The Ledger

All My Children

In this episode (11.20), a young man is found shot to death outside a school. At first, the leads point to the involvement of some low grade drug dealers, but using a key found on the victim's body, Briscoe and Green eventually discover he is the outcast son of a Donald Trump-type real estate developer, and the father/son relationship is quite complicated. Detectives think a young woman from Brooklyn, who was seen with the victim in the days and hours before the shooting might be involved, too. They discover the victim and the girl visited an ob/gyn together, so they assume the young couple was expecting a baby. When they finally track down the girl (via doctor's building's sign-in sheet), they bring her into the precinct where, under duress, she reveals the twist: she and the victim were siblings, not lovers! She says the victim's father had an affair with her mom years ago, but never took a paternity test. She and the vic had visited the doctor to perform "a kinship analysis" test to determine whether they shared a parent. Supported by the belief that the victim's father was her own father, she attempted to extort him, but without much luck. Because of the victim's hatred for his father, she was able to get him involved in the extortion scheme, a plot (we eventually learn) that culminated in a meeting in the schoolyard the night of the shooting. The girl claims she lost her nerve and left, leaving only the father and the son to hash things out. The father then becomes the prime suspect, and after a preliminary hearing to determine whether there is enough evidence for a trial, the father eventually reveals to McCoy and Carmichael the full version of events.

There are a couple of interesting moments in the episode. One comes early on when the father is explaining to Briscoe and Green why they had to cut themselves loose from their destructive son. The father says to them, "I don't know if you've ever had to let a child make decisions that you knew were destructive for them..." and a quick, silent reaction from Briscoe immediately reminds us of his daughter who died at the hands of drug dealers. The moment is perfectly played by Orbach, who doesn't get enough chances on the show to show depth like that. Another interesting bit: a couple of times in the episode, when McCoy and Carmichael are back at the office discussing the case, McCoy is shown tinkering with that old tarnished desk lamp he has. He's got the thing in pieces and is trying to get it back in order. He fails, and there's a bit of physical comedy when he reacts to its unpredictability.

The episode's teaser depicts a father and his young son walking to school, gently debating why the son can't ride the subway to school. The discussion foreshadows the theme of father and son relationships, and also the yearning of a child for independence. The father tells his son about a girl he knows who gets walked to school, which raises the parallel between the boy and girl in the teaser and the boy and girl in the main storyline of the episode.

Posted by adm at January 30, 2004 11:42 PM

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