The Ledger

14.24 C.O.D.: Lennie Briscoe's Last Episode

Detective Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) makes his last appearance in this episode (14.24), the finale of season 14.

Extras

Here are some screen captures from the episode:

• Lennie says he's retiring.
• Green's reaction.
• The caricature Green gives Lennie.
• Lennie's last scene.
• Episode's closing shot: Lennie's nameplate.

Plot Summary

The episode begins with a woman and her teenaged daughter talking as a delivery man delivers an envelope. The woman opens the envelope, which is empty. Just as she does so, they hear shots outside, and she walks out to find the deliveryman shot dead. Briscoe and Green arrive to investigate. The woman says she never heard of the person on the return address of the envelope ("Mary Johnson"). The victim's name is John Byrne. As they wonder about the envelope and the deliveryman, Briscoe issues his final pre-opening wisecrack: "Something tells me the message was for him."

Back at the 27th Precinct, Lt. Van Buren and Briscoe discuss the case. At the end of the conversation, she asks him, "Have you told him yet?" Since we have outside information about the plot of this show, we infer she's asking whether he's told Ed Green that he's leaving. This is our first indication in the episode that this is Lennie's final appearance.

Green comes in and reports, predictably, that the return address on the courier envelope does not exist. They visit a storefront location for RME Express, the company that the victim worked for. The manager says they don't require ID from people who are sending packages. He doesn't remember much about the day the package was sent, except for a "hot blonde" and a guy who spilled some coffee. This information is not helpful to the detectives. Outside, Briscoe cracks that RME is the company you use if you "Absolutely, positively have to kill somebody overnight." (This is a reference to an old FedEx slogan.)

The detectives interview the victim's wife, Adele, who says they had a good marriage and he worked hard to pay their expenses. She says he worked a lot of overtime. They visit his coworkers at RME to confirm this story. One worker says that RME doesn't have overtime, so either the victim, his wife, or both were lying. A friend at RME, Joe Rodriguez, reluctantly admits that Byrne was having an affair with one of the secretaries on his route, a woman named Gloria who works for a place called the Kent Foundation.

The detectives visit the foundation and talk to Gloria. They tell her Byrne has been killed. She tries to play dumb, but it's obvious from her emotional reaction that she knew the victim more than just casually. As Briscoe says, he was delivering more than just packages. Gloria admits the affair, says she is also married, and that the affair ended two months ago because Byrne took up with another woman.

They visit the Twilight Motel, the place where the dalliances took place, and gather many video tapes. The police support staff looks over the tapes and finds footage of Byrne entering the motel with another woman (not his wife, not Gloria) and footage, from a few minutes later, of the two of them having a serious argument. Green tells the video tech (Hey, is that Cordova? She looks different!) to zoom in on the woman's footwear. Apparently, her shoes are distinctive: he says they are called "Vipers" and are only sold in one shoestore in the city. How convenient!

They visit the shoe store and, miraculously, it turns out the woman on the videotape, Blair, works there. She says that Byrne's wife was "a real bitch" and threatened her. Blair herself has an alibi, though: she was off getting a bikini wax at the time of the murder, something called "a Sphinx." (Briscoe reveals this last bit, saying he wished he didn't ask what a Sphinx is.)

They review the evidence with Van Buren, who tells them don't pick up the wife just yet. Instead, they should "soft sell" her and "lock her into a story." That way they can confront her with any lies later. They reinterview the wife at her job blowing leaves in Riverside Park. She says she was working at the time of the murder. They go to the Boat Basin and confirm her story with her supervisor, who says she is a reliable employee. The detectives theorize that someone could get away from the job undetected for a short while if they needed to, but her alibi looks fairly good.

They check out the wife's financial records, and see that she purchased a lot of gas up and down I-91. They also see a credit card advance for $500 from an ATM machine in Vermont. The detectives are hesitant to go up to Vermont to check it out, because it takes 4 hours to get there. But, in a funny moment, Green points out it won't take 4 hours if they go with "lights and sirens."

