The episode begins with a cop inside a deli, picking up some snacks. He walks back out to his car and finds his partner, dead, weapon still holstered. The two were involved in a stakeout of a con named Jerry Mays, and were waiting at his girlfriend's apartment for him. A homeless witness to the crime says he saw someone running away. Briscoe and Curtis raid the girlfriend's apartment. Mays is not there, and he is their chief suspect.
They talk to the girlfriend, Lois Hennick, but she doesn't have much info. They talk to his brother, a dry cleaner, who lent him his car, and find someone who sold a fake if to Mays. The ID used the name "Mark Wainwright." They track down Mays at LaGuardia and arrest him (off-camera). He's innocent, but says he saw the murder. Van Buren says the victim, Officer Pelham, knew his attacker. They canvas nearby hotels and a guard there says someone has been coming around there frequently, and he describes Pelham's partner, Peter. The detectives begin to think this is how the killer knew where to find Pelham: his partner was meeting his wife at the hotel, the wife told someone, and word got around, etc.
They talk to the victim's parents to disocer a motive. They say he has a girlfriend, Marissa Hastings, who is alo a cop. They talk to Hastings who is defensive and has a weak alibi. They talk to her ex-partner, Nash, at the 31st precinct, and learn that Hastings kept tabs on Pelham, often calling in to see where was. Hastings begins to look like a suspect, especially when they learn she made a credit card inquiry on Pelham's partner, to see when he was at the hotel. They arrest Hastings (19').
Internal Affairs (IAB) meets with McCoy and Carmichael to discuss the case. They say they've learned Hastings might have a "problem with men." AC talks to Hastings partner, who reveals that he and another cop brought Pelham to the hospital one time for a stab wound on his back, apparently inflicted by Hastings. The cops say they were covering for their abusive relationship.
Hastings' lady friend on the force says that Pelham beat her. They go out to Rikers to talk things over, and she tells the ADAs that IAB ignored her calls about Pelham's abuse. Skoda interviews her and learns that Pelham once pushed Hastings down some stairs.
At trial (40'), Hastings testifies. Skoda arrives in the middle of her testimony. She describes the first time she was beaten, and again says her complaints were ignored. During this, there are many reaction shots of Skoda, so you know he's going to offer an opinion later. He tells McCoy and AC that Hastings is innocent, because Hastings said she felt "sooner or later" Pelham would kill her, but abused women who kill their husbands/partners only do so when they feel their own death is imminent.
They talk to her partner, Felton, who becomes the new suspect. Felton's wife suspects that Felton may have been having an affair with Hastings. He also doesn't have an alibi. They bring everybody together in the Family Conference Room, and Felton gets sandbagged by McCoy and confesses, so that he doesn't send Hastings to jail. He allocutes and is sentenced to 15-Life. Carmichael says, "After 6 years, I still don't know what cops are about."
Character background: During the "problem with men" conversation, Carmichael reveals she was on the track team at University of Texas.
The episode begins with a young couple walking down the street, and an obviously disturbed young man walks by them, saying, "What time? What time?" repeatedly. Police take him into custody and bring him to Logan and Briscoe's precinct, where he starts going crazy in the jail cell. Logan rushes in to restrain the kid, and he suddenly dies in his arms.
Logan is investigated by Internal Affairs (called "IAD" here, but usually is called "IAB"), and Van Buren takes him off rotation. Profaci takes a more prominent role than usual here, and the ME talks to him and Briscoe about the death. She says the boy suffered a stroke, but he also had bruises on his body and had been tied down somewhere. Logan and Briscoe go through the boys stuff and find a movie stub and 300 pennies. They track down the manager of the movie theater who has the kid's coat, which contains schedules for various forms of transit. They check missing persons reports, and eventually ID the victim as Kevin Jeffries, an autistic boy.
They talk to his family who says Kevin was living at a place calle the Behavioral Control Clinic, because he used to hurt himself. The clinic is directed by a Dr Colter.
They visit the clinic and learn that Kevin wore a helmet there to keep him from hurting himself. They talk to orderlies who say they often strapped him to a board. They visit the day room of the clinic, and there's all kinds of erratically-behaving kids in there.
Van Buren says that the boy was also receiving electric shocks. They reinterview Dr Colter, who tells them they used shock treatment on the kid to correct his behavior. Colter shows Logan how the device works, and in a funny but foreboding bit, shocks him with the device, which provoke a strong reaction from Logan.
They check in on Colter's clinic at the NYC Dept of Health, where they learn Colter gets a grant from the city of $175,000 for EACH of 83 kids. They also learn that the doc has to apply for permission whenever he wants to increase the amount of voltage he shocks the kid with. He claims that they only shock the patients on the forearm and thigh, but the kid had marks on his body from being shocked all over.
They check with the parents of other patients to learn of any complaints. They learn from angry parents of a device called "the buzz box," a tight fitting red helmet that delivers electric shocks. They learn that one patient had to wear this device for three straight days, and it left marks on the neck similar to those found on Kevin. The "buzz box" may have constricted blood flow to his brain, which would have caused his stroke.
They execute a warrant to find the buzz box, and they walk in on a treatment room where a young orderly is repeatedly zapping another kid. It seems pretty brutal. They arrest the orderly, Joe Garvey, for assault. He is interrogated by the DAs, and gives up enough information to warrant an arrest of Colter.
Colter is represented by recurring character Norman Rothernberg. Judge River, also a recurring character, seems to be swayed by everyone's opinion, but eventually concludes that the parents OK'd the frequent shock treatment. The judge and McCoy squabble over this in a scene marked by some silly acting. The judge frees Colter.
The central issue of the episode then becomes locating the buzz box, and proving that it was used. They talk to an occupational therapist who testifies for the plaintiffs, and to another ex-assistant, Mr Randazzo, who says he saw Kevin wearing the buzz box. They re-arrest Colter (39').
They try to talk to Kevin's roommate, who is mute, to determine whether Kevin wore the buzz box. Predictably, it doesn't go very well, until they use some kind of "facilitated communication" technique where his mom guides his answers by guiding his hand on a keyboard. So McCoy asks him questions and his mom guides his wrist as he types responses. The scene is extremely silly and reminiscent of a similar scene in an awful episode of Criminal Intent where they talk to a woman in a vegetative state in a similar manner. Anyway, he taps out his answers, and mentions that the helmet was red, a clue that no one seems to notice. Olivet indicates that the mom was guiding the son's responses. McCoy tests the credibility of facilitated communication by showing Kevin a picture and having the mom attempt to use the facilitation to describe it, which, of course, fails. Why an assistant district attorney of NYC was able to devise a better method to test this system than the actual doctors who invented it were is beyond me, but whatever.
McCoy finally realizes the significance of the clue of the red helmet, and the roommate's mom finally admits she saw the buzz box on her son, which wasn't supposed to have been used after a certain date. They meet with Colter to make a deal, and he and McCoy have an argument, but he pleads guilty and gets 2-6 years, and the clinic is closed. This angers the roommate's mom, because she know has this very mentally sick son who she can't deal with at home.
The episode begins with two nursing students opening the door to a dorm apartment, and finding two badly injured nurses inside, one of whom is dead. They've been stabbed and one of them is missing a finger. Briscoe and Logan investigate, and Robinette and Stone prosecute.
Briscoe and Logan interview the other nurses, and mention Richard Speck, who killed 8 nurses in real life. They find a bloody footprint, and trace the killer's steps to a door to the building which he apparently propped open with a block of wood. Cragen comes down to the scene, Hudson Presbyterian Hospital, to have a look around, too. They talk to the hospital security chief (played by the same actor who would later play Lt. Van Buren's husband, I think), and he says he saw a guy lurking around a few days ago.
The surviving nurse, Aloma, regains consciousness and they talk to her in the hospital. She describes a previous incident in which she was nearly attacked. She used to work at a methadone clinic in Brooklyn, so perhaps there's a connection there. Briscoe mentions a nurse was stabbed in Brooklyn a month ago.
They head out to Brooklyn and interview a Detective Torelli (played by Dan Hedaya), who was working that case. Logan checks on the methadone program's dropouts, and comes up with a few suspects, who they talk to. One of them is played by Paul McCrane, the guy who went on to appear on ER as Robert Romano and on the X-Files as Leonard Betts, the guy who ate people's cancer cells. They hear from Brooklyn that Torelli has picked up a suspect and gotten a confession. The suspect is named Davey, and it's clear that he has a very low IQ. They bring him (improbably) to Aloma's hospital bed, where they shine a lamp in his face so he can't see her and she says she's not sure whether that's him or not. Why not just use a photo array, guys? Anyway, after some hesitation, she changes her mind and says she is sure that's him, after all.
They are suspicious as to whether Davey is actually the perpetrator, so they take him to the crime scene, where he walks them through it and gives them all kinds of details, including the block of wood trick. However, when they offer him a candy bar, he says he doesn't eat them because they're bad for his teeth. But when they initially scoured the crime scene, they found a candy bar rapper and conluded the killer consumed it while waiting for nurses to enter the building. While he's at the crime scene, some nurses walk out, and Davey freaks out and starts yelling.
They check his prior arrest record, and there is some evidence he may have been involved in a sexual assault a long time ago. He also is in possession of a homicide detective textbook that shows a fascination with police work. Briscoe believes Davey is guilty, but Logan doesn't. They find a knife that has blood on it, but they haven't matched that blood to the victims yet.
Davey is arraigned, and his lawyer is recurring character Shambala Green. Olivet examines Davey, who says he went to law school, which isn't true. Davey's IQ is 78, but he wants to appear much smarter. Olivet says he's competent to stand trial.
Davey's confession to Torelli is suppressed, as are his other statements. Schiff is mad at Brooklyn for screwing up their interrogation of him. Stone learns that both nurses were drug users. Aloma tells Robinette that she stole drugs from the hospital and dealt them on the street. This leads to a guy named Marty, who says someone else is responsible, and this someone else has the finger cut from the victim and the cameo ring that was on it. They also learn that Torelli arrested Davey years ago. It begins to look like Torelli is framing Davey. Stone confronts Davey and the Brooklyn DA, Frank Lazar. Lazar says he's bringing Davey to trial in Brooklyn anyway.
