The Ledger

Bronx Cheer

In this episode (11.16), Briscoe and Green discover that their suspect in a Manhattan murder may have committed a murder in the Bronx of which another man has already been convicted. The also uncover evidence that the defendant in the Bronx case may have been railroaded by the detectives and the Bronx DA's office. They convince McCoy and Carmichael of this, but the Manhattan's DA office lacks jurisdiction over the original murder, and of course they can't just vacate the conviction. Eventually, they compile a mountain of evidence proving the convicted man's innocence, but the Bronx DA (well-played by Keith David) still won't budge. McCoy and his boss, Manhattan DA Nora Lewin (Dianne Wiest) pressure the DA but to no avail. Eventually, the case winds up at the NY state Court of Appeals, and McCoy (who filed a writ of habeus corpus on behalf of the wrongly-convicted man) argues against the Bronx DA, who suggests the convict has no grounds for appeal.

The actual murderer is played with gusto by the terrifying Peter Greene, an actor probably best remembered for his role as "Redfoot," the fence in The Usual Suspects. Greene has a naturally menacing quality and a intense presence that is rare on Law & Order. His defense attorney has appeared a million times on the show, and his own slightly menacing appearance matches Greene's. To get him to plea to the two murders, McCoy, at the urging of Lewin, offers him a very light sentence. In my opinion, this is yet another case of Lewin being too soft on defendants. Oh, she drives me crazy with her wishy-washy approach to crime in the city! Every time she does something like this, it makes me long for the good old days of Adam Schiff who had a more courageous view of justice than Lewin, and certainly was willing to risk more to achieve it.

3 Dawg Night

Not a particularly well-written episode (12.9) inspired by the P. Diddy/J. Lo shooting at a Times Square night club. The episode is pretty true to the actual incident, and includes the detail about a provocateur throwing a handful of bills in the rapper's face and the couple breaking up after the incident. The episode's final act involves a fairly predictable twist involving the J. Lo equivalent, "Allie Lawrence," who is sort of a cross between J. Lo and Halle Berry. The twist leads to an unsatisfying and unbelievable conclusion.

The writing of the episode is by far its weakest point. It's one of the weaker attempts to capitalize on the "ripped from the headlines" technique of screenplay writing. The dialogue is either unoriginal or muddled, and the plot is too predictable to maintain interest. And it's not true to the characters either: Dianne Wiest suggests putting ADA Carver (from SVU) as second chair on the case because he's black, and McCoy lets someone off the hook for a serious crime, not something he would be likely to do under the circumstances.

About the most interesting thing that happens in the episode is that Jack flies to Los Angeles to interview a witness. I've never seen that happen before.

Here's a terrific article on the P. Diddy/J. Lo shooting that is far more interesting than this episode. It discusses the untold story of Shyne Barrow, the young rapper who was convicted of the shooting.

Paranoia

This episode (6.6) deals with a young suspect who fantasized about killing a victim on an Internet S&M bulletin board. The first half of the episode seems corny now: lots of "information superhighway"-type talk. A major theme of the ep is the old generation/new generation tension between Det. Curtis and Briscoe. Curtis is very familiar with the internet and technology, but Briscoe doesn't know what a Pentium processor or DOS is. It's an early episode and Ray and Briscoe haven't completely gotten themselves in sync. In one of the first scenes, Ray chastises Briscoe for accepting a free lunch from a diner, saying it's unethical. But later in the episode, Ray refuses to bring the young suspect to the bathroom during interrogation, then threatens to castrate him. The kid wets his pants. Although Ray at first seems like he can communicate better with the tech-savvy suspect, after the pants-wetting incident, it's ultimately Briscoe who gets the kid to talk.

The defense attorney is played by Sandy Duncan, who is full of pep as usual. She and Jack pick up the morality/ethics theme when they strike a deal with each other that has an impact on Sandy's client.

The name of the episode, "Paranoia," is a fitting commentary on that syndrome's association with with technology, and the episode expresses a kind of paranoia about technology that is familiar from the time (1995). The title also refers to a possible mental defect of the suspect.

The one legal issue is whether the suspect's confession, made to the detectives while was waking up from a drug overdose, is admissible. Jack argues "spontaneous utterance," one of our favorite arguments.

Miscellaneous facts: The college in this episode is "Mount Amsterdam," a welcome change from the usual "Hudson University." Finally, Ray's wife and three young daughters visit the precinct, so we meet each of them.

12.19 Slaughter

A young animal rights activist killed by somone connected to the meat industry (12.19). There's lots of indirect conversation about food. Since the murder happened down in the seedy part of the meat packing district, Briscoe makes a crack about how the suspect is a transvestite "with a taste for sausage." In the teaser, a pizzeria father and son discuss indigestion caused by pizza, suggesting thematically that old food is less tolerable to new generation. This appears to apply to the young activist, who found animal-based food distasteful. His dorm room was wallpapered with "Go Vegan" posters.

