J. O'Connor praised the performance of Jon Polito, and said the role could be "the kind of career break Joe Pesci found in the Lethal Weapon movies".

[29] Mike Boone of The Gazette praised Belzer's performance and the hand-held camera style of photography, adding, "But if your picture tube blew Sunday night, you could still listen to an hour of the hippest, funniest dialogue on TV.

[12] James Endrst, television columnist for The Hartford Courant, felt the episode was over-hyped and said "seen it, done it, been there before" of the filming techniques otherwise being praised as cutting edge.

[35][36] "Gone for Goode" and the rest of the first and second-season episodes were included in the four-DVD box-set "Homicide: Life on the Street: The Complete Seasons 1 & 2", which was released by A&E Home Video on May 27, 2003, for $69.95.