Stone is subpoenaed to testify on behalf of Davey at his trial. Lazard cross examines him. Davey is convicted of the nurse attack in Brooklyn, but Stone wants to get to the bottom of the case. To do that, he needs Marty's cooperation, but he's unwilling to give it unless Stone can help him with his current drug charges.
Stone convinces a special narcotics prosecutor to take over the charges against Marty and make a deal with him. Marty IDs the killer as James Lee Pawl, aka Jimmy. Lazar is pissed because his office has already convicted someone of these murders, and he doesn't like Stone arranged for his cases to be poached. The detectives catch up with Pawl: It's Leonard Betts from the X-Files! They had the right guy to begin with. They search him and find lots of evidence.
Then the truth starts coming out: Torelli told Davey to say he killed the nurses. Briscoe, Logan, and IAB show up in Brooklyn and arrest Torelli.
In the epilogue, we learn that Lazar has left for private practice, and Davey remains in jail.
A small bit of character background: Logan mentions he has a niece who is retarded.
Casting notes: Davey played by Michael Badalucco of The Practice, who also appeared as Natalie Portman's father in The Professional. He also played serial killer David Berkowitz in Spike Lee's Summer of Sam. Det. Torelli is played by Dan Hedaya, who played Carla's husband, Nick Tortelli, on Cheers, (and on a Cheers spin-off called "The Torelli's" that didn't last very long).
The episode begins with a young girl, about 5 or 6, walking with a woman who seems to be her mother at the mall. She is clutching a teddy bear. The woman stops at a cosmetics counter, and when she looks down to spot the girl, she is nowhere to be found. She panis, and calls out "Samantha! Samantha!" but the girl cannot be located. Briscoe and Logan respond to the call (an unusual one for them), and we learn that the woman is actually the girl's nanny. The girl's father, Gary Silver, a Broadway producer, arrives and is extremely angry with the nanny.
The detectives review a security videotape from the mall and see a toy store employee speaking to her. They track down the employee, Mr Zorn, who has a a record of sexual abuse. They visit his apartment, and find a doll in a shoe box. They visit him at his place of work, a chocolate factory, and bring him in for interrogation. He says the kidnapped girl was admiring a gorilla in the window, and he was talking to her about it. They learn that the girl left via the store's loading dock with the gorilla, in the company of another person, and they got into a Lincoln car. They find a man, Mr Fisher, who got a parking ticket there at that time and he drives a Lincoln. They bust into his apartment, and find the gorilla and a little girl. The problem is, it's the wrong little girl. It's Mr Fisher's daughter. However, they learn from Profaci that Mrs Fisher has a criminal record for protesting on behalf of children. They track her to the Children's Defense Fund (or some similar organization) which gives a lot of money to a woman named Ramona Stark. They trace Stark to a town house. When they reach the house, they hear the sound of children coming from the basement. They break in and find a bunch of kids in the basement, along with Stark, Samantha, and Samantha's natural mother. It turns out that Stark was co-ordinating some kind of "underground railroad" for abused women and children. They arrest Stark.
Robinette examines Stark's background and learns she is an advocate for children who claim abuse. He also learns that sometimes it seems like Stark's testimony about abuse is improperly elicited and used as a weapon in custody battles. Olivet examines Samantha to determine whether she has been abused by her father. She draws pictures of her family, and she portrays her father as very large and angry. Olivet says the girl's statements and behavior are inconclusive. The girl is not "intact" and suffers some scarring, but apparently that evidence (which is never really explained) is inconclusive, too.
They talk to Silver's adult daughter, who indirectly suggests she was abused. Schiff advises Stone to seek a plea deal for Sex Abuse 2. Silver refuses the deal, and the case against him is weak. They review a tape of Stark interviewing the girl, and she says her father abused her. Unfortunately for Stone, this tape is not allowed at trial: the girl must testify herself.
So Silver goes to trial for Sex Abuse I. At trial (49'), the daughter testifies in chambers. She is nervous during her testimony and appears confused. "I don't know what I'm supposed to say," she says. And then when asked if her father did anything inappropriate, she replies, "Ramona [Stark] said it was bad." It sure looks like Stark coached her testimony. Mrs Silver wants to take Samantha to France, but she doesn't have custody of the child. When the verdict comes back and Silver is found not guilty, we learn that Mrs Silver has abducted her daughter and fled.
The episode begins with two janitors walking down a hospital hallway. One janitor is instructing the new janitor about what found object can be kept by them. They then discover a psychiatrist, Lillian Hampton, dead in her office. Briscoe and Logan arrive to investigate, and note that she wacked over the head with a trophy.
They talk to her boss, who says he overheard the victim arguing with someone that night. Her last appointment was with a woman named Megan Nelson, whom they interview. Megan is mousy and polite. They talk to another witness who says he saw a man at the scene in a green Jaguar. This leads them from a parking attendant to the vic's ex-husband. Furthermore, prints in her office point to two felons, one of whom is a crazy guy with a strange relationship with his cat. He says he doesn't like the victim, but he didn't kill her. They listen to the victim's voicemail, which leads them to a gym, and the gym has the same name as one found on a gym bag at teh scene. They visit the apartment of the person who owns the bag, Bobby Walker. But guess who answers the door! It's Megan Nelson! She reluctantly explains that Bobby is one of her personalities. During interrogation, she reveals she has three personalities.
Briscoe and Logan talk to Olivet about multiple personality disorder. They search her apartment, and find computer files and a diary that seem relevant. They also talk to her superintendent who says that her father harassed Megan. They talk to the father, who had a restraining order filed on him by Megan. He admits he was at the appointment with the victim and his daughter.
They do a voice-lineup with the father to see if he was the one the vic's boss overheard arguing. The line-up confirms it was the father, a search of his apartment turns up blood matching the victim's, and he's arrested (28').
McCoy and Kincaid talk to Megan re her alibi. They talk to her previous therapist, Dr Coleman, who suggests that problems with her father was the reason for her many sessions with him. They eventually conclude that Megan was somehow involved in the murder, since she was present. They charge her with conspiracy to commit murder. They want to open her medical records to figure out what was going on with her father, but they can't until she files an insanity defense, which forces her records open.
Olivet examines the records and determines that Megan has some kind of traumatic memory that was close to being revealed before she stopped her treatment with Dr Coleman, and before Dr Hampton, the victim, was killed. Records suggest that Megan's mother's death may have been caused by her father, and Megan may have witnessed it.
McCoy meets with Megan to pressure her to testify against her father, which she is reluctant to do. As he increases the pressure, she predictably switches personalities and re-emerges as Bobby, the masculine, protective, cocky personality. "He" confesses to killing the doctor. But Olivet points out that the male personality of female patients tends to be protective, so perhaps "Bobby" was just covering for Megan. There is a motion hearing to determine whether Megan is competent to testify on her own behalf. As part of this proceeding, a doctor forces Megan to switch personalities on the stand, and her testimony makes McCoy think that she's responsible for the killing. He accuses her and, predictably again, she switches to her third personality, "Nancy," who confesses to the murder. A plea deal is arranged (off camera), and she's hospitalized.
Wow, so it only took 5 seasons for L&O to do a multiple personality episode? These things are the same every time, practically a genre unto themselves, so I guess L&O did a decent job with it. Strangely, this episode was written by a woman named Sybil, which is funny, since "Sybil" is the name of a well-known TV movie and book about a woman with multiple personality disorder.
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.
The episode begins with some cleaning ladies working in the garment factory. They come across the badly beaten body of the plant's owner, Arnold Zachary. He is found with cooking flour on his jacket, and there is an unclear videotape of someone entering the building.
They talk to his workers, who say he was nice. They also meet his wife, 26, who is a little stuck up. They view the security tape, but can't make out a clear image of the person. The forensics lab works with the tape and they notice a logo that says "BB" on his hat, which leads them to a chain called "Bagel Baker."
They enter Bagel Baker and find their suspect: Migues Camacho. He runs, and the Ed Green Five-Second Foot Chase™ that follows is actually one of the longest in history: Camacho runs for a full 20 seconds before Green catches him. (13')
But Camacho has an alibi, which holds up. They talk to Camacho's wife, Maria, who had a close relationship with the victim, and perhaps they were having an affair: they note that Maria's baby, present during the interview, has blue eyes. The baby also drooled on Green while he was holding it, so he got a DNA sample. They walk down the street and discuss the case. (Cafe La Palette is visible in the background, so they're down on MacDougal Street.) They learn from forensics that Zachary is the father of the baby! Hm. Perhaps Camacho killed Zachary because Z. was sleeping with his wife, Maria?
They talk to Maria, who again insists her husband is innocent, as does Camacho. But when they prepare to charge Maria with being an accomplice, Camacho confesses to protect her. Camacho gets himself a shrill and annoying defense attorney, Vanessa Galliano (played by Roma Maffia), who challenges his confession, arguing that he wasn't properly Mirandized because he speaks Spanish. The judge suppresses it. (Later his English turns out to be more than passable, so this makes no sense.) They have to rebuild their case, so Southerlyn reviews the family's financial records. It appears that the victim was paying off Maria, perhaps because Maria was blackmailing Zachary over the affair. Then they learn the secret that explains everything -- or almost everything: Maria was acting as a surrogate mother for Zachary's young wife. Southerlyn presents this idea to McCoy and Branch, who support it.
Miguel is put on trial for Murder 2 (41'). They present the theory that Maria was forced to give up the baby she had for the Zachary's, she didn't want to, so Miguel killed Mr Zachary. The wife testifies that she didn't want to have the baby because she was too vain -- she didn't want to mess up her young figure! She is a real ice queen on the stand, too. And she also makes an error in her testimony that jeopardizes McCoy's case. McCoy confronts her, and they discover that due to some imaginary legal BS, Mrs Zachary will get the baby is Camacho is acquitted. What??? That makes no sense whatsoever. The wife finally shows some emotion and breaks down. Finally, Miguel admits that he killed Zachary and makes a deal for Manslaughter I.