Eventually, the trail of clues leads to a fast food chain called "Big Bill's." There's an unintentionally funny scene in which Diane Wiest and McCoy keep saying "Big Bill's." The episode presents another case of Jack prosecuting corporations for crimes commonly considered blue-collar. He is reluctant at first, but left-leaning Wiest encourages him, reminding him of previous prosecutions against gun manufacturers, HMOs, and drug companies. The name of the episode refers both to the homicide of the young man and the meat-processing that is at the center of a case stemming from the homicide.

11.17 Ego

In this episode (11.17), a rising star in NY state DA's office is implicated in murder of a female co-worker. Not a particularly notable episode, except for part of the performance of the suspect. During his trial, he turns the tables on one of his staunchest supporters who was forced to testify against him. He exhibits a barely-perceptible smile as he watches the witness squirm under a barrage of questions from the defense attorney. The moment tells more about his personality than the murder itself.

The episode begins with a father and a son fishing on a riverside sidewalk. The father hooks a female body. Green and Briscoe arrive and are told the body has been in the water for 3-4 weeks. It's decomposed and has been partially eaten by fish.

The only clues they have to her identity are a handmade belt buckle and the medical examiner's theory that the victim is a German national, because she has stainless steel dental work. They trace the belt buckle to a Native American craftswoman (who turns out to really be named Linda Epstein) who sells her merchandise through a Chelsea boutique. The detectives call every name on the boutique's mailing list, and end up with one name that is also in the missing persons files. That person, named Karen, grew up an army brat in Germany.

They visit Karen't brother who confirms that she was in NYC the day she disappeared. They next visit her place of work: the New York State Attorney General's office in Albany. They talk to the Albany DA and her assistant DA who pledge to be helpful. They pick up where the state trooper's investigation into Karen's disappearance left off. They talk to a witness an an Albany train station who says he saw Karen get off a train that night, but he turns out to be saying whatever pleases the troopers, so Briscoe and especially Green get mad at the troopers for doing such a poor job with this witness and the investigation. The troopers say they've been feeling pressure from the AG's office to focus on suspects that are not connected to any of the cases the AG's office was working on.

Van Buren talks to the AG's assistant, Mr. Conroy, who again pledges to be helpful. The detectives follow up various leads, but then determine that Conroy himself is stonewalling the investigation. Under pressure from Carmichael and McCoy, he admits that he was having an affair with the victim, but it ended months prior to her death. His alibi is that he was with another mistress.

Carmichael talks to this woman who is completely supportive and devoted to Conroy. She says Conroy fears nothing. They talk to Conroy's wife who is afraid of him and who eventually says that during a session with their therapist, she became afraid for her safety. The therapist wrote a letter to Karen telling her to be mindful of her safety and that she was under a threat from Conroy. Karen's copy of this letter can't be found, but the therapist gives them his copy. Based on this, as well as blood evidence in Conroy's mistress's apartment, they arrest Conroy.

The case against him falls apart when he gets the letter suppressed, arguing that it's privileged both because of his therapist's involvement and his wife's. McCoy tries to make a deal with Conroy (at Lewin's urging), but Conroy scoffs at the weak circumstantial evidence they have against him, and they decide to go to trial.

At trial (45 mins), Conroy's attorney puts the mistress on the stand, and accuses her of the murder. But McCoy manages to get the letter admitted into evidence, and once this happens, Conroy crumbles, issues a full confession, and makes a deal.

4.8 American Dream

Best episode (4.8) I've seen in a while, notable mostly for the performance of Zeljko Ivanek, an actor you will no doubt recognize if you watch a lot of series television.

Zeljko is probably best remembered as Ed Danvers, the District Attorney on Homicide: Life on the Streets. He was good on that show, but his character always came off as a little effete. He also turned up for a stint as a terrorist mastermind on the first season of 24. On that show, he was decidely menacing, and served as a nice prologue to the arrival of Dennis Hopper, who showed what menacing really was (even through his silly accent). Zeljko has made many other appearances on L&O over the years (as different characters) but in none of those performances is he as captivating and dominant as he is in this episode. He plays a Wall Street whiz kid who always had a passion for making money and manipulating every one. Although he is sent to prison for 8 years for committing a (nearly) perfect crime, he gets his revenge when the victim is finally found and represents himself to the Court of Appeals and gets himself a new trial. The episide then becomes a lawyering battle between Stone and him, and he more than holds his own. His performance during the trial is compelling to both us as the audience and all the participants in the trial. Even Schiff warns Stone that he is about to get "out-lawyered by an amateur."

