The Ledger

11.3 Dissonance

In this episode (11.3), a violinist's affair with her conductor turns deadly, and Green and Briscoe try to connect the conductor to her death.

Initially, it appears the motive for the violinist's murder is robbery: her violin, worth a million dollars, is missing. Through some black market connections, Green and Briscoe learn of a fence who would likely be the one moving such stolen merchandise. The scene in which they go to question him is very unconventional: it begins with the fence running through a door. The camera holds on the door for a few seconds, and then our man Eddie Green comes bursting through, looks around, and chases after his prey. This turns into what must be the longest Ed Green Five Second Foot Chase™ in history: it lasts for a full 35 seconds! He runs and runs and runs! He finally catches the guy when he tries to unlock his van. That was a dumb thing to do, buddy. Eddie tackles him. Once he's interrogated, the fence rolls on the guy who stole the violin: a stagehand from the orchestra. The stagehand offers the improbable story that he stole the violin but did not murder the girl. It seems awfully coincidental, but as far as the episode's script is concerned, it's the truth.

So that leaves the investigators looking for other motives. They learn she was having an affair with her egotistical, controlling conductor, who is married. They come up with some good forensic evidence during a search of his car, but it gets thrown out by an overly-antagonistic judge, who says the warrant only applied to the house, not the car. Whatever, judge.

This leads to a subplot of the episode that actually turns into a bigger deal in future episodes: the judge, Judge Wright, is very confrontational towards both McCoy and DA Lewin (Dianne Wiest). He says he'll be watching McCoy very carefully, and he doesn't like showboating. He pretty much threatens Lewin that McCoy will never get a fair trial with him, but he makes this threat without really saying it. For once in her life, Lewin shows some backbone and stands up to the judge, even saying, "I'll take you down." This comes across as a somewhat lame attempt by the show's writers to give Lewin an image as a "tough liberal." It doesn't work very well, but reminds us of other episodes in which Judge Wright appears to be corrupt. (I'll link to these other episodes soon. I thought that this episode was the one that introduced the corruption story, but according to TV Tome, this is Wright's last episode. Hm.)

Anyway, back in the main plot, the conductor has a tight alibi, thanks to his wife and the records of the E-Z Pass automatic toll collection system. Eventually, however, the wife learns that her husband was planning to move out of the country with the violinist, and thus spurned, she seems ready to roll on him. When it comes time to testify against him, however, instead of fingering him, she confesses to the crime herself! She does so in apparent last-ditch effort to re-win the affection of her husband, but, she'll be going to jail, so who knows what good it will do her. But, the heart wants what it wants, so who are we to judge. Especially you, Judge Wright, you corrupt bastard!

Asked whether it's good to be so unsure about who committed the actual murder that your about to imprison a woman for, Lewin responds, "We're sure enough."

This episode is notable because it touches on the story arc involving Judge Wright (he's the one who looks like Peter Boyle), and because it has the really long Ed Green Foot Chase in it.

Posted by adm at March 14, 2004 09:34 PM

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