June 25, 2004
7.7 Deadbeat
Jerry Stiller guest-stars as a defense attorney in this episode (7.7) in which a man is apparently killed by his ex-wife's aging father because of the victim's refusal to pay child support, but the truth appears to be slightly more complicated than that. Briscoe and Curtis investigate and McCoy and Ross prosecute.The episode begins with two kid and his tourist parents in a hotel, and the kid discovers a body in the hallway. Briscoe and Curtis responds, and talk to two old ladies who think they saw the shooter. The victim is an Arizona resident named Michael Malone.
While they're investigating the crime scene, the phone in Malone's hotel room rings. One of the dets answers it, and invites the caller up. They wait outside the elevator, and two men arrive. The two are James and Peter Pogosian, and they are sleazy used car dealers who we quickly learn are known for selling stolen vehicles. They were apparently there to make a deal with Malone on some stolen cars, and they are armed. They check Malone's phone records, and then check out the local liquor stores to see if anyone saw him with anyone else. They talk to a hooker there, and then to his girlfriend, Victoria Lewis, who they learn about via (I think) payphone records.
They meet Victoria at the airport, where she tells them that Mike was an FBI informant and a CIA agent. It is clear to the detectives that Malone gave her this false information: in fact he was a bit of a conman and a fence for stolen goods. They also learn that Malone is also known as Michael Weber, and he is wanted for failing to pay child support and alimony. The child he was supposed to be supporting is in the hospital with cancer.
They talk to his ex-wife's father, an old guy who drives a delivery truck from a linen/laundry company. His ex-wife becomes a suspect, but soon the focus shifts back to her father. Jerry Stiller plays the father's attorney, but he's not a criminal attorney, and it's clear immediately that he's in over his head. The father argues that he encountered Malone by coincidence, they got into an argument, and he killed him in self-defense. It later turns out that the used car salesmen, the Pogosians, had notified a middle man private investigator that Malone was in town, and the PI told the father. Then, the investigators learn through blood tests, that Malone wasn't even the father of the young boy, and if this fact was known, the mother's years-long mission to wrangle support payments from her ex-husband would be for nothing. Apparently, she couldn't deal with this, and this led to her ex's murder.
The episode is notable in part because of Stiller's appearance, and also because it's one of a handful of episodes in which two future members of the cast of The Sopranos appear. Vincent Pastore (Big Pussy on The Sopranos) appears as one of the used car dealers, and Sharon Angela (Rosalie Aprile on The Sopranos) plays the hooker they encounter in the liquor store. You can see more members of the Sopranos appearing on L&O in this screenshot gallery.
Posted by adm at June 25, 2004 11:44 PM
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