Things go badly for Stone, but don't count him out just yet...he's always got a trick up his sleeve.

The episode begins with a cold case: Briscoe and Logan begin with a skeleton and some gold buttons found on Roosevelt Island, and eventually tie it to a murder that occurred 8 years earlier. Zeljko had been convicted on circumstantial evidence at the time (by Stone), but it turns out that evidence is contradictory to the actual evidence unearthed by Briscoe and Logan.

Survivor

In this episode (7.4), the daughter of Holocaust survivors is a suspect in the killing of an antique coin dealer. Karen Allen stars as the suspect, and she gives a nerve-wracking, anxious performance. Her performance contrasts sharply with that of Michael Willis (official site), who gives a funny, light-hearted performance as businessman Richard Peterson. Willis has been on H:LOTS and L&O a million times, usually as a defense attorney. He's good on H:LOTS, but this is his best character to date.

Chinoiserie

In this episode (2.5), a woman is killed in Chinatown when she comes across a soldier she recognizes from Tiananmen Square. It turns out that the soldier is involved in an antiquities smuggling operation along with a dealer and a collector.

Not a particularly thrilling episode, but there are a few twists and turns that hold your interest. The episode's best part involves a character who calls himself "Lord Pembridge." His interaction with Vincent is amusing, and there's a fitting twist (revealed by Vincent's inimitable manipulation techniques) that I won't mention here.

When Vincent reveals the true murderer in his trademark episode-ending interrogation sequence, if you give it some thought, you might be left wondering why the murderer did it. If the murder hadn't taken place, I think the murderer still would have recovered what s/he wanted. But who's going to let a little plot hole get in the way of an entertaining mystery? Certainly not the writers of CI who routinely go out of their way to squeeze far-fetched premises into their scripts. At least they didn't have Vincent spontaneously speaking Chinese. (Though they came close.)

ps. In case you're wondering, according to Christie's, chinoiserie means "Western imitations or evocations of Chinese art. The term is usually reserved for objects made in the 17th and 18th centuries." Apparently this applies to the episode because some Chinese documents related to the provenance of an antique are forged.

4.5 Black Tie

This episode (4.5), while mostly conventional, is notable for about four things:

• The fabulous multi-story high-rise apartment in which the murder takes place. Probably the nicest crime scene in the history of the show.
• The appearance of early supermodel Beverly Johnson [screenshot] as a woman who I think slept with both the victim and his wife.
• The first appearance by the dignified and authoritative defense attorney Norman Rothenberg (Jeffrey DeMunn), who represents the exorbitantly wealthy widow of the victim. (DeMunn has appeared six times on L&O as Rothenberg, but plays a different character on SVU. Grr.)
• The defense attorney essentially shitcans the trial halfway through and concentrates all his energies on his appeal. He even allows his assistant to take over the trial midway through, which is not something I've seen on the show before.

The central legal matter of the episode is whether a syringe discovered by a private detective is admissible. Stone says yes, the defense says no. The matter is settled on appeal up at the state supreme court. These scenes they occasionally do at the Supreme Court are fun. I like the little stoplights on the lectern, and I like to watch how McCoy and Stone change their demeanor for the benefits of the justices. I always feel like they are a little out of their league when they go up there: the justices are so erudite and the defense attorneys are usually the best of the best, and poor Stone and McCoy show up in their rumpled suits and have arguments that never seem quite as well tailored as those of their opponents. I wonder what their record is in front of the Supreme Court. Someone (probably me) should be keeping score.

Here are some screenshots.

Severance

Pretty conventional episode (2.13) in which Stone and Robinette take on a hitman, a middle man, and a capitalist who co-ordinate the assassination of a female informant. Two bystanders are killed along the way.

The episode's title "Severance," refers the the eventual splitting of the cases against the defendants, a move which allows a crucial piece of evidence to be used, which in turn forces one suspect to roll on the other two. The subplot of the episode is a rivalry between Stone and the capitalist's defense attorney Arthur Gold (George Grizzard, in an admirable performance). This is the first of several appearances Grizzard has made as Gold over the years.

Also notable, I think, is the portrayal of the relationship between Stone and Robinette. They are closer to being peers than any of the other combinations of Senior ADAs/Junior ADAs we've seen. It's revealed in this episode that they play tennis together, and at one point Robinette issues a tongue-lashing to his boss that is reminiscent of the ones McCoy has dished out to his junior associates. Although we've seen the female ADA's criticize their bosses, it's always with an undertone of moral outrage, which is contrast to the calm "You screwed up" chiding Robinette offers. Stone catches hell from his boss, too. Schiff tears into him with the same vigor he uses against McCoy, but you get the impression it has more of an emotional impact on Stone than it ever did McCoy. I think Schiff looks at Stone as a potential successor and wants to take care of him, but treats McCoy like a warrior...a man on a mission who will make mistakes but always follow his heart, whether Schiff argues with him or not. Schiff knows Stone can be similarly single-minded, but he takes more of a protective stance with him.

