December 26, 2003
Gun Show
In this episode (10.1), the premiere of Season 10, a misogynist uses a machine gun to shoot 15 female medical students in Central Park. The episode is the first with Detective Green (Jesse L. Martin), and he is masterful in it. His interrogation of the suspect is reminiscent of Andre Braugher's best work on Homicide, and it's certainly the best bit of interrogation this side of Vincent D'Onofrio on Criminal Intent. We also get to see our first Ed Green Foot Chase™, a 5-second-or-fewer sequence that we see regularly, but too infrequently, on the show. This is one of the best EGFC's ever...he races across a playground, and catches up to the suspect, but the suspect puts a gun to his own head until a passing rollerblader headbutts him and drops him to the pavement. Green jumps on top of him, sticks a gun in his face, and screams at him, "Say the magic words! Say the magic words!" Awesome. This brute force method is clearly at odds with the subtle interrogation technique we see from him a few minutes later, so as an audience we get a sense of the outstanding range Martin possesses as an actor. Unfortunately, we see too little of Martin's abilities in subsequent episodes. The writers and directors should go back and take a look at this episode, and take note of the talent they are squandering.
The prologue of the show is among the most devastating of any episode I've seen. Two cops in the park respond to automatic weapons fire in a clearing, and call for help. When the detectives arrive, a clearing is filled with 15-20 bodies. Det. Green attempts to comfort a woman who is apparently the mother of one of the victims, and is so emotional in his response to her, you think for a minute that he knows her.
Backstory-wise, we learn from S. Epatha that Green has a history of excessive force. He was written up twice, and is on probation with whatever panel oversees that sort of thing. It's strange that he would get promoted to homicide from wherever he was before (gang unit?) if he had this on his record, but I'm glad he was.
The suspect's defense attorney is Peter Gerety, who played Det. Stu Gharty on Homicide. Since Gerety is not appearing as Gharty here, this is obviously a universe collision since his fellow H:LOTS detective, Munch, appears on SVU as Munch. While we're on the topic, I may as well mention that another H:LOTS detective, Melissa Leo, has appeared on L&O twice, but not as her character on H:LOTS, and Barnfather, police colonel on H:LOTS once appeared on L&O as an attorney, and showed up another time on CI as a suspect.
Other recurring themes in the episode: Hudson University, the fictitious school that L&O uses as a stand-in for every NYC college, gets several mentions here. Also, a judge (one who shows up every now and then and looks like Peter Boyle) mentions "fruit of the poisonous tree," one of our favorite L&O phrases. It means that if you get information from a statement that is ruled inadmissible, all that comes from that information is also inadmissible. It is one of several problems that plagues the DAs as they attempt to prosecute the case.
This episode appears on the L&O: Crime Scenes DVD available at Barnes & Noble.
Posted by adm at December 26, 2003 07:36 PM