Typical of Season 14's episodes, this one is fairly preposterous at points. The Zachary's are wealthy people, and yet they chose to arrange a surrogate birth under the table with one of their plant workers? They don't want to give up the baby so they have to kill Zachary? Wouldn't the wife just pursue the baby through other means if she really wanted it, etc. Whatever. I wish they would get some decent writers for this show again.
The episode begins with a heated debate at a public meeting. A man is shouting down an official calling for compromise. They seem to be debating gay rights and benefits for domestic partners. The meeting ends, and the man who was shouting exits with another man amidst a bit of commotion. They hear gun shots and run to see what happens: the man he was yelling at, who we learn is a city councilor named Richard Durban, is dead. Witnesses say they saw a man in a green rain coat run off. Briscoe and Logan arrive and are lead to the green raincoat, which has been dumped in a trash can along with the murder weapon.
A member of the NYPD brass tells Van Buren and the detectives he wants this case solved soon. They talk to the victim's co-workers and then to his chief political opponent, Councilor Kevin Crossley. Crossley scoffs at the idea that he murdered Durban, and says he liked him, even if he didn't agree with his politics. They talk to his ex-wife, who suggests he had a younger boyfriend living with him. They go to Durban's apartment (why didn't they go there before?) and can't find the boyfriend, and many things, such as paintings and clothes, are missing. They have to track down this person, who they learn from the super is named Joe. They check his phone records and call the same pager numbers he called, but everytime someone calls back, they hang up as soon as the dets mention Joe Gibbs. Finally, they get lucky, and a kid who is a male prostitute arranges a meeting with Briscoe. They meet at a restaurant, as Logan watches. The kid and Briscoe talk for a minute, close a deal, and Logan moves in. They learn that Joe is staying at a place called the Royale on Lexington, which appears to be a cheap hotel. They bust in on him, guns drawn, and take him into custody. He denies murdering Durban, and there is some tension between him and Logan. Logan calls him "pretty boy," etc. Gibbs says Crossley came to the apartment the night of the murder, but he didn't let him in. Durban was at that meeting at the time. He says Crossley looked angry and stalked off. Gibbs' alibit is a guy named Leo Burnett, with whom he was having an interlude at the time. (It seems that Gibbs is a pimp/hooker and had people in and out of the apartment all the time, without Durban's knowledge, which seems unlikely).
They talk to Burnett who works for the city's transportation department. He nervously confirms Gibbs' alibi, but the detectives are still considering Gibbs a suspect at this time. The coat doesn't fit Gibbs, though, and the hairs found in it are inconsistent with his.
Van Buren shows the detectives a videotape of a heated debate between Crossley and Durban, and Durban says some gay-baiting stuff that is pretty offensive. Perhaps he needs to be looked at more closely. They talk to the Brooklyn Democratic Party leader, who says that Crossley came in due to a conservative sweep the previous year, but due to redistricting, he was likely to be dumped from city council. Durban was semi-responsible for this redistricting, so there's a motive. Then they learn that the gun was reported stolen in Canarsie, Brooklyn in 1985 -- in the same area was Crossley used to be a cop.
They talk to Crossley, and tell him that he busted the guy responsible for stealing the gun, and suggest that he didn't turn it into the evidence room and instead kept it as a "drop piece." (A "drop piece" is a gun that corrupt police officers would carry with them and drop on someone they shot, so they could justify the shooting. See this episode.) Crossley denies all this and is stern with Logan.
Van Buren and the DAs discuss the evidence and strategy. Schiff says he'll arrange to have Crossley turn himself in. He does, and he's represented by recurring character Mr Powell (played by Homicide: Life on the Street's Peter Gerety). Kincaid goes to talk to a gay Republican staffer, who says that Crossley and Durban had a relationship that was mainly for show: they helped each other appeal to the other's constituents.
At Crossley's trial (34'), Powell does a good job and makes Gibbs look like the suspect. During a break, the DAs eat Chinese food and stretegize. Back at trial, Barnett (the closeted gay guy who Logan and Briscoe tried to get to say what time he left Burnett's apartment) testifies that he is unsure of what time he left Gibb's apartment, but he does so only after Powell implies, very indirectly, that he has evidence that Burnett cruised gay strips looking for male prostitutes. Sensing the revelation that Powell is about to make, Burnett backs off his assertion he left Gibb after 10 pm. McCoy realizes what Powell did to Burnett, and berates him outside the courtroom. McC also realizes that Logan and Briscoe must have done the same thing to Burnett, and he calls them in and scolds them, since they're behavior has put the case in jeopardy. They had initially co-erced Burnett by making it look like they were going to tell his wife he was gay if he didn't tell them he couldn't cover for Gibb, who at that time was their suspect. McCoy makes Logan take the stand and explain all this. Logan remains calm despite a difficult cross-examination by Powell, even when Powell implies Logan should be charged with Coercion, a class A misdemeanor.
Crossley testifies on his own behalf, but his gay-baiting commentary is interrupted by the same activist from the episode's opening scene who starts screaming at him. Pandemonium erupts in the courttroom, and Crossley starts yelling about "people like that" and "scum."
Despite all this, closing arguments are made, but after a long time, the jury is unable to reach a verdict and tells the judge they are deadlocked. Crossley is excited, and the camera follows everyone outside the courthouse, where there is more pandemonium, and gay activists are screaming, and people are getting shoved. Logan jumps into the fray and starts pushing back. We see Powell and Crossley's wife enter their car, but can't see Crossley. The shaky camera picks up Logan pushing some people, and then -- apparently -- he comes across Crossley is about to punch him. Unfortunately, my Tivo stopped recording at this exact moment, and so I didn't actually see the punch. However, I know from other reports that this is what happens.
This incident, it seems, leads to Logan's demotion, and we learn in the Law & Order TV movie Exiled that Logan gets re-assigned to walking a beat in Staten Island. Ironically, Crossley had said on the stand that he was considering moving to Staten Island because of all the "scum" in the other boroughs.
The episode is notable, of course, because it is Logan's last. I think Logan is many, many people's favorite or second-favorite detective of all time, so this is a major event for them. I guess those who love Logan also love that he went out by punching an obnoxious city councilor.
This is one of three episodes that I am aware of in which a city councilman is killed. (See also the episodes City Hall and "Silence.") "City Hall" is based on a real-life incident, and this one isn't. In fact, this one greatly pre-dates the incident that "City Hall" is based on, but that incident in some ways closely mirrors this episode: it comes down to a political rivalry.
The episode begins with a boy, who looks about 11, throwing a grappling hook up into a building's window. He begins climbing the building, and is not spotted by a man who comes by walking his dog. As the man cleans up after his dog, the building explodes, and we soon learn that the man is ok, the dog has disappeared, and the boy is nearly dead. Briscoe and the FDNY get into a little tiff over the integrity of the scene, but the detectives are soon able to begin their investigation.
Soon afterwards, they are talking to the boy's mother when they learn he has died during surgery. They also learn that the explosion was purposeful and was caused by dynamite strapped to the building support beams, in an apparent attempt to bring down the whole building. They know they're in for a complicated investigation, so they start with the building's owner, who stands to gain $4.8 million in insurance money. However, he explains some rather complicated things indicating why he wouldn't want the building destroyed, and points them to his general contactor, Buzz Palley, who was heading up renovation of the site. Palley says he wouldn't really gain anything from seeing the building destroyed either, and points them to the unions, who have been getting angry with him for failing to hire union workers on his jobs. He also directs them to Calvin Tiller, a black activist who seeks jobs for minorities in the city and who protests outside construction sites. Logan has a face-off with Tiller, who stands his ground, and is more calm when the detectives visit him at his office later. They discount him as a suspect, and take a look at union activists. Everybody keeps mentioning that Palley is confrontational, almost to the point that it seems like he was trying to get himself fired from the job. But why? They talk to his former customer, who says Pally was stealing from him so he could pay for other jobs. The building's owner says that Palley was operating at a loss on the project, but would be let off the hook if the building were destroyed through crime or an "act of God."
Palley is questioned again, and denies he is financial trouble. He says he has a deal big investor, Mr Kee. They talk to Mr Kee, just in from Hong Kong, who says the truth is, he took one look at Palley's financial ledger and decided not to invest. He said he told Palley's "wife" this in a phone message. They talk to the woman at the address Palley gave them, and learn it is not his wife, but his sister. He's been staying with her because he's so poor. He also had no wife. She says he had a new contract that he was getting ready to work on.
They talk to Palley yet again, who says that Kee spoke to his girlfriend, Chris Chappel, whom he described to Kee as his wife. They talk to Chappel, who says she didn't give Palley the message about the non-investment. They learn he was living on the construction site, and so should have been there the night of the explosion. They talk to the bomb squad, who has rendered a basic 3-D computer model of the scene, and it appears like the bomb was designed to make the building fall on top of the trailer Palley was staying in. But the squad examined the trailer and found no personal effects in it. It appears that Palley picked up and left before the bomb went off.
They talk to Palley AGAIN and he has nothing but excuses based on coincidences. He says he was out for a walk when the bomb went off. Kincaid tells them to arrest him. (27') At Riker's, his lawyer tells the ADAs they should question Chappel's husband, a person the cops did not know existed. They assumed she was single. Kincaid goes off to talk to Ms. Chappel, also a construction worker, at a job site, where Kincaid wears a construction helmet that makes her look silly (or cute). She says that Hank, her husband, was out drinking that night, per usual. CK goes down to the bar to check it out, where she is treated with polite bemusement. She learns that everyone at the bar, including Hank, knew about the affair, and he said he was going to kill the guy. CK also learns that Hank is a licensed demolition expert, whose license has been taken away because of drinking on the job. Looks like a suspect! They search his apartment and find bomb-making materials and a gun matching one used to shoot at Palley one night prior to the bombing They arrest him for arson and the murder of the boy. (33')
At trial, Chappel's wife testifies about the affair, and faintly smiles while doing so, which indicates to me that she is quite malicious, since her actual husband is sitting 20 feet away from her, on trial for his life. Briscoe testifies, and is cross-examined about the fact that Palley was such a good suspect, he was arrested. McCoy has to make Briscoe look somewhat incompetent in order to cleanse that idea from the jury's mind, and he says to Briscoe, "So would you say in retrospect that the arrest of Mr Palley was somewhat premature?" To which Briscoe reluctantly answers Yes. Hank Chappel takes the stand and is credible as he asserts his innocence. Nonetheless, he is found guilty of Murder 2 and arson. (44')
Now you know with a verdict coming in at 44 minutes, there are going to be some further plot twists. Briscoe visits McC and CK as they prepare to celebrate and tells them that something has been bothering him: Palley said he went for a walk the night of the explosion, so why did he never return? This is such an obvious point, it is merely a testament to the weakness of the script that no one noticed it previously. McCoy and CK act somewhat alarmed, and this bit seems to suddenly convince them that they've convicted the wrong man, and that Palley is guilty after all, causing Briscoe to offer the rejoinder to McCoy, "Wouldn't you say in retrospect that the prosecution of Mr Chappel was somewhat premature?"