12.24 Patriot: Nora Lewin's Last Episode. Thank God.

Scare-mongering post-9/11 season finale of season 12, notable only for three things: the big explosion in the prologue, a shot of where the WTC used to be and explicit dialogue reminding us of that fact, and a discussion of the issue of who is entitled to kill enemy combatants, and where. In this episode (12.24), a Yemeni man suspected of being a terrorist by a Gulf War soldier is killed. If he's acquitted of the crime, McCoy fears it would be open season on all people of Middle Eastern origin. He's right, but what the show also fails to mention is that it is itself guilty of the same stereotyping that leads to the thought that it's ok to kill or suspect people because of their background.

The episode begins with some cops walking down the street discussing a bachelor party. Behind them, an apartment explodes. The victim is Mr Hayden, found in a 3rd floor apartment. Briscoe and Green investigate, McCoy and Southerlyn prosecute. The detectives talk to the forensics guy (Beck, I think), who shows them how the apartment blew up when it filled with natural gas from the stove and the gas reached the level of a litl candle. They talk to the landlord, but it doesn't seem like he had a motive to blow up his building, since the tenants are on a rent strike and he doesn't have insurance.

They talk to people in the neighborhood and learn that Hayden was Arabic or Indian. The medical examiner pages them and tells them that Hayden died before the fire, and he was beaten and tied up.

They visit his laundramat, which leads to an oil change place where he worked. For some reason, his checkbook is in his locker there. This leads to an e-bank, where they learn he had "elite status" and had $89,000 in his account.

Back at the precinct, they look into his financial records with OFAC, the Office of Foreign Assets Control. They have to wait for the results.

They talk to a forger at Rikers, who says he made a driver's license for Hayden, and he wants protection. At this point the tone of the episode gets more serious as it begins to appear that Hayden's real name was Yusef Haddad and that he was a terrorist. The state department confirms his identity. He applied through them for political asylum but was turned down. Briscoe and Green discuss deportation procedures and the politics of them, and as they do so, they walk by Ground Zero, where the World Trade Center used to be. Briscoe uses this to underscore his point.

They visit a mosque where the Imam tells them that Haddad was targeted on an anti-Muslim website. They talk to a man named Mr Teague who runs the website. They learn that the FBI received a tip on Haddad/Hayden from a man calling himself Frank Miller, a veteran of the Gulf War. They get a warrant for Teague and find a box of material related to Haddad, including tapes of his phone conversations, including tapes of calls he made on his cell phone. Who knows how they got those, but whatever.

They still can't find Miller himself, however. For some reason, the ADAs get involved in trying to track Miller down, which makes no sense. They learn that he's visited a pharmacy to keep up his prescriptions. Well, that's fortunate. They visit Miller's friend, who is wheelchair-bound and who apparently has been helping Miller with his life on the lam. In the meantime, they arrest Teague for conspiracy (32').

Teague tells McCoy that Haddad spoke in suspicious code, and then he rolls on Miller. Miller is arrested in a raid (35'). At his arraignment, Miller denies the jurisdiction of the court and says it's war. The judge allows him to claim that he killed Haddad because he was a soldier in fear.

The FBI gets back to them about Haddad's financials, and it looks like he was paid for by a Sudanese charity tied to terrorist organizations. Lewin tells the ADAs to offer Miller Manslaughter I. Way to go you idiot. Somebody shoots a Middle Eastern guy in cold blood and you want to let him off with a comparative slap on the wrist. Whatever happened to all your liberal ideas, Nora? Thank God this is your last episode. Thankfully, McCoy once again resists Lewin's idiot impulses and decides he has to make an example of Miller.

Miller is found guilty of Murder 2 after 5 days of deliberation.

Lewin closes the episode by asking McCoy if he thinks "the American dream is still safe." Well, not as long as DAs like you are ready to condone killing immigrants for no reason, Nora. You jerk.

I wished the L&O folks had done something more interesting with the topic than this. The episode is not particularly well-structured or engagingly written, and although it appears on the L&O: Crime Scenes DVD, it is not as good as the other episodes in that set.