It turns out the ATM in question is located inside a gun dealer's shop. They talk to the dealer, who reluctantly admits that Adele Byrne bought a Smith & Wesson .38 on the day in question (March 17), but he covered up the sale by selling it to himself. He said she wanted the gun right away and didn't want to wait for the background check, etc.

This is enough to get a search warrant for her house, but they can't find the gun. Adele says it was stolen a few weeks earlier when a young man ran by and took her purse. She says she reported the incident to the police. They get the idea to search the river near where Adele works, and as police scuba divers search the water, Briscoe muses about NYPD technology such as underwater metal detectors, and how much has changed since he started. Green says he hears that next year, they'll get Blackberries. Briscoe says "Yeah, next year," distantly, and then tells Green that he is retiring. ("I'm puttin' in my papers, Ed." "Wha...?" "It's time.") When Green asks him what he'll do, he responds he'll play golf, shoot pool, sit in the sun and relax, and if he gets bored, he'll check out the District Attorney's office and pick up some investigative work. (This sets up his transition to the latest L&O spin-off, Trial By Jury, which will be a mid-season replacement show for NBC next season.) Green has an "Aw, Lennie..." kind of reaction, and just as they wrap up their comments, one of the police divers emerges with the gun in hand. It has 3 spent shells in it. They arrest Adele at Gardner's Cafe, a cafe she is known to frequent. (26 mins.)

During her interrogation back at the precinct, she has an answer for everything, and as ADA Serena Southerlyn looks on from behind the mirror, she asks for a lawyer. McCoy and SS review their evidence, and they decide they have a strong circumstantial case against her, and the case will get stronger once ballistics matches the found weapon to the bullets found in her husband. Unfortunately, ballistics has some bad news for SS: the gun pulled from the river doesn't match the murder weapon. The detectives figure that with three spent shell casings, however, the gun must have been used in some shooting somewhere. Green heads down to the 17th precinct -- the area where the gun was found -- to see about any unsolved recent shootings, while Briscoe heads to 1 Police Plaza to file some paperwork. Green talks to a detective in the 17th who tells him of one case of interest: Mr Gardner, a wealthy real estate investor, was shot three times by a .38. That last name sound familiar? His wife is the owner of the Gardner's Cafe, where Adele was arrested. SS talks to Belinda Gardner, the owner of the cafe, and the wife of this victim. She is cagey, and SS begins to suspect that she killed Byrne in exchange for Adele's killing Mr. Gardner. Just like Strangers on a Train! (And DA Branch dutifully reminds us the whole thing sounds like a Hitchcock plot.) SS presents the evidence to McCoy and Branch and says that Adele's gun matches the one used to kill Mr. Gardner. Unfortunately, they still can't find the gun used to kill Byrne.

Continuing the investigation, SS talks to Mr. Gardner's sister, an artist, who says that Belinda Gardner was just in the marriage for money, and grew upset recently when Mr Gardner tried to rein in his wife's spending. SS learns that Belinda stood to gain a $13 million inheritance, after taxes.

Both wives are now in police custody, and McCoy and SS talk to them individually. The shots cut between the two wives and the two prosecutors as they try to persuade the suspects to reveal the conspiracy. However, it's clear that both cases are fairly weak. The lawyers present their cases to the trial judge (in one of those walk-down-the-court-house-hall meetings). McCoy wants to consolidate the two cases into one, but the judge refuses. However, he does allow the individual prosecutions to continue. McCoy decides, apparently on Branch's advice, to prosecute Belinda Gardner, and assigns SS to head up the (slightly easier) prosecution of Adele Byrne. SS notes that Arnold Baker, an executive with the Kent Foundation, is on Gardner's witness list, and she is concerned about why. McCoy says it's just to establish that Gloria, the spurned lover, had a motive to commit the crime herself.