The DAs come up with the theory that Chris Chappel and Palley blew up the building. This seems obvious, but leaves open the question as to why Hank Chappel didn't accuse his wife of the bombing, since all evidence pointed to one of the two of them. They get a wiretap to listen to Chappel and Palley, and hear them talking about the bombing. They question Chappel again to get her nervous, and get a tape of her saying to Palley something like, "What if they find out," and him saying, "They don't know anything," etc. They re both arrested off camera (51'), but a judge suppresses the tape, due to the defense counsels' argument that the fact that another man was already convicted of the crime was not on the warrant application.
That's a serious setback, and Schiff is upset about the way things are going. He says to McCoy, "In the future, if we ever go to trial again, maybe we ought to know what we're doing." He orders McC to get the convicted Hank Chappel set free, but a judge refuses to do so until McCoy shows reversible error in the trial, or gets the others convicted (which he has trouble doing without freeing Chappel first, get it?).
McC comes up with the brilliant idea of changing their theory of the crime, and arguing that they misinterpreted the tape, and what they really "believe" is that Chappel *and* his wife are responsible for the bombing. This makes her seem like an accomplice in the crime her husband has already been convicted of.
They have a big meeting with everyone in the Family Conference Room, and the defense lawyer rightly accuses McCoy of suborning perjury if he gets Hank to testify against his wife. McCoy plays fast and loose with the truth, brings in Hank to cry in his wife's face and swear he'll testify against her, and then Chris Chappel breaks down and rolls on Palley. She makes a deal: Arson 2, Man I, 10 years.
In the epilogue, McC is down on himself for convicting the wrong man, but Schiff perks him up by giving him a funny face and saying it could have been worse: they could have had the death penalty to contend with.
Update: According to Reuters, Rohm is committed to the first 13 episodes of Season 15. The article also reveals/reminds us that Dennis Farina's character will be named Joe Fontana.
I don't watch SVU, so I haven't done those yet, but I will soon.
The episode begins with a priest named Father Jack walking the streets in a seedy part of town (pre-redeveloped Times Square?), handing out fliers for a soup kitchen and trying to get people off the street. He comes across a teenager who isn't moving. He's dead. He's been badly beaten, and has no ID on him, but he's wearing expensive sneakers, so if he's a street kid, he hasn't been out for long.
Briscoe and Logan talk to a couple of hookers at the soup kitchen, one of whom is a transvestite, to see if they saw anything. They theorize the kid may have been prostituting himself, and got roughed up. They want to talk to a pimp named Mr Clyde, and find him in a sex club, where Logan comments some of the kids don't look old enough to be there. Briscoe says, "I'm not old enough to be in here." Mr Clyde, though, is a dead end.
They talk to an Asian female ME, who says there is no evidence of sexual abuse, but he had string beans for dinner. They canvas the schools in the neighborhood to try to ID him. They finally track down a guidance counselor who knew him. His name was Johnny. They talk to his mom's ex-boyfriend, Zach, and Zach's new girlfriend, both of whom are pretty sketchy characters. This leads them to the mom, who was strung out and is now in rehab. They visit her, and she's mad because the state took her son away from her. This leads to a social worker, and then to Johnny's foster mom, Flo Bishop, who has a bunch of foster kids. She points them to Johnny's friends, who say he just disappeared that day. They requestion Zach, who has a solid alibi, but talk to his girlfriend and learn that Johnny had stopped by the apartment and tried to rob it (for a second time) but was thwarted by new locks. Zach, she says, was unaware of this, but she saw him runaway from the scene, along with his friends. Her friends were lying.
They check out the friends, one of whom, Chris, has a criminal record. They take Chris in for questioning, and he's a cocky son-of-a-gun. During interrogation, he turns to Briscoe and says, "Yo Brill Cream, why don't you and Captain America [Logan] go blow it out your butt." Nice.
Van Buren works on the other friend, and gets him to roll on Chris. He says Chris and the victim fought.
Chris gets represented by recurring character Helen Brolin [pic]. Kincaid investigates Chris's past, and learns that his mom pimped him to men. Kincaid talks to Chris's mom, who is pregnant and is smoking and drinking while talking to Kincaid, which earns Kincaid's disdain.
The prosecutors discuss Chris's childhood problems and figure out what to do. Schiff tells them to get the kid's childhood record opened. Kincaid sweet talks a family court lawyer who is apparently an old friend, and learns that family court will open previous cases to determine whether the current case should also be held in family court.
During the hearing to determine whether he should be tried as a juvenile, Chris talks to the judge about the fight, and says he doesn't remember it: he was in a blind rage. Stone discusses a violent incidenct Chris had at Spofford, where he attacked someone in the caferia. He was at Spofford to begin with because of an armed robbery, during which he shot a store owner with a .22. All this leads to a decision to try him as an adult.
Brolin launches a mental defent case, saying that Chris is genetically predisposed to violence because he has an XYY chromosome, which some scientists supposedly believe leads him prone to violence. (They mention in passing Richard Speck tried this defense, but it turned out he didn't have the XYY chromosome.) The judge allows it.
Chris talks to Olivet and expresses anger as a response when provoked. Olivet tells the DAs that the chromosome argument is fake and not scientifically established. Schiff tells the ADAs that the "White America Caucus" is using the case to show that genetic "inferiorities" lead to problems.
At trial, Chris's mom testifies about how violent her son was and what a bad mom she was. Brolin and Stone meet at a bar to discuss a deal. They meet with Chris, whose very angry and doesn't want a deal: he just wants to go to jail because he feels like his life is already wasted. He's listened to the testimony at trial, and determined his future is worthless. "I'm screw up," he says. "I want to go to jail...I'm a freak." Stone resists, but Schiff tells him, as ever, to take the plea and move on, which he does. Chris allocutes.
The episode begins with a janitor and a locksmith approaching a door that has been glued shut, They open the door and enter the apartment: the lights don't work, and there is blood spattered on the wall and everywhere else. The victim is Mr Frank, a dead janitor. He's been shot multiple times. Curtis uses his crime scene investigation skills and conclude that the killer used a pillow to muffle the sound of the shot, and killed the victim on a drop cloth, which he took wit him to minimize evidence. Looks like a professional hit, but who would want to kill a janitor?
They talk to the victim's boss, who says the victim worked, among other places, at a dental office where the dentists made porn films after hours. That turns out to be a dead end, though. They check in with OCCB to see if they have a record of a hitman who used a similar MO. They find someone, but he was convicted in the 1950s. They go talk to this old hitman (fun!), and he says that the writer's of an assassin's technical manual published all his secrets in their book, without giving him credit for developing them. It appears this is where the killer got the ideas from.
They visit the publisher of the book, and attempt to get the company's mailing list. The head of the company is racist towards Curtis. They won't give up the list, but Ross threatens them with criminal facilitation, and they get the list.
They learn that the victim got the book himself at Hudson University, or at least that it was stolen from a box in the mailroom that he had access to. They track down a kid who had access to the mail room (to steal the book) and to the chemistry lab (mercury was used in the commission of the crime). This leads to Alan Sawyer, a history major, who spends time in the chem lab. He is a fast and nervous talker. The lab where he works studies psychotropic drugs.
This leads to the head of the lab, Dr Varick, who tells them Sawyer is unstable. They bring Sawyer in for questioning, and he is brassier than expected, though still superficially polite. As they late out their case for him, explaining that the technique used in the killing points to him since he had the manual and there was little left behind at the crime scene, he retorts, "I'm guilty because you don't have any evidence?" They find mercury missing from thermostats in the lab, and arrest him (27'). As they do so, he insists on speaking to his parents, which they don't allow, because he's over 18.
He confesses, but the detectives forget something he mentioned in passing during a previous interview: his dad is an attorney. His request to talk to his parents, therefore, constituted a request to have an attorney. There's another problem: during his confession, he says that the victim, Mr Frank, was 600 years old. The pope told him so.
Varick says he was treating Sawyer as a schizophrenic, but he's been asymptomatic since taking an experimental medication, T-489.
The confession gets suppressed, and the charges are dismissed. They have to rebuild the case. Ross reports that Sawyer's father owns a .32, the same kind of gun used in the crime. They visit Baltimore (no "Homicide" cross-over, though), and talk to his parents, who says he's crazy. They want to commit him. They have a hearing in a Bellevue hearing room on whether to commit him. Judge Rebecca Steinman, a recurring character, hears the motion. He doesn't get committed, because Varick's research assistant says he's ok on the meds.
Ross and McCoy meet a restaurant, and discuss the fact that a previous Varick patient died. They talk to the research assistant, Ms Perry. McCoy believes Varick is fudging his resource data and says Perry is being set up by Varick. She admits she told Varick that Sawyer was relapsing, and the medication wasn't working. She also said that Sawyer said he was going to kill the victim, and indication that they knew the meds weren't abating his violent behavior.