Gun Show

In this episode (10.1), the premiere of Season 10, a misogynist uses a machine gun to shoot 15 female medical students in Central Park. The episode is the first with Detective Green (Jesse L. Martin), and he is masterful in it. His interrogation of the suspect is reminiscent of Andre Braugher's best work on Homicide, and it's certainly the best bit of interrogation this side of Vincent D'Onofrio on Criminal Intent. We also get to see our first Ed Green Foot Chase™, a 5-second-or-fewer sequence that we see regularly, but too infrequently, on the show. This is one of the best EGFC's ever...he races across a playground, and catches up to the suspect, but the suspect puts a gun to his own head until a passing rollerblader headbutts him and drops him to the pavement. Green jumps on top of him, sticks a gun in his face, and screams at him, "Say the magic words! Say the magic words!" Awesome. This brute force method is clearly at odds with the subtle interrogation technique we see from him a few minutes later, so as an audience we get a sense of the outstanding range Martin possesses as an actor. Unfortunately, we see too little of Martin's abilities in subsequent episodes. The writers and directors should go back and take a look at this episode, and take note of the talent they are squandering.

The prologue of the show is among the most devastating of any episode I've seen. Two cops in the park respond to automatic weapons fire in a clearing, and call for help. When the detectives arrive, a clearing is filled with 15-20 bodies. Det. Green attempts to comfort a woman who is apparently the mother of one of the victims, and is so emotional in his response to her, you think for a minute that he knows her.

Backstory-wise, we learn from S. Epatha that Green has a history of excessive force. He was written up twice, and is on probation with whatever panel oversees that sort of thing. It's strange that he would get promoted to homicide from wherever he was before (gang unit?) if he had this on his record, but I'm glad he was.

The suspect's defense attorney is Peter Gerety, who played Det. Stu Gharty on Homicide. Since Gerety is not appearing as Gharty here, this is obviously a universe collision since his fellow H:LOTS detective, Munch, appears on SVU as Munch. While we're on the topic, I may as well mention that another H:LOTS detective, Melissa Leo, has appeared on L&O twice, but not as her character on H:LOTS, and Barnfather, police colonel on H:LOTS once appeared on L&O as an attorney, and showed up another time on CI as a suspect.

Other recurring themes in the episode: Hudson University, the fictitious school that L&O uses as a stand-in for every NYC college, gets several mentions here. Also, a judge (one who shows up every now and then and looks like Peter Boyle) mentions "fruit of the poisonous tree," one of our favorite L&O phrases. It means that if you get information from a statement that is ruled inadmissible, all that comes from that information is also inadmissible. It is one of several problems that plagues the DAs as they attempt to prosecute the case.

This episode appears on the L&O: Crime Scenes DVD available at Barnes & Noble.

Empire: The Julia Roberts Episode

In this episode (9.20), Julia Roberts plays a femme fatale involved in a Viagra-induced murder. The episode pits the wealthy upper crust of Manhattan, including a Donald Trump-like figure, against the hard-scrabble cops and prosecutors determined to solve a murder. Roberts sets her heart on Detective Curtis (Benjamin Bratt) who soon finds himself in a perilous situation reminiscent of Body Heat: he skirts the edges of a romantic involvement with a possible suspect. The chemistry between the two is palpable, so it's no wonder they became romantically involved in real life. Roberts' performance is among the more captivating the series has offered as she shifts from a fearful witness to a manipulative vamp. Her clothing is more transparent than she is: in several early scenes, you can see her underwear through her clothing, and later she strips down to a backless top in front of Curtis. Eventually, she betrays him, but not before he (arguably) commits a betrayal of his own.

The lead defense attorney in the episode is Edward Herrmann, probably best remembered as the master vampire in The Lost Boys. He's creepy in everything. It's worth noting that Dianne Wiest is the mother in Lost Boys, and of course replaced Steven Hill as the DA in L&O later on.

Oh, and: there's a bit of a continuity error in the scene between Benjamin and Julia at the motel room. The strap on her backless blouse keeps bouncing around -- sometimes you can see it, sometimes you can't.

Thrill

In this episode, the season premiere of Season 8, a pair of delinquent teenagers shoot to death a delivery boy "just to see how it feels." The legal wrinkle is that one of the boys confesses on tape to his uncle, who happens to be a Jesuit priest. This gets the Catholic church involved in a legal wrangling over the protected status of the taped confession. Several of the characters engage in a philosophical discussion about the relationship between the church and the law. It's freedom of religion versus separation of church and state. McCoy and Det. Curtis are both Catholic, but share different opinions: McCoy feels the tape should be allowed, Curtis feels it should be protected. Should a confession be privileged? If it is, it would seem that the state is allowing special treatment of religious institutions -- treatment that ordinary citizens are not entitled to. And yet, if confession is a sacred part of Catholicism, shouldn't Catholics be permitted to exercise their religious without interference from the state? Thorny.

