The Ledger

3.17 Conduct Unbecoming

Julianna Margulies guest-stars In this episode (3.17), Logan and Briscoe investigate the death of a female lieutenant in the Navy. Initially, the trail leads to two ensigns who were with here around the time of her death. One of these men is convicted of the murder in a Navy court, but Stone uncovers additional evidence that leads him to believe that the lieutenant's captain is responsbible for her death.

The murder took place at a raucous party for the ship's crew on shore leave. The party depicted in the episode's teaser is reminiscent of what was described when the Tailhook scandal became public, and this episode seems to be L&O's take on the scandal.

The episode begins with a party of Naval officers in a hotel, and things are getting pretty rowdy. A prostitute is "walking the line," i.e., walking down a hallway of hollering soldiers as she strips. The cops come to break up the party, and enter each room, emptying it of people. They discover a dead female, who Briscoe and Logan quickly determined to be not a hooker, but a naval officer named Janet Hagen.

They talk to a Naval officer at the precinct, who says her death was an accident -- she fell and hit her head, he says, so there should be no further investigation. The ME determines otherwise, however, and says she may have hit a wall or a headboard, but she was also beaten. They talk to her captain, Captain Bunker, who says he will get a list of partiers who left the party before the cops could talk to them. They talk to one sailor, ensign walters, who was with her shortly before she died. They also talk to Lt Mendoza (played by Julianna Margulies [screen shot]) who says she saw the victim before her death, and it appeared she had been drinking. They talk to Hagen's dad, himself a former Navy man, who says his daughter almost never drank. She also had a low BAC.

They recover video of the party, and see Hagen on it, walking the line, looking very drunk but dazed. Lt Bates, someone they had talked to earlier, is seen entering a room with her. Bates says he and Lt Walters had sex with her. Walters says, however, that as he started to get into it with her, he watched her die and panicked. Briscoe says he remembers a boxer named Cookie Benitez who received a beating, walked out of the ring, and died a short while later. He's suggesting Hagen died after a beating, but it just took a while for it to happen. They talk to the ME who confirms this probably is what happened, and would have made her look drunk.

Re-investigating the hotel, they learn that Captain Bunker signed room service for the room where Hagen was seen exiting. They plan to talk to Bunker, but they learn that Lt Walters has confessed to the crime, via military channels. They suspect there is more to the story, however, so they meet with Lt Mendoza in their car, and she says that Bunker and Hagen were in a room with her, and she was ordered to leave.

An admiral meets with the DAs to talk about the investigation. Stone questions Bunker in the presence of Navy personnel. He says he has an alibi, which is that he was with a blonde call girl. They threaten to hold him and a material witness. They talk to the blonde escort who says he was rough with her and was impotent and wanted to be called "Bunky." I don't know why this guy decided to go do it with a prostitute after beating a woman to death, but whatever.

Stone talks to an admiral and learns there was a prior incident between Hagen and Bunker, back when she was in training. They learn that she spurned him, and then he harassed her until she filed a complaint. They arrest Bunker (43') and his trial begins shortly thereafter (45').

Stone cross-examines Bunker, and says that the incident during training was a black mark on his record, and that other men who held the same position as him went on to big promotions, whereas his career stalled. That, apparently, was his motive. Stone gets Bunker all fired up about his attack on the escort, and he explodes, "That bitch deserved it!" It's not clear whether he means Hagen or the escort, but regardless, the incident is damning, and he's found guilty of Murder 2.

The episode is notable because it is one of a handful of episodes in which the L&O team takes on the armed services of the United States, and because of the appearance of Julianna Margulies, who would go on to stardom on another NBC show, ER, the very next year.

Posted by adm at January 24, 2004 02:16 PM

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