Sawyer winds up in Bellevue, but McCoy wants to charge Varick with Manslaughter 2. The judge allows it. McCoy learns that Varick didn't perform certain PET scans that were ordered for the research. This shows intent to cover up inadequacies in his research. Ross gets ahold of Sawyer's PET scans, which show brain abnormalities: it turns out he wasn't even schizophrenic. He suffers from a terminal brain tumor that would have been detected in Varick had done what he was supposed to do. Looks like Sawyer will be dead in a year or two. He confronts Varick and calls him a bastard. McCoy tells Varick he's indicting him for Murder 2. But Ross defends Varick for not doing his job, saying, "Everyone cuts corners, Jack." McCoy responds, "Maybe where you come from. I'll check your briefs more carefully from now on."
The title of the episode refers to a kind of experiment, in which neither the researcher nor the patient knows which medication is being used on a particular patient. I guess this figuratively refers to the way in which Varick was "blind" to Sawyer's true condition, but that's only "single" blind. I don't know what the other blind is.
The episode begins with a couple of teenagers walking in a parking lot. It appears that they are stoned. They stumble over a dead guy, and one of them says, "Talk about a total buzz kill." CSU arrives and determines that the man has been shot to death, and has been dead about 3-4 hours. He has many drivers licenses and other forms of ID, with different names on them. Looking around at the parking lot, Briscoe says, "Parking in this city will kill ya."
The victim's name is Ronald Buck. They talk to his parole officer who points them to his sister in Queens, who points them to his place of work, who says he got into a fight on his first day at the job. They visit a bar he was known to frequent, and talk to his bookie, who they think may have been motivated to kill him. Briscoe says, "It's The Sopranos...It makes 'em think they can get away with anything."
They visit OCCB to check out Buck's association with organized crime, and they learn that the Politi and Ribisi families are at war, and Buck might be a casualty. They check in with the head of the Polito family, who is in prison. He says he'll give them some info on the killing if they can arrange for the FBI to back off his son a little. They take him out of the federal prison, and lead him through the crime scene. He points out some things the killer did wrong, but doesn't give them any solid data. Van Buren is mad at them for taking Polito out of federal prison, and they review the evidence they have so far, which isn't much.
They go back to the victim's sister who points them to Estaban Cruz, who once stabbed him, and this leads to a prison log, which reveals the sister's brother visited him 3 times in jail, which leads to a storage locker, which leads to a thief named Paul who is connected to an unsolved murder/robbery of a man named Cobin.
They talk to Cobin's wife and stepdaughter (who seems unnecessarily present during an interview scene). They talk to a detective from the Cobin case, and find a connection between Ronnie Buck's carpet cleaning business and Cobin. The wife denies knowing Buck, but she signed the invoice for his company to provide services to her husband's store. Perhaps she hired Buck to kill her husband, Mr Cobin?
They talk to Buck's partner, Mr Karpinksy. He's at Rikers, and says Buck is in fact a hitman and he killed Cobin, and that he arranged the hit in a parking lot with a lady. A lawyer named Dimmick is the connection between Buck and Corbin's wife.The ADAs review the evidence with Lewin. They talk to Mr Cobin's first husband, who said she was merciless during their divorce and accused him of abusing their daughter. They search Mrs Cobin's house, and find a stub from the parking lot where Buck was killed. they arrest her for the murder of Buck and her husband. (33')
A judge splits the two cases, and she stands trial for the Buck murder (43'). During the mom's testimony, it appears she is covering for her daughter. Her lawyer, recurring character Mr Axtell, picks up on this. Mrs Cobin rolls on her daughter and says the daughter killed Buck, avenging Mr Cobin's death. The verdict comes back: Mrs Cobin is not guilty of Murder 1.
The daughter hasn't been charged, however, and the closing scene of the episode is the mom and the daughter meeting on a boat, alone. Long time viewers will note that this is quite strange, because on the original series, there is never a scene where one of the main characters -- a detective, lawyer, or psychologist -- is not present. This might be a clue as to what is coming next: the mom admits to her daughter her role in Cobin's death (her daughter slept with Cobin), but they are being tape-recorded from the doc. The daughter set up her mom, whom they re-arrest. (59')
I think this is the 250th L&O episode I have summarized since I began this site in December 2003.
The episode begins with a couple of cops in a car who see three men running away. They come up on a badly beaten man who is dad. The victim is a middle-aged man named Hal Garber, who is a car salesman at a Manhattan Jaguar dealer. He's discovered in Harlem, a bit out of the way for him.
They visit his work place and find he took a Jaguar out with a man named Mr Martinez, and the Jag has not been returned. They talk to Martines: his license was stolen 3 months ago. It looks like the perpetrator stole the car, and killed Garber.
They get some prints from the car, which match those from the perpetrator of a 2nd Avenue bar robbery a while back. They talk to the bartender, and Detective Spivak, who investigated the robbery. He says the witnesses all reported a "Spanish kid" was responsible for the robbery.
They talk to a witness named Tarlow. He called 911 during the robbery, and says he was hitting on a "Spanish girl" at the bar, who left after the robbery. The detectives suspect this girl might be connected to their unknown suspect. They trace her down: her name is Rosalita, aka Tina. They find her at Max Mara, and she immediately starts flirting with Det. Green. She says she doesn't know anything, but they remain suspicious. They also learn that an art gallery was robbed by the same perpetrator as the other two cases. The painting stolen was worth $80,0000.
Briscoe makes it clear he thinks Tina is an accomplice in the crimes. They talk to her ex-boyfriend, a painter named Manuel Lopez, but he's not a suspect. They learn that she's been walking around with a $20K leather bag that was stolen during delivery to a store. They trace the courier for that package, and it's a young Latino guy named Roberto Delgado. They enter his apartment and find the missing painting and Garber's wallet. Looks like he's the suspect! They track him down at the restaurant where he works and arrest him. (18')
They have Tina in for questioning at the precinct, and she acts like she doesn't know anything. They listen in on her conversation with Delgado, and she tells Delgado not to say anything. Tina comes out, and continues flirting with Green, even touching his hand. Green tells her he wants her. In jail.
Del Gado gets a defense attorney, Mr Conners (played by Peter Gerety, who was "Stu Gharty" on Homicide: Life on the Streets). Delgado refuses to speak at his arraigment. Conners admits that there is plenty of evidence against his client and, true to his reputation, he wants a deal. At the deal meeting, it's clear that Delgado is mentally a little slower than most, and he's still not said a word in the entire episode. Olivet interviews him, and he finally utters his first word: "Tina." Finally, he starts talking. He says he doesn't like doctors, who tried to "fix" him. He says he's known Tina since he was in the second grade.
Olivet says his IQ is around 80, and that Tina pushed him to commit these crimes. McCoy tells Branch he wants to go after Tina as an accomplice. They arrest her (39') for conspiracy to commit murder.
McCoy and Southerlyn question Tina, and she actually starts flirting with McCoy. McCoy meets Conners at a restaurant, and he tries to make a new deal: put Delgado away on Murder 2, as long as Tina isn't charged. That seems strange -- he's making a deal that harms his client.
At his allocution, Delgado says he hid the gun used in the Garber killing at the "restaurant," but they can't find the restaurant where he works. Then SS develops the theory that Tina was in the back seat of the Jaguar, and she killed Garber. They learn that her dad -- who she said owned a restaurant in Midtown -- is actually a dishwasher. Guess what restaurant the gun is hid at? Her dad doesn't like Tina -- so maybe that's why she's always seeking the approval of men. McCoy, in deciding whether to charge Tina as an accomplice, has Olivet watch him as he talk to Tina, and then asks her, "Could she kill?" It is very stupid, because (a) how is Olivet supposed to know, really, and (b) can't everybody kill someone if they're so motivated? Anyway, it turns out the the mushy-spined Conners is being played by Tina, and Delgado says that Conners told him to confess, to protect Tina. She calls Conners "sweetie" as McCoy gets him right where he wants him. Conners is upset because he's "measured [his] life in coffee spoons" and Tina represented his first taste of excitement in a long time. Overwhelmed by McCoy's ability to suppress his human nature in pursuit of justice, he turns to McCoy and asks, "Who are you?", a rare metaphysical moment for the series.
The actress who plays Tina is Vanessa Ferlito, best known perhaps as Claudia on Season 3 of 24, and as Adrianna's friend (also named Tina) on The Sopranos.
The episode begins with a woman seeking help from some transit cops in a subway station: she says that a homeless woman is lying on a bench and being eyed by some ruffians. The cops respond, and soon determine the woman is dead. Briscoe and Green arrive to investigate, and learn that the woman has been hit over the head, and has been dead less than two hours. Back at the precinct, they read a report that indicates the murder weapon was a paving stone, present at the crime scene because the area was under construction. They canvas the neighborhood around the station, looking for anyone who can identify the victim based on their photo of her corpse. Their search takes them from the station, to a newspaper stand, to a coffee shop, to a photo processing shop. At the photo shop, they flip through some pictures that haven't been picked up. They belong to a woman named Donatelli, and show her with her kids. They check for Donatelli's in the phone book, and eventually land at the home of a man who says he is her ex-husband. He is extremely distraught to learn of her death. (This becomes important later on.) He says she determined a few years ago that she was gay, and so even though they loved each other, they had to stop living as husband and wife.
At the precinct, Van Buren says the case reminds her of "that Konshalovsky woman" (sp?) from last year. (Apparently, someone else was hit with a brick.) They get a call that Mrs Donnatelli's AmEx card has been used. They review a security tape at the store, so they know what the purchasers -- a couple of teenage girls look like. They get another call: it's been used at a movie theater. They go to the movie theater, and take the two girls in for questioning. One of them rolls on the person who gave them the credit card, the other girl's boyfriend, Trey. They visit Trey at his place of work, and Green intimidates him until he says he bought the card from a "street dude" named Raffi. They track Raffi down at a shelter, and he says he saw the murder take place. He says he saw a guy beat the woman with a rock, and he (Raffi) just stripped the body of its valuables. He says Raffi took the victim's glasses. He describes Raffi as "buggy." They track down reports of EDPs (emotionally disturbed persons) in the area from around the time of the murder, and talk to a couple of beat cops who ran into Raffi pre-murder, but didn't book him. One of the cops says he dropped him off at an SRO (an SRO is like a very crappy, cheap hotel where people live when they don't have a lot of money). They go to the SRO, and find Raffi's room. They enter, and Raffi is ruffling through a pile of papers, and is quite obviously emotionally disturbed. Green makes nice with him, and they take him into custody.