One of the boys is represented by Stan Shatenstein, an incompetent public defender who shows up again in an episode of Criminal Intent, in which he again defends two young suspects, and is also noted for his lack of savvy.

Another recurring cast member who shows up here is Judge Rebecca Steinman (Susan Blommaert), who I mainly remember as the Satan-worshipping teacher in an early X-Files episode, although she's played a judge on many different court shows, including L&O, The Practice, Ally McBeal, and Family Law.

In terms of character development, this is the episode in which we first learn that Det. Curtis' wife has MS. He even identifies the specific strain that she has..."recurring" and '"progressive" are two words in the name. It's interesting that Curtis chooses to put his religion above his job in the same episode in which he learns his wife has a debilitating illness, a development many people often associate with an unfair god.

7.18 Mad Dog

In this episode (7.18), a serial rapist is freed on parole and McCoy suspects he commits a rape/murder soon thereafter. McCoy uses all of his prosecutorial authority -- including all the provisions of Megan's Law -- to pressure the rapist to confess and to find some evidence that he actually committed the crime. Schiff finally tells McCoy to give up, but just as he does, he is called to a crime scene that brings the story to a close.

The rapist is played by Burt Young, who played Rocky's coach in the Rocky movies. His performance is subtle: he is a convicted rapist, and yet his daughter loves him and describes him as a "gentle man."

The episode raises some interesting ethical issues: the police can find only the slightest bit of circumstantial evidence to link Young to the crime, but McCoy pursues him to the point that it almost seems to be an obsession. As a viewer, you begin to wonder whether Young is actually innocent of the crime. Even the conclusion of the episode, which at first glance indicates guilt, may be viewed instead as a response to the pressure Young was under from McCoy.

The psychological pressure on Young is so great, in fact, it began to affect me. I felt very tense and closed in for 2/3 of the episode, in a way similar to how you feel while watching a psychological thriller like Vertigo. Although the effect in me was not as pronounced as when I watch that film, it was definitely in the same ballpark. Amazing that this can be pulled off in a single episode of a weekly series.

The name of the episode ("Mad Dog") implies a creature without its faculties, one which will hurt anyone without giving it a second thought, and so must be put down. But more specifically, it recalls a chapter of To Kill a Mockingbird in which Atticus Finch (a lawyer, by the way) shoots a mad dog because he is aware of the harm it will inflict on the community, even though it has so far committed no injury. This is analagous to the episode, since although Young has served his time for previous crimes, McCoy argues that he must be stopped before he can commit another one.

This episode can be found on the Law & Order: Crime Scenes anthology DVD that is available at Barnes & Noble.

Heaven

In this episode (2.10), 53 people die in a fire at a social club frequented by illegal Central American immigrants. Well-known character actor Luis Guzman makes an appearance as the arsonist, looking a lot thinner than he does now, but still featuring his trademark Charlie Brown "how did I get into this mess?" acting technique. He looks like he's about to wilt when Richard Brooks corners him.

This episode is featured on the Law & Order: Crime Scenes DVD that you can pick up (exclusively) at Barnes & Noble. The DVD two-disc set features 8 episodes selected by Dick Wolf.

4.4 Profile

James Earl Jones guest-stars as a defense attorney in this episode (
The episode is notable because James Earl Jones agrees to defend him. Coincidentally, Jones' character's last name is "McCoy," which the writers apparently decided to recycle the very next season when Sam Waterston stepped in to replace Michael Moriarty as Executive Asst. ADA.

The episode ends with a symmetrical twist.

Another notable cast member: Sharon Angela, who now plays Rosalie Aprile on The Sopranos, is in the episode for about 10 seconds, playing a supermarket cashier. She looks extremely tan.

Marathon

A young murder suspect confesses to Briscoe during his arrest, but no one can corroborate Briscoe's story. The suspect also manages to get several pieces of evidence excluded from his trial, driving everyone in the squad crazy. Most of the episode (10.6) revolves around Briscoe becoming increasingly frustrated with those around him, especially Ed Greene and S. Epatha, because they seem not believe his story of the confession. Ed and Briscoe even get into a shouting match at one point, and S. Epatha has to break them up. Briscoe goes as far as to say he wants a new partner and implies he's jealous of all the attention Ed's been getting since he joined the squad.

Something about Briscoe's anger feels not quite right. The motivations for it, I think, are not established well enough, so we keep waiting to find out what else is bothering Briscoe. There's' some implication he feels defensive about his age, but that still isn't enough to explain his angry temperament. The whole episode plays like the writers wanted to add some internal conflict to the series, but they couldn't figure out how to pull it off correctly.

