Season 3

Episode 310: “The Homecoming, Part I”

Episode 310: “The Homecoming, Part I”
Original Air Date: November 24, 1996
Written by: Martha Williamson and William Schwartz
Directed by: Terrence O'Hara
Produced by:

Martha Williamson
Jon Andersen
R.J. Visciglia, Jr.

Guest Cast:
Julia Fitzgerald Delta Burke
Erasmus Jones Ossie Davis
Fran Katherine LaNasa
Chuck Taylor Negron
Jimmy Roy Fegan

Working from different vantage points, the angels help rehabilitate Julia Fitzgerald, a drug addict who is down and out. Monica, posing as a street walker, persuades the police to round up the disheveled Julia with the other ladies. In jail, she is encouraged by the angel to enter the New Spring Halfway House administered by Tess. Though Julia wants to leave the program, her parole officer, Andrew advises her doing so will land her back behind bars since her arrest was a parole violation.

Plagued by a past action she committed, the woman deserts the halfway house to rejoin her friend, Fran on the streets. But when she misses the rendezvous, Monica persuades Julia to return to New Spring. As she makes steady progress in rehab, the woman decides to make amends with people she has offended. First on the list is Chuck, the bartender and former employer she stole from. He wants to have Julia arrested, but Andrew convinces the man to let her pay him back. She returns to the alley where she has jewelry hidden in a secret place. But after pawning it, Julia encounters Fran, who is being confronted by her pimp, Jimmy. Returning to the halfway house, she admits giving Jimmy most of the money to help Fran but saving enough for herself to get high.

Tess leaves to confront the unscrupulous man. Afterwards, Julia panics because she has lost a necklace with great sentimental value–a memento of the son she gave up to his father for fifty dollars. A fatigued Tess returns after recovering the money, teaching Jimmy a lesson, paying back Chuck, and finding Julia’s locket. Revealing that she and Tess are angels, Monica encourages Julia to press on despite setbacks because God will always be there to pick her up. Days later, after Fran has entered rehabilitation herself, the angels send Julia to Chicory Creek, Kentucky where she is to find a man with a 1949 burgundy Cadillac. That man turns out to be Erasmus Jones, and Julia is astonished to learn his extended family is Promised Land’s Greene family. When they return to town for Thanksgiving, the prodigal mother will be reunited with her son… Nathaniel Greene.

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