Carmichael comes down to the precinct because Raffi refuses to be fingerprinted. He spazzes on her when she tries to talk to him, and then she calms him down. He wants to go outside. He says he took the victim's glasses because "I couldn't see who was talking to me." You get the impression he means the voices in his head. When AC asks him his name, he pauses and says, "Regis Philbin," prompting Briscoe to ask, "Is that your final answer?" Carmichael says, fine, if you let us fingerprint you, then everybody will know it's true. He apparently agrees, and through the fingerprints they learn his real name is Brian Gallant. Off camera, he confesses to the attack, and to the attack on Konshalavsky, too. The ADAs meet with his defense attorney, and McCoy reluctantly agrees that he can plead to Man I, and they can make proper arrangements for his care.
At his plea hearing, Gallant is under medication, and appears sleepy and dazed. His eyes are three-quarters closed as the judge asks him whether he killed the two women (he says yes) and if he understands the plea deal, which will end in his incarceration for 10-20 years. He says yes, and the judge says that concludes the preceedings. Well, that emotional ex-husband of the victim doesn't like the sound of that: he stands up and tells the judge other people are responsible for the murder of his ex-wife, such as whoever put Gallant back out on the street even though he was crazy. The judge tells him this is neither the time nor the place, and he emotionally replies that if they tell him the time and the place, he will be there. Although I think he over-acted slightly in his first scene, in this one, the actor playing the husband does a good job, and it sort of pays off his emotion from the earlier scene.
The DAs meet, and describe how Gallant was released from Rikers and dropped at a subway station in Queens with a token and a $1.25 and no medication and left to fend for himself. They try to determine whether anyone else shares criminal liability for the death of Donnatelli. They review medical records from Rikers and see that the number of hospital referrals began dropping drastically six months ago -- when a private HMO took over management of the prison's health care system.
They visit the offices of the HMO, SMJ Medical, and talk to the chief executive, who is represented by recurring character Mr Axtel(l). They confirm that Gallant was released with no meds. AC talks to Gallant's medical case officer at the prison, who has a new job now. AC wants to know who authorized Gallant's release. The ADAs talk to a doctor at Rikers, who says he worked with Gallant when he visited Rikers, and says he was threatened by the CEO not to refer patients to the hospital. He says another doctor was fired for continuing to issue referrals.
They arrest the CEO in a meeting (41') and his trial starts immediately. The doctor testifies, as does Gallant, who talks about how his "bad uncle" tells him to do things when he's on drugs, but the bad uncle "stays in Yonkers" when he takes his meds. The CEO testifies and accidentally admits that he occasionally reviewed Gallant's medical records. McCoy takes advantage of this admission, since it shows that the CEO had awareness of the consequences of not having him go to a hospital or be on meds. After some closing statements, the verdict comes back: not guilty on Manslaughter 2, but guilty of criminally negligent homicide. Way to go, McCoy!
In the epilogue, McCoy rather cheesily states that Dateline called and they want to interview her. When AC cheesily asks who's going to interview her, Jane Pauley or Stone Phillips, she says -- in school girl crush sort of way -- Stone Phillips. WHO WRITES THIS CRAP??
Casting note: one of the jurors is played by Lance Reddick [pic], who appears in two other episodes, but with speaking parts: once as a Sierre Leonean soldier, and once as an FBI agent. The actor playing the victim's husband does a decent job, but the best performance in the ep is from Ray Anthony Thomas as the emotionally disturbed Brian Gallant. He appears in a bunch of other L&O eps, but is hardly recognizable here.
The episode's title refers to the term for a justice system that values expediency more than true justice, and also refers to the (approximate) scene of the crime.
The episode begins with some kids miming their basketball moves outside a community center. They say hi to "Ms G.," a woman who walks by them, turns the corner, and is promptly shot. Briscoe and Curtis arrive and the victim is identified as Jennifer Galen, a social worker.
They talk to her rich father, who says he warned his daughter about working uptown, and he thinks the crime is racially motivated, or at least that she was killed by non-white assailant. They learn that Galen had a client, Randy Johnson, who had an unrequited crush on her. He says he was sort of stalking Galen, but he didn't kill her. He says he saw her get into an Audi with an older man. They learn that she did codeine, apparently in the context of sex.
The talk to her father's driver, who says he stopped at the daughter's house on the day of the murder. They confront her father, who admits he went over her apartment to remove embarrassing things like drugs, sex toys, and Polaroids of her doing the nasty. They visit the sex store where some of the items were purchased, to see if they can figure out who her sex partners might be. They learn that one of them is Stu Steiner, a local newscaster. They visit Steiner's apartment and learns he own an Audi. But they also learn something else much more important: he's been murdered, and his corpse is right in front of them, in the bedroom.
They enter Steiner's bedroom and find him, covered in blood, and wearing ladies' underwear, apparently killed in the midst of a kinky sex act, a situation that inspires Briscoe to make the best wisecrack in the history of the show:
Briscoe: "Always wear clean underwear. You never know when you might be in an accident."They recover a videotape of a threesome involving Steiner, Galen, and an unidentified brunette to be named later. The video forensics team uses trigonometry to determine the location of where the video was shot. They visit the apartment where it must have been shot, and meet Debbie, who is the third person in the video. She says Stu liked other men.
They check the "VICAP" database to see if there were other crimes with a similiar MO, find some from all over the country, and they make a detailed grid on a chalkboard showing all the properties of all the cases. They go through the victims' address books to see if they have anyone in common. This leads to Charles Thatcher. They visit Thatcher's apartment, and he's hiding in his closet, wielding a golf club (I think) and shaking. He's gay, and says he's hiding from Eddie Chandler, who -- based on the other murders -- he believes is coming to kill him, to round out his mu.
Chandler calls Thatcher: he's downstairs and wants to come up. They go down to meet him and arrest him after a brief chase (21'). They find a gun on him, which turns out to be the murder weapon.
During interrogation, he is cocky and flirts with Ross and Curtis. Their case suffers a set back when, rather unbelievably, a judge suppresses the gun. (This is one of the most foolishly written evidence-suppressions ever. Chandler was a suspect at the time they arrested him, and he had his gun on his person. I mean give me a break.) Ross talks to Chandler's ex-lover, who also flirts with Ross and tells her that he's dating someone else, Professor Stevenson of Hudson University. They talk to the professor, who says he let Chandler borrow his car. They check his car, and find female clothes in the trunk, and a brown wig. This explains the mystery brunette seen at one of the crime scenes.
Chandler gets a new lawyer, Mr Pressman, who is supposedly a high-profile attorney at Harvard (but is played by Dennis Boutsikaris, the same guy who plays attorney Al Archer in a million other episodes -- What, they didn't think anyone would notice?).
Chandler talks to McCoy about old movies that were set in NYC, and says this influenced his opinion of the city. They go back to Prof. Stevenson and despite his reluctance, convince him to testify about Chandler's murderous past. This is allowable because of some hearsay rule. They also argue inevitable discovery (leveraging "People vs. Puffin") and get the gun admitted at trial.
At trial (42'), Pressman comes up with a ridiculous and novel defense: prolonged exposure to violent TV programming caused Chandler to kill people. He corners a congressman who opposed violent TV to testify on his client's behalf. The congressman tries to get Schiff to get him out of it somehow, but he can't, and he reluctantly testifies.
McCoy cross-examines Chandler, who eventually admits that TV didn't influence his method of killing people. At a restaurant, McCoy reads Pressman's book, and Pressman enters. Apparently, Pressman's book argues the exact opposite of what he's arguing in court. Doesn't matter: the verdict comes back, and Chandler is guilty of Murder 2.
I believe some elements of this episode are borrowed from the case of Andrew Cunanan, who killed Versace.
The episode begins with an older guy trying to pick up a hooker for "half-and-half." They start doing it, when they look over and see a dead body. Briscoe and Green note that the victim was shot, has a wad of cash on him, and was probably a drug dealer.
They determine the vic's name is Scott Giddens. They try to track down his apartment. They go through some housing projects, and come across an overdosed girl in his apartment. A girl named Gina tells them that a guy had come by earlier looking for Giddens. This man had a big birthmark. They check with a undercover narcotics detective to learn more about Giddens. He says Giddens was involved in selling something called "Yaba" drugs. They learn the guy with the birthmark is named Juan. They talk to Juan who says the locals disliked Giddens, particularly a man named Bill Parker, a member of the neighborhood watch. They talk to the organizer of the neighborhood watch, a priest named Father Hogan, and Briscoe goes to a local bar, where he finds Parker. Parker had a son killed by a drug dealer, so Briscoe connects with him emotionally, since Briscoe himself lost a daughter to a dealer. Briscoe is a little emotional as he talks to him, and says he kicks self for not killing her killer.
AVB scolds Briscoe for using this method to attempt to coerce a confession out of a suspect, and Green scolds him a little, too.
They talk to some kids at a park who saw Parker walking with Father Hogan the night of the murder. They suspect that the murder weapon is a gun that went missing from the Port Authority lock-up of confiscated weapons. Since Parker has access to this area, they search his house, and find it buried behind a wall. They arrest him (21'). Now, we know from experience that anytime a suspect is arrested at 21 minutes into the episode (instead of 31 minutes), there is more to the story.
While they're questioning Parker, Father Hogan enters and confesses to the murder of Giddens. The DA's are skeptical. They talk to Mrs Parker who confirms that the priest killed him. Hogan insists that "killing is not a crime when it's God's will." Olivet examines the priest to determine whether he is competent to stand trial. Hogan tells her God wants us to explore our faith.
McCoy is uncertain how to proceed on such a religiously-charged case. He says "This is our Inherit the Wind," referring to the play about the Scopes Monkey Trial. Southerlyn thinks McCoy is bitter about his Catholic upbringing.
At trial (42'), McCoy says he's upset by anyone who claims to know what got wants. The priest (I think) refers to Exodus 21:12. McCoy is confrontational with the priest, challenging the notion that God told him to kill someone. McCoy says something unintentionally funny when he suggests the God erred in choosing Hogan to kill Giddens: "Well, God screwed the pooch on this one." Whoever wrote that line should be fired.