In terms of back story revelations, we learn that Ed Green used to serve on an anti-gang unit and that he speaks Spanish well. Also, McCoy says of Briscoe that he's "kicked the ball onto the fairway a few times," meaning that he's taken some liberties to ensure that a case goes to trial. Of course, the same thing can be said of McCoy himself.

The Wheel

A young Chinese woman burns herself outside the apartment of a Chinese diplomat (13.9). Turns out she was strangled before she was burned, and that she's a member of the Falun Gong. The episode's first half is notable because it takes a very one-sided view of Falun Gong, basically repeating the Chinese government's position that the movement is a cult and that the members are deranged. This is balanced somewhat in the second half, but only because other characters decry the injustice of the why FG is treated in China. Only one very minor character actually defends FG on its merits, which surprised me a little. There is one great shot as Blondie ("Serena") leaves the courthouse after one of the hearings: About two dozen FG members are arrayed on the courthouse steps, posed in FG stances, staring blankly into space. Blondie has to work her way through them as she descends the steps, and she's creeped out by their passivity and uniformity.

Confession

George Dzundza ("Max Greevey") dies in the opening moments of this one (2.1), the first episode of Season 2. Logan chases down the suspect, but elicits a confession by putting a gun to his head. The rest of the episode deals mainly with the legal and ethical fallout of this incident, as Logan comes to terms with his grief.

And who helps him deal with his grief? You guessed it: Elizabeth Olivet in her first appearance in the series. She's stunning and captivating. No wonder they decided to keep bringing her back, eventually making her a fully credited cast member.

Since Dzundza dies, they bring in Paul Sorvino ("Phil Ceretta") from another precinct to lead the investigation. He becomes Logan's partner. They keep calling him "the whip," which I guess means senior partner. Sorvino brings a lot of dignity and gravitas to his role, right from the beginning. By the end of the ep, it seems like Sorvino and Noth have been partners forever.

Dzundza is killed on camera, but he's obscured by rain and distance. I guess instead of paying him for one episode, they just got his stand-in to take the bullet.

10.5 Justice: The First Return of Jamie Ross

This is a great episode (10.5) in which Carey Lowell ("Jamie Ross", aka Cheekbones) returns to defend a suspect in a murder someone else has already been convicted of. (In Carey's first episode, Causa Mortis, we learned that she was a defense attorney at a private practice owned by her husband. This is her first appearance since the finale of Season 8.) Early on, she's introduced to Angie Harmon and the atmosphere is cordial until she and McCoy start butting heads over a possible ethics violation. Jack even goes after a judge for attempted murder, since the judge (while still an ADA) purposely convicted an innocent man and sent him to death row. (Coincidentally, the judge (Richard Masur) has also appeared as a judge or DA on both Family Law and The Practice.) We learn in this episode that Cheekbones is "teaching," but has done occasional work for the Southern Poverty Law Center and the War Crimes Tribunal investigating crimes in Kosovo. (There's a photo of her in Kosovo with her arm around a little girl.) As the episode ends, Cheekbones and Jack talk, and she makes an oblique reference to "the last time" she appeared before the ethics committee, testifying about a violation having to do with Jack that happened in the episode Under the Influence. This other meeting with the committee occured in the episode Monster.

Anyway, this episode sets the stage for a later episode in which Carey returns again to defend a school-shooting suspect. The mood is far less friendly in that episode, as Angie and Cheekbones battle for Jack's affection.

Here are some screenshots from the episode, including one of Carmichael meeting Ross, and one of Ross' daughter, Katie.

Keep reading for additional notes.

