The Ledger

Merger

In this episode (10.4), a 15-year-old girl, the daughter of extremely wealthy parents, turns up beaten to death outside her home. The episode is replete with twists and turns, as it seems everyone involved had a motive to kill her. At first it appears that two sons of a neighboring wealthy family, the Vances, are responsible. Both brothers had sex with her, but they murder charges against them are not pursued. Since the older brother was engaged to the victim's older sister, the older sister then becomes a suspect. Because she's on more than a dozen psychotropic medications, the older sister, Mercedes, can't seem to remember whether she had a role in her sister's death or not. The actress who plays Mercedes turns in a very good performance, capturing the haze of the overly medicated while still projecting emotion at the right times. Eventually, a maid exonerates Mercedes as well, and is so doing points the finger at the victim's parents, who have a reason of their own for wanting to kill their daughter. The specifics of that reason are pretty shocking and come very late in the episode, so I won't reveal them here. Nonetheless, the parents' general interest in seeing their daughter dead is that some facts about their daughters might interfer with the marriage between Mercedes and the older Vance boy, and there is more at stake in that marriage than just love: the Vances and the victim's father were on the verge of a major business deal that neither man wanted to see fall apart. Hence, the title of the episode.

One funny thing that happens in the episode is that Green calls Briscoe "Old Spice" again, the nickname he came up with in his first appearance on L&O, and a nickname Briscoe has previously said he doesn't like.

Posted by adm at January 29, 2004 10:48 PM

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