The two trials begin (44 mins), and the episode alternates between the two. SS examines the gun dealer, and McCoy and Belinda's attorney question the gun dealer. Back at Adele's trial, she is cool under pressure, but her defense gets stronger when the executive from the Kent Foundation testifies. He says that one day, a janitor told him he found a gun in a waste bin. The exec says he turned the gun over to police, and that they still have it. The attorney requests that the NYPD police produce the gun for a ballistics test. They do, and the test shows that the gun was the one used in the Byrne shooting. This makes it looks like Gloria, the spurned lover, may have been involved in the murder, but we see through the trick.

McCoy and SS regroup with Branch. SS wants a continuance to gather more evidence, but Branch tells her you can't get a continuance "just because you're getting your butt kicked," and he tells them it's time to "face the music." The verdicts are retuned: Adele is guilty of Murder 2 in the death of Belinda's husband, but Belinda is found not guilty in the death of Mr Byrne. So a victory for SS and a loss for McCoy.

But, as McCoy says, don't count him out just yet. He meets with Adele at Rikers and leverages her upcoming sentencing. He convinces her to roll on Belinda, saying it doesn't seem right that Belinda was the one who got to frame someone else while Adele has to serve a long prison sentence. This convinces her to reveal the murder-for-murder deal she made with Belinda.

But what about double jeopardy, you ask? Well, McCoy has an answer for that one, too. Belinda was acquitted in the death of Mr Byrne, but McCoy is going to prosecute her for the murder-for-hire of her own husband, which qualifies as Murder 1 in New York. Even though no money was exchanged -- just the "service" of killing the other's husband -- the judge allows it, and Belinda immediately accepts a plea deal.

Back at the precinct, Briscoe prepares to say goodbye. He, Van Buren, and Green spend a minute talking about the case, and then Briscoe packs up his things ("I've got 12 years worth of ketchup packets in here"). They exchange mutual compliments (Green: "They're getting the best." Briscoe to Green and AVB: "No...I'm looking at them.") and then Green presents Briscoe with an unexpected present: a caricatured drawing of Briscoe, signed by all the detectives and Van Buren. (Green and Briscoe act it so well, it looks like the moment may have been improvised.) Briscoe and Green exchange high fives, and Briscoe picks up a cardboard box of his things and walks out, looking back as he does. The camera pans from Briscoe's back to the nameplate on his desk, and the episode ends.

Analysis

Not too much subtext here. The ep begins with the deliveryman telling the woman not to worry about her 13-year-old daughter: "Not to worry. This too shall pass. Before you know it, you'll be crying at her wedding." This seems like a sort of meta-reference to the time Orbach spent on the show, an indication of how fast it went for everyone.

The episode's title, "C.O.D." means "Cash on Delivery," and seems to refer to both the deliveryman's profession and the killings-for-hire represented in the episode.

Thankfully, the episode avoids a maudlin treatment of Briscoe's departure, and doesn't attempt to exorcise any of his demons or offer anything more than a simple explanation of his reason for leaving. The strong friendship between him, Green, and Van Buren are palpable at the end of the episode, and it's suitable that for a man who kept so much of his emotions inside these past 11 years, he goes out with class and true to form.

Orbach's finest performance as Briscoe, in my opinion, came in an episode fittingly called "Damaged," in which his daughter is killed after testifying against drug dealers. This incident is responsible for much of Briscoe's inner anguish in later episodes, and is referred to countless times. I should also point out that before he took on the character of Det. Lennie Briscoe, Orbach once played a defense attorney in an early episode of the show [summary and screen captures].

Finally, for those of you feeling nostalgic for other L&O departures, here are summaries of various final episodes:

• George Dzundza/Max Greevey's last episode.
• Michael Moriarty/Ben Stone's last episode.
• Chris Noth/Mike Logan's last episode.
• Jill Hennessy/Claire Kincaid's last episode.
• Carey Lowell/Jamie Ross's last episode.
• Benjamin Bratt/Rey Curtis's last episode.
• Steven Hill/Adam Schiff's last episode.
• Angie Harmon/Abbie Carmichael's last episode.

Posted by adm at May 20, 2004 12:12 AM

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