Episode begins Couple in garden. Discover body.
Green and Briscoe investigate. Male victim Martin Felder, a lawyer.
His wife notes that his briefcase is missing. What could be in it?
Review his financial records -- rented a car weekly.
Leads to a prison upstate. Victim rep'd Stephen Dupree, a killer whose victim was Dana Hagen.
Dupree has a bad history with lawyers. Maybe he killed this one.
Visit the prison: Carmichael talks to Dupree. New evidence. He says he's innocent.
Victim had the new evidence, possibly in briefcase.
Back at the precinct: where's the briefcase?
Private detective says a man named Gordon is possible suspect.
Felder received threatening phone calss on cell phone.
Cell phone company says calls came from a list of numbers they sold to Hagen Software. Software Co. is owned by Dupree's victim's brother.
They talk to the original prosecutor, who is now a judge. Maybe Dupree is innocent.
Prosecutor is Mr Wolinsky, now a joudge.
They have to reinvestigate Dupree to make sure he's actually guilty.
A woman heard from her now-dead husband that a guy named Gordon actually killed Ms Haegen.
McCoy to Carmichael: pursue if you must. "Go with God."
Carmichael at bar, researching case. Bartender recognizes Gordon.
Gordon questioned. Looks like he killed both Hagen and the new victim, the lawyer.
Jamie Ross, McCoy's former assistant, enters the precinct. She's there to represent Gordon.
Hagen is placed in a lineup, but denies knowing any of these people.
Ross scolds Carmichael for leading the witness. AC says he's lying though.
McCoy says of Ross, "I thought she was teaching." It turns out Ross had previously defended Gordon on other charges a long time ago, before she worked for the DAs office.
McCoy and Ross discuss a plea deal. McCoy says she knows he'll do everything to convict her client. She replies sharply, "I know what everything means."
They discuss her work in Kosovo for the war crimes tribunal. He looks at a picture of her in Kosovo with a little girl.
They can't come to an agreement on a deal.
AC reviews the file. Learns of a bracelet that was missing from the victim.
Somehow, via a guy named Detective Simpson, they trace this bracelet to a hooker who got it from "Max," a low-level fence and criminal -- and the dead husband of the lady who said Dupree is innocent.
McCoy and AC gently approach Wolinsky and suggest that Dupree might be innocent. But they begin to suspect he suppressed evidence to win the conviction.
They wonder how the tip about Gordon being guilty and Dupree being innocent was generated. This seems crucial to understanding everything.
MCoy figures out that it must have been Ross who created this information and called it in anonymously, back during the case when she knew the wrong man was being prosecuted but couldn't put her own client, Gordon, in jeopardy.
McCoy confronts Ross and begs her to admit she called Wollinsky with the tip, but she won't admit it.
McCoy then angrily confronts Wollinsky, who gets angry in response, and threatening.
They have a conference and McCoy and Ross talk. He tells Ross that Wollinsky is dirty.
McCoy says I'll tell the disciplinary committee re your tip if you don't get Gordon to plead guilty.
He thinks he's got her now, but Ross resigns as Gordon's counsel, taking that tactic away from McCoy. She says she'll tell the disc. committee herself.
Sciff says of Ross: "I knew there was a reason I hired that young lady."
Judge Lusky, a woman, listens as Ross tells her all about the tip situation, and she can't believe her ears. However, none of this will be admissible at Gordon's trial.
McCoy says he's going to prosecute Wollinsky, and Ross will have to testify as to what she told Wollinsky.
Wollinsky is arrested (44') on charges of attempted murder. Schiff is upset.
Wollinsky's pretrial hearing: Ross testifies about what she told him, that Dupree was innocent.
During testimony, it's revealed that Ross worked for the Southern Poverty Law Center. Wollinsky's attorney suggests that she's doing this b/c she opposes the death penalty.
Judge Veitch is the trial judge.
Judge Wollinsky takes the stand, and blames the original detective who worked the case for losing the tip from Ross. He's very calm.
Veitch tosses the case against Wollinsky, saying there is no evidence of intent.
Outside the courtroom, though, the detective that Wollinsky accused of not passing on the info about the tip says he told Wollinsky about this missing bracelet, which could not have happened if Dupree was really guilty.
Gordon goes on trial for the murder.
McCoy and Ross are found outside the disciplinary committee hearing room. McCoy says, "Life's a funny old dog."

Sonata for a Solo Organ

Just finished watching "Sonata for a Solo Organ" (1.21) in which a wealthy man with a sick daughter pays a surgeon to extract a kidney from an unwilling patient. The episode is mainly notable for the appearance of Dominic Chianese, who we now know as Uncle Junior on the Sopranos. He plays the wealthy man's defense attorney, and he's given a very Uncle Junior-like monologue in which he complains about the way he's treated when he goes to visit his client at Rikers.

Also good is a scary-as-hell Bill Moor as one of the defense attorneys. According to TV Tome (a bible for many shows, including L&O), Moor has appeared many times on L&O as "Bill Patton." Strangely, however, in his last appearance on the show (10.16), they changed his first name to "Richard."

This brings up one of the L&O phenomena we'll discuss here from time to time: the same actor showing up to play different roles, seemingly in violation of the rules of reality. The producers of one of my other favorite shows, Homicide: Life on the Street, pointedly refused to have actors re-appear on the show as different characters. If someone showed up again, they had to play the same character they took on the first time. Although I wish L&O had been as stringent, we would have missed out on some great performances if they had. More on this later.

Photos from a L&O shoot in East Harlem

Our friends over at manyhighways.com snapped some photos of a Law & Order shoot on 104th and Lexington a couple weeks ago. [second item] Note that the production designers built a complete facade over one of the buildings. There is no Center for the Study of Santeria on 104th Street.

I don't know which show this shoot was for, but if I had to guess, I'd say SVU, since that seems like the show most likely to feature ritualistic violence and also the one most likely to exaggerate the morbid aspects of Santeria.

Launch

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