Parker tries to confess to the crime, but the ruse is a failure, and the priest makes a deal, which is usually how these episodes that really test legal and moral boundaries go: everyone gets all worked up about the giant issues at stake, and then before anyone has to deal with the consequences, the guy pleas out.
Overall, the episode is awkwardly written, and the trial scene is extraordinarily tedious. As far as character background goes, McCoy discusses a childhood friend named Tommy, and he recalls Tommy sustaining severe injuries in Vietnam and refusing to have his soul prepared for death by a priest. Tommy told the priest, "God forgive me if I'm wrong."
Casting note: the priest is played by Denis O'Hare, an actor who has appeared on the show several times, usually in memorable roles.
The episode begins with Busey's character, Tommy Vega, entering a restaurant, all out of sorts. He says he need help because his wife, Beth Ann, has been shot. Briscoe and Green arrive, and Briscoe says that Vega was a famous singer with a Vegas act (think Tom Jones) until "he took up with a guy named Jack Daniels."
They interview Vega and he says he and his wife had dinner at the restaurant, they walked to the car, and he went back to the restaurant to place a bet with his bookie. When he went back to his wife, she was shot dead. As they talk, in comes Art Cahill (Joe Piscopo), his manager. His sons, Peter and Jason, also arrive. One son, Peter, has already hired an attorney for his father. Van Buren talks to the victim's sister, who says that a divorce had been planned. Green looks at the bet Vega was making, and says it was a sucker's bet. (We know from previous episodes that Green is/was a heavy gambler.)
Vega's attorney, Mr Feldman, begins to play a prominent role in the handling of the case. The detectives run into him at the crime scene, where he's accumulating his own evidence. He tells them for clues to the murder, they should look into Beth Ann's past. They talk to Cahill, who is very close to Vega and his family, and says he's been Vega's manager for 25 years. He says that Beth Ann got pregnant, and Vega married her just so the baby could have a father. Cahill and Green get a call at the same moment: the murder weapon has been found. When they get to where the gun is, Feldman is already holding a small press conference, and he says that the New York Ledger, the tabloid newspaper that is the namesake of this website, received the first call that Feldman's investigators had found the gun. He says of the newspaper, "The Ledger has a track record in the field of investigative journalism." Feldman turns to a journalist after talking to the detectives and says, "What would you like me to say?" It's clear he wants this case tried in the media.
The location of where the gun was found messes up the detectives' theory of the crime: if Vega really was the trigger man, he couldn't have gotten the gun to this far away location in time. They look into Vega's financial records and find that he wrote a check for $60,000 to someone named Rick Jordan. The memo said "re: Beth Ann." They track down Beth Ann's mailbox at a mailbox store, and learn that Cahill has already cleaned it out. Cahill tells them that Beth Ann wrote letters to lonely men all over the country, trying to wrangle money out of them. One such letter points them to Davey Reynolds, a hall of fame pitcher who used to be called "Psycho." They talk to Reynolds at a baseball camp, and he says Beth Ann was like a stalker, but he didn't kill her.
They trace the gun to Dwayne Hawthorne, who they learn is dead. They learn that his grandson works for Cahill, however, and the grandson, Mr Jackson, admits he sold the gun to Cahill. Looks like Cahill is the new suspect.
They take Cahill into custody while he's in the middle of a meeting with "the next N'Sync." Cahill has no alibi, and says the gun was in an unlocked drawer in his office where anybody could've gotten it. His secretary tell them that Cahill paid Beth Ann $750,000.
Beth Ann's attorney seems to have more information than is immediately apparent, and McCoy wants to know what the attorney knows. They file a motion with a judge, who decides partially in McCoy's favor, saying, "I wouldn't be Solomon if I didn't occasionally split the baby." He orders Beth Ann's attorney to break privilege and testify.
A grandy jury is called to seek an indictment against Cahill. At the grand jury, Beth Ann's attorney testifies that Vega paid Beth Ann all that money for custody of their child, but then Cahill testifies the baby wasn't even biologically Vega's. Beth Ann's cell phone records show that Vega's son, Peter, received a call after the murder. All the Vegas get together in the family conference room to talk things over. Back at the grand jury, Vega testifies about his love for his daughter, even though she wasn't really his, and he couldn't imagine parting with her, and Beth Ann used the custody issue to extort things from him. At this point, the episode becomes rather tedious. Eventually, Vega jumps out of the witness box while testifying, and gets all emotional. He pleads to killing his wife.
The episode is notable because of it's two formerly-big-time celebrity guest stars, and because it "rips from the headlines" the story of another washed-up celeb, Robert Blake, who apparently killed his wife under similar circumstances.
The episode begins with an elderly woman approaching an apartment door that has been busted open. She calls out "Mildred? Mildred?" (because all old ladies are named Mildred). But Mildred doesn't reply: she is found dead in her ransacked apartment. The Asian male ME tells the detectives their victim is Mildred Bauer, 82. Her daughter-in-law shows up and wonders where the live-in caretaker is. They talk to other maids in the park and learn that Maria Gonzalez has been hanging out with her new boyfriend, Felix Ortega. They track him down and find Maria. Not much help, but Mildred's granddaughter Laura says she fired Maria because Maria has been stealing.
Briscoe wonders how Laura got along with Mildred and says his own dad was hard to handle when he got older, and that he thought Briscoe's mom was poisoning him. The detectives find Mildred's missing candlesticks at Maria's apartment, but she says that Mildred gave them to her. She also says that Laura complained she was feeding her grandmother too much. They think Felix may have killed Mildred but he says he merely broke the door in (the locks were changed), saw Mildred dead, and panicked.
They learn from the ME who tells them she didn't die from injuries sustained during a robbery. Logan says, "She was found dead during a break in....What were we supposed to think?" The ME responds, "She was found dead during the war in Bosnia, too, but that didn't kill her either." Ha! He says what did kill her is that she was starved to death.
They check out Mildred's video will, which leaves her entire estate to charity. They also learn that Laura lied to her grandmother about what she was using grandma's money for. She said she was in law school, but she wasn't. Laura is starting to look like a suspect, especially after they learn the apartment was signed over to Laura, and Laura recently invested $70K in a restaurant. Furthermore, they learn that Laura was in the apartment on Thursday, even though she said the last time she was there was Tuesday. They arrest her outside her church, where she's making funeral arrangements. (29')
Recurring character Danielle Melnick is her defense attorney. Melnick argues Mildred was going to die anyway, but Stone quizzes her about basic law and asks, "If a woman falls off the Empire State Building and is shot on the way down, is the man who shot her guilty?" His answer to his own question: "Yes."
At voir dire (36'), Melnick excludes all the old people, which recurring character Judge Margaret Barry allows. Meanwhile, they learn the INS is trying to deport the maid/caregiver before she can testify. Her lawyer wants Stone to fix her immigration status in exchange for her testimony. He sort of doesm, and she testifies, and they learn that an anonymous call got her fingered by the IND...the LUDs ("local usage details," aka phone records) show that Laura placed the call.
Laura testifies that her grandmother begged her to die. But the maid doesn't corroborate this, so it seems unlikely. Laura brings up her feelings about Catholicism and assisted suicide, which ends up being a major theme for the last quarter of the episode. Schiff gives Stone the OK to make a deal, which he does: she gets 2 years in jail.
The episode begins with two officers responding to an old lady's call for help finding her runaway chihuahua. While searching a wooded area, they come across the body of Robert Stroud, a member of the US Navy. His watch and wallet are missing, but his dogtags identify him. Briscoe and Curtis arrive, and learn that the chihuahua was found and bit one of the officers. They say something about Stroud being "number 5," apparently referring to a serial murderer.
Back at the precinct, they call around to pawn shops to see if any of the merchandise stolen by this suspect has shown up. Apparently, the suspect is a mugger who kills his targets. They get a hit on an item from victim #3. The pawn shop owner, whom Briscoe knows, reviews books of mugshots and identifies Lennie Travers. They assemble a big team and raid Travers apartment. In an extremely rare bit of action for L&O, there is a shoot-out and Travers is killed. All the officers involved celebrate back at the precinct, but it turns out Travers was responsible for only 4 of the murders, not Stroud. Back on the case!
They talk to Stroud's commander on the ship. He says his wife is also in the Navy. They talk to her, and ask whether he was having an affair. Oddly cold, she says she wouldn't know, they should ask someone who is closer to him. They talk to his boss on the ship, a pilot named Lt Blair. She's apparently the poster child for "the new Navy," because she is one of only a handful of pilots cleared for night landings on a carrier. She doesn't give much info, but you get the sense she's hiding something.
Back at the precinct, they talk to Van Buren, who has just learned her son got picked up in Manhattan South for tagging a truck with graffiti. They review Stroud's criminal record and learn he got in a bar fight with his wife a few months ago, and she cracked one of his ribs. They talk to his wife again, who says she saw her husband and Blair all over each other. She says she reported the affair, and the Navy buried evidence of it. Blair says she had another civilian boyfriend. They talk to him, and he says Blair asked him to lie about how long their affair extended. They question Blair again, but a JAG officer comes in to represent her and ends the questioning.
They continue to gather evidence against her. They learn she has a car -- a BMW Z3 -- parked in a midtown garage. They can't search the car, but they can look at it. Curtis notices the tint on one window doesn't match the tint of the other windows. They get the name of the dealer from her license plate frame, and visit. They learn the window had indeed been replaced. They get the bits of shattered glass from the dealer, and take it to the forensics people, who determine that it was shot out, but there is no blood on it. Also, Blair's alibi for the night of the death is not holding up.
McCoy gets an arrest warrant. The dets go down to arrest her (20') but the Navy asserts jurisdiction and doesn't produce Blair. The DAs seek an indictment for Murder 2. They meet with the Navy's prosecution team who says that she has confesses to the affair and the shooting and says it was accidental. She reads this statement to Schiff, McCoy, and Ross, in the presence of the Navy investigators, on the condition that no questions will be asked of her. She says that she broke up with Stroud, he was upset, he tried to rape her at gunpoint, there was a struggle, the gun went off twice, he was killed, and his body rolled down the embankment. As McCoy explains, this doesn't really explain why his watch and wallet were missing. Her lawyer says bums must be responsible for that. After the Navy people leave, Schiff backs McCoy and tells the team to keep investigating.
