The Ledger

Damaged: Briscoe's Daughter Gets Killed

This episode (8.22), contains an event that will be referred to in countless future episodes: Det. Briscoe's daughter is killed, apparently by the drug dealers she testifies against earlier in the episode. The main storyline of the episode deals with a semi-retarded girl (with an IQ of 65) who is raped by three young men at her high school, but she denies that the incident happened against her will.

The episode begins with a shooting at the high school in which a two teachers are shot at, and one of them is severely injured. Briscoe and Green cross-check students at the school with those whose parents had gun licenses, and they wind up talking to a young girl whose father own a gun similar to the one used in the shooting. When they see the gun, they smell the gunpowder and conclude it is the weapon used in the shooting. When they interrogate the girl, she eventually reveals her motive: she wasn't shooting at the teachers, she was shooting at three boys who she says raped her older, metally-disabled sister.

Meanwhile, we learn three things about our usual investigators: Curtis applied for a transfer to a desk job, but that transfer has been put on hold; Cheekbones's boyfriend proposed to her the previous evening; and Briscoe talks to a Brooklyn detective about hius daughter's preparing to testify about a drug dealer she was criminally, and romantically, involved with. The Curtis and Cheekbone subplots are dealt with in about two lines of dialogue each, but the Briscoe/daughter story takes up a pretty good chunk of the episode.

Shortly after Briscoe talks to the detective about his daughter's impending testimony, he resumes investigating the case of the rape victim, but then goes to watch his daughter testify. She describes how she went undercover for the police, and made a drug deal. She admits using her job as a nurse to steal drugs for her boyfriend, and that she had a methamphetamine problem. Somewhat improbably, the defense attorney brings up the fact that her father is an NYPD detective who has been investigate for various things over the years. Her lawyer objects, and the judge sustains several times, but the defense attorney keeps talking. He then orders the jury to disregard this long speech by the defense. That didn't really make sense. Anyway, after her testimony, Briscoe meets her outside the courthouse and she says she feels like her life is over, that she'll forever be known as the nurse who stole drugs. Briscoe asks her to come stay with him until she gets back on her feet, but she insists her life is over, and leaves.

Back on the main case, McCoy and Cheekbones have to prove that the boys knew the girl they had sex with was retarded and therefore incapabable of consent. They eventually find a witness who says she told one of the boys this, and that boy told the others, but the defense objects to her testifying because she was an accomplice in the crime, and her testimony can't be corroborated. Nonetheless, McCoy gets his conviction of all three boys, but then something somewhat shocking happens: the judge asks the defense if they have a motion. A bit confused but then figuring it out, the defense moves that the judge set aside the verdict. He does so immediately, which he had intended to do all along. McCoy goes ballistic. He appeals, and soon after gets a chance to prove to the judge that the boys did know. He accuses the boys for creating the "hazardous environment" which led to the original shooting, and indicts them for attempted murder. This was Cheekbones's idea. They use it as a threatening device to get one boy to admit he told the others he knew the girl's mental condition. It works. But then, at the next stage of the trial, the victim takes the stand, and keeps talking after McCoy is done questioning her. The judge asks her some questions, and he then dismisses the charges against the boys! McCoy really goes crazy and shouts at the judge. When McCoy meets with the girl and her father to discuss his appeal, the father decides he doesn't want to put his daughter through all that again and wants her to retain "her dignity." McCoy and Cheekbones are both visibly upset, but that's the way the dad wants it. I'm not sure how realistic this is.

As the episode ends, we see Curtis and Briscoe pull up to what appears to be a crime scene, and a tech tells Briscoe the circumstances of the crime. We soon learn what Briscoe's manner already suggests: the victim at the crime scene they are reporting to is Briscoe's daughter. He rushes up to her, and in what is probably his most emotional scene in the history of the show, laments that she is all he had and he accuses the ADA, who is present, saying it's his fault for not getting a conviction of the man she testified against. As he stands up from the body, he says to Curtis, "What am I going to do now, Ray?" Curtis tells him, "Come stay with me." The words echo Briscoe's request to his daughter earlier in the episode, and show that Briscoe and Curtis are indeed like family to each other.

A major theme of the episode is a father's inability to protect his daughters, and both are handled evocatively by the show's somewhat intricate script. Although the plot twists strain credibility at times, the emotional wallop of episode's closing moments make up for it, and explain how Briscoe is so profoundly affected by his daughter's death.

The episode's title refers both to the damage done to the girl by her rapists as well as her insistence that she was normal, the way Briscoe's daughter felt about herself, and the effect his daughter's murder had on Briscoe.

Posted by adm at February 23, 2004 04:25 PM

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