The Ledger

4.10 The Pursuit of Happiness

In this episode (4.10), a Russian mail-order bride and her boyfriend kill her domineering husband. Briscoe and Logan investigate, and Stone and Kincaid prosecute.

The episode begins with two men going in to work at a butchery. They are surprised to find someone is already there. They walk around and find their boss, the victim, Billy Cooper, 56 years old. He's been shot. Cops on the scene give the detectives their interpretation of how the crime went down, and Briscoe and Logan repeatedly point out mistakes in their theories. They note that he has a young wife.

The visit the wife who is crying a lot. Her name is Irina and she speaks with a Russian accent. It is the eve of her 2nd anniversary with her husband. They talk to Cooper's business parner, Phil Guardino, who tells them he owned a gun, and this was the gun that killed him. Van Buren and the detectives talk, and Briscoe thinks the wife did it, but Logan is skeptical, as he often is of initial suspects. They review the victim's financial records and dtermine that Irina is a sort of mail order bride. Cooper picked her from a catalog, but went to Russia to meet her. When the bride broker asks Briscoe if he's ever been married, he says, "2 priors, no conviction." The broker tells them that if the two had gotten divorced within 2 years of their marriage, then she would not be able to get her citizenship.

They talk to another customer of the broker, and his wife knows Irina. They find that Irina works at a clinical lab. They visit the lab and learn that Irina has a 6-year-old son back in Russia. They re-interview Irina. She made plans to keep him at the office that night, and go out the following night. She has Broadway tickets to prove it. Logan is still skeptical of her guilt, but admits she might be involved somehow.

They visit a Korean deli where Irina says she purchased pastries that night. A Korean employee there says he spotted Irina with another guy -- a guy who was not Mr Cooper. They search Irina's and find a receipt for an abortion procedure. They determine that a guy working at her lab, Mr Nunez, is her boyfriend.

Forensics is able to determine that talc similar to that used on the clinic's lab gloves was found on the weapon. Briscoe theorizes that Cooper found out about the affair and wanted to send her back to Russia, so she killed him. He says, "This broad's had a taste of Zabar's. There's no way she's going to go back to waiting in line for day-old borscht." They arrest Irina and Nunez (31').

At arraignment, they have separate lawyers. Recurring character Judge Torledsky handles the arraignment. The DAs meet with Schiff, and he says they need to prove a connection between Nunez and Irina. They meet with Irina at Rikers, but they don't get anything from her.

The trial of both defendants begins (42'). The victim is more or less demonized during the trial, and Schiff says if the jury hears any more about Cooper, the jury will wish they killed him themselves. Morrison, Irina's lawyer, attacks the Korean witnesses credibility by trying to show that cross-racial identification is often inaccurate. He tries to get a bunch of Latino guys to stand up in the courtroom for some kind of demonstration, but the judge doesn't allow it. He then tries to get an expert to testify on the subject, but he never alerted Stone about this witness. The judge implicitly accuses Morrison of lying. The expert takes the stand, and Stone gently destroys his relevance to this case.

Still, things aren't going well, and when the DAs meet, Schiff says, "Quick...lock the doors. Someone might walk in here with a case we can win."

After much effort, they try to make a deal so Irina will roll on Nunez. Both defendants meet with the ADAs at Rikers. Nunez yells at Irina not to confess, but to accuse only him. She finally does. She says she thinks she was pregnant with Nunez's child. Cooper didn't want kids, and he certainly didn't want Nunez's kid, so he forced her to get an abortion. He says she was threatened with deportation. Nunez confesses to actually committing the murder.

Irina is played by Russian actress Natalya Negoda, who created a stir in pre-Glasnost Russia when she appeared partially nude in a slightly racy Soviet film, Little Vera. The role landed her on the cover of Playboy in May, 1989, but didn't lead to a lot of other Western roles. This is unfortunate, because her performance in this episode is very, very good.

The episode was directed by Dann Florek, who played Captain Cragen on the show for several seasons, but not this one.

Posted by adm at July 8, 2004 08:56 PM

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