They talk to a man who saw them in a restaurant who says that it seemed like he was breaking up with her. The man, a restaurant employee, is gay and flirts with Curtis. Curtis responds he's married. They talk to a parking lot employee who says that Stroud, not Blair, drove the car, a fact at odds with Blair's story. They use this info to get an indictment for Murder 2.
They have to win jurisdiction, so they take it to Judge Ari Waxman, a recurring character. He allows McCoy to get jurisdiction. At arraignment, Blair gets herself a civilian attorney, recurring character Ruth Miller (played by Patti LuPone). Miller gets Blair's Navy statement suppressed, since she wasn't properly Mirandized. McCoy, meanwhile, gets upset because he thinks Ross is too "starry eyed" over Blair and her Navy career. Schiff also makes reference to the way "every little girl" esteems Blair as if she were Sally Ride. (This aspect of the script doesn't seem believable.)
Schiff, per usual, tells them "make a deal," and they try: McCoy offers Murder 2, and then Ross, without McCoy's permission, says they might consider Man I, which gets her a stiff look from McCoy. Blair refuses both deals, and McCoy and Ross get in a wicked big fight about Ross's behavior and the case. Schiff walks in on them fighting and says they better stop fighting and get to work on the trial which starts in 11 hours. He tells them to remember it's a trial and not "a debate between George Patton and Gloria Steinem." Heh.
At trial (40'), everybody testifies. At night, Blair goes on a Larry King-like show (the Chuck Baxter Show) with her attorney, and talks about patriotism and being cool under pressure. McCoy gets a gag order, which the trial judge, recurring character Judge McNeil, allows.
They want to get more info about Blair, and they finally get her service record from the military, but her training records are excluded. They talk to a former Navy man who worked with Blair, and he says he had no confidence in her because she was a bad pilot. He turns over an audio tape he made, and this tape will soon be entered at trial.
Back at trial, Blair says she never loses control of her emotions, which prompts McCoy to play the tape, in which she is heard attempting to land an F-14 on a carrier at night. She panics, asks to be diverted to land (instead of sea), and then threatens to tear her trainer "a new one" and calls him a moron. When the tape ends, everybody in the courtroom has an expression like something serious has happened, but I was thinking, SO WHAT? So the woman has a temper? That means she killed her boyfriend? What about EVIDENCE.
Anyway, in light of this evidence, she accepts a plea deal: Man I (just like Ross wanted), 12.5 to 25 years. She allocutes off camera, and she, McCoy, and the Navy prosecutors all have little press gaggles on the steps of the courthouse. Ross tells McCoy she is upset because Blair came out looking bad, and she compares the experience to learning that Amelia Earhardt was not everything she thought she was.
The story of this episode was written by Dick Wolf, and it has the earmarks of a person who hasn't written a script in a while. All the stuff about Blair being the poster child for the Navy and having little girls in America admire her just seems very forced, and her motive for killing Stroud remains unclear, even at the end of the episode.
On character background, we learn that Curtis is married (in case we didn't already know, which we did) and that AVB's son has gotten in trouble for graffiti.
The episode's treatment of Blair -- female pilot gets special treatment even though she's untalented and then sleeps around with inferior crewmen -- smacks a bit of misogyny, a trait Wolf has been accused of before. Also, Ross is portrayed as "starry eyed" about this female hero, and goes around McCoy's back to make a deal, which leads to the big fight. McCoy and Ross always fight. I wish they would stop -- it makes me uncomfortable.
The episode begins with a young couple walking out of a bar, squabbling over the man's apparently crude friends, with whom he grew up. They go to get a gypsy cab, and find the driver shot in the head, dead. Briscoe and Logan arrive to investigate, and discover that he is a veteran of the first Gulf War and earned a Purple Heart.
They talk at the precinct, where they say he is the 43rd cabbie killed in the last 12 months. (That seems awfully high.) They visit his wife, who tells them they needed money. They visit his boss, who tells them the victim needed money. They talk to the bartender at the bar to ask whether he saw anything. They figure that because his keys were in his pocket, he was there to meet someone. The bartender is reluctantly, but then tells them a guy named Steve Breck was there, waiting for someone. They talk to Breck. He's a loan shark, and is non-cooperative at first, but ultimately reveals that the victim, Mr Johnson, owed him $15,000. He says he was at the bar to receive the payment, saw that he was dead, and left. They get a call that somone is trying to use the victim's credit card. They find that a crazy homeless guy was using it buy shoes. He says he saw a big bald guy throw it away, a man with a snake on his shirt. He says he can't remember if the shirt said "Snake" or had a picture of a snake. They search the dumpster (actually, they have a uniform search the dumpster) and find a shirt that has grease, putty, and Johnson's dried blood on it. They conclude the shirt belongs to a plumber, and that the snake on the shirt represented a plumber's snake. They visit a plumbing company called "Snaked City" (a pun on "Naked City," get it?) and talk to the boss who says the guy they're looking for is Charlie Kovak. They search Kovak's apartment -- he's not around -- and find $15,000 hidden in a cereal box in a freezer. They talk to the victim's wife, who they now suspect is somehow involved, or at least knows more than she's saying. They ask her if she knew Kovac and tell her about the $15K. She is non-responsive.
The detectives meet with Van Buren, who uses a computer (rare for her) to find info about Kovac's record. They determine he frequents a drug hangout in East Harlem. They go up there and roust a bunch of users, one of whom says he knows that Kovac spends time at his girlfriend's house, and he directs them there. They raid the apartment, and no one is there, at least no one who is alive: they find Kovac shot dead, lying on the floor behind the couch. They are happy they don't have to put him on trial for Johnson's murder, but -- as AVB reminds them -- they have no idea who killed him. During this conversation, they are explaining the whole plot to AVB and she asks who Kovac. This is ridiculous, since she just looked him up on the computer earlier that day! The detectives figure Breck may have killed Kovac, if Breck saw Kovac running away with the $15K that Johnson had on him (and owed to Breck).
They talk to Breck again (they find him shaking down a client) and he says that he loaned money to Johnson, but Johnson said he would get the money to repay the loan from his wife. Well, Mrs Johnson certainly didn't say anything about that. They visit the wife's bank, where the banker says Mr Johnson was in a few days before his death, and got a loan. He used a forged check with his wife's name on it as collateral, an act which wiped out her account. Later, Mrs Johnson tried to withdraw money, but there wasn't any left, which means she realized her husband wiped her out.
They talk to the plumbing company again, to draw a connection between Kovac and Mrs Johnson. They learn that Kovac worked a job at Contini's, a restaurant that Mrs Johnson used to be a hostess at. They talk to the owner, who reveals he has a gun there. That gun is the same caliber as the murder weapon.
They talk to the wife at the precinct, but she walks out. Soon after, they match the Contini's gun to the murder weapon, and they go down to a park and arrest her, and hand her son over to child services. They charge her with the murder of Kovac and Mr Johnson. (31')
The ADAs meet with her and her attorney, Mr Elliott, at Rikers. Elliott ridicules their case. The DAs are still trying to figure out motive for the murders. Kincaid talks to the victim's brother, who describes Mrs Johnson's ambition, and they talk to a co-worker of Mrs Johnson, who says that Mr Johnson once ran up a $1500 tab in the nice restaurant his wife owned, and that his boisterous behavior led an NYT reviewer to leave the restaurant. She also says that Johnson lost some of his wife's money in a pyramid scheme. More motive.
At trial (37'), Contini testifies about the gun, and Breck testifies about the loan money. Elliott tries to make each witness look like a suspect. The DAs regroup, and Schiff is skeptical about their chances. He tells McCoy that at least McCoy saved the taxpayers some money -- he's "losing two cases for the price of one." When the prosecution witnesses, the defense moves to have the case dismissed, which the judge, in a surprise to McCoy, considers, and then almost allows, as he dismisses the charges related to the murder of Mr Johnson. He tells McCoy he can make the case against Mrs Johnson for the death of Kovac, but he can't suggest that Mrs Johnson killed Mr Johnson as part of that case. That means they need more evidence. Kincaid and the dets go over everything again, and learn that a few months before his death, Johnson was the victim of an armed robbery, in which the robber, Lattimer, pulled the trigger, but the gun jammed. He was later caught. They think he might have been a hired killer. McCoy and Kincaid talk to him in prison, where he makes a deal with McCoy: he'll roll on Mrs Johnson in exchange for freedom. Pretty generous deal, as Schiff points out, given that he's admitting a more serious crime.
Schiff is still skeptical, and thinks the case is not going to work out because they've already rested their case and put Lattimer on the stand. McCoy theorizes that if he can Elliott to put Mrs Johnson on the stand and say something about not wanting her husband dead, then he can legally call Lattimer as a rebuttal witness. He bluffs Elliot and says they are going to argue that Mrs Johnson killed Kovac out of revenge for killing her husband. Elliott says, well, he'll put Johnson on the stand and say she didn't want revenge because she was indifferent about her husband's death. That's exactly what he does, and McCoy seizes the opportunity, and moves to call Lattimer. Elliott panics, and they get a recess and make a deal: Mrs Johnson pleads to Murder 2, 15 to life.
Casting notes: Mrs Johnson is played by Lisa Gay Hamilton, who appeared for seven seasons on The Practice, a show I don't watch. This episode is one of a handful which feature two actors who later appeared on The Sopranos. Dominic Chianese ("Uncle Junior") plays the trial judge Paul Kaylin, and Frank Pellegrino (the head of the FBI office) plays Mr Contini. It's worth noting that Pellegrino, in real life, is co-owner of Rao's, the famous Italian restaurant in East Harlem which was fictionalized in the L&O episode Everybody Loves Raimondo's.
Beginning with this episode, I have started assembling a gallery of Sopranos actors who have also appeared on L&O.
