March 09, 2005
10.21 Narcosis
In this convoluted episode (10.21), a corrupt cop or a teenage hacker appears to be responsible for the death of a sleazy prostitute/madame who also ran a lucrative online striptease business. Briscoe and Green investigate; McCoy and Carmichael figure out who to prosecute. The episode begins with two lady friends walking down the street talking about how men aren't trustworthy. One of them women discovers the victim's body behind some trash cans. She has no ID on her. She's been strangled. Through her fingerprints, they learn she has an arrest record and went by the name "Lotus Blossom". She wasn't raped, but details from her record and body suggest she was a prostitute. The dets visit the address on her...
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January 13, 2005
15.13 Ain't No Love: Serena Southerlyn Gets Fired (Thank God!)
Branch: "You're fired." Southerlyn: "Is this because I'm a lesbian?" America: "WHAT???!!!!" [mp3] Many fans have waited a long time for Serena's departure, but I don't think anyone expected it to go quite like this. The moment was shocking, but, after even slight reflection, seems incredibly cheap and hollow. Subtlety has been lacking from the show's scripts for the last several years, and this is, certainly, the most ham-fisted bit of writing I've seen yet. Contrast it with way the departures of other characters have been handled: often with some "organic" dramatic build-up, and always with integrity -- Cerreta and Greevey getting shot, Curtis leaving to take care of his wife, Ross's session with the disciplinary committee, and of course...
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December 05, 2004
1.12 Life Choice
Abortion is a hot topic in this episode (1.12) in which a bomb explodes in an abortion clinic, killing a woman who may or may not have been the bomber. Greevey and Logan investigate in between arguments about abortion, and Robinette and Stone put aside their personal feelings to prosecute those responsible. The episode begins with two officers, a man and a woman, on patrol, discussing marriage and the role of women. They pull up outside an abortion clinic, where protesters are picketing. The abortion clinic receives a bomb threat over the phone, and the officers investigate. Just after they evacuate the building, the bomb detonates (on camera, which is rare), and the building is on fire. Greevey and Logan...
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October 22, 2004
2.15 Trust
In this episode (2.15), a teenager shoots a friend while the two of them are playing with a gun. Investigation shows that he was involved in a similar shooting a couple of years earlier. Cerreta and Logan investigate, and Stone and Robinette prosecute -- twice. The episode begins with a couple of cops patrolling in a car by a pier. They see some kids running through an abandoned warehouse and go in to investigate. They find the kids, and also find the body of a 15-year-old boy, Robby Fenwick. The kids say they heard there was a body there, so they just went to check it out. They also find a .357 revolver nearby. The detectives talk to the ballistics...
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October 17, 2004
4.4 Great Barrier: The Viewer's Choice Episode
In this Criminal Intent episode (4.4), our favorite arch-villain Nicole Wallace/Elizabeth Hitchens re-emerges and may or may not be dead at the end of the episode. NBC allowed viewers to vote (via its website) on whether to allow Wallace to die or not. The episode begins with a white man and an Asian-American woman discussing the how to make the woman sound and look more convincingly Japanese. They visit a clothing store and the woman tries on some outfits and some wigs. You get the impression they are trying to prepare her for an elaborate disguise. We soon learn why: they visit a jewelry store and, applying the gestures and speech she we saw her practice, they dupe the jeweler...
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September 23, 2004
15.1 Paradigm: Joe Fontana's First Episode
Well, here we go again. Intro Multimedia Plot Summary Analysis Extras Introduction In this episode (15.1), an Iraqi-American woman kills a US soldier who recently returned from working as a guard at Abu Ghraib. Meanwhile, Detective Joe Fontana replaces Lennie Briscoe as Ed Green's partner, and the two of them work to solve the case. McCoy and Southerlyn attempt to set aside their political differences and build a prosecution. Multimedia Screenshot of Bloomberg, with cast membersScreenshot of Bloomberg, close upScreenshot of Bloomberg press conferencemp3 of BloombergScreenshot of Fontana's first appearanceMore Plot Summary The episode begins rather provocatively, with a professional couple sneaking off to a remote portion of their office building as they discuss another employee's eating habits. They...
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15.2 The Dead Wives Club
Uh oh -- they're only on the second episode and the season already has taken a turn for the worse. In this episode (15.2), a woman whose firefighter husband left her for a 9/11 widow kills the widow by pushing her off the Staten Island ferry moments before it crashes into the dock. Fontana and Green investigate, and McCoy prosecutes with more ardor than Southerlyn cares for. This episode is one of the most exploitative and insensitive in the show's history, and I can't believe they would air it at all, let alone this close to the 9/11 anniversary and this early in the season. If you live in NYC, you will immediately recognize two plot elements "ripped from the...
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September 18, 2004
12.2 Armed Forces
In this episode (12.2), a down-on-his-luck Vietnam veteran is murdered by some of his fellow soldiers because he threatened to expose their massacre of civilians in a village during the war. Briscoe and Green investigate, and McCoy and Southerlyn prosecute. The episode begins inside a fancy restaurant's kitchen, where a manager is yelling at everyone to do things better. An Asian dishwasher (who looks Vietnamese to me), drops a tray full of glasses, and as he cleans up, takes his mess outside, where he comes across the body. Briscoe and Green arrive, and Green chastises a police officer for yelling at the Asian kid. Green says of the white officer, "When is he going to realize he's the minority in...
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September 16, 2004
13.18 Maritime
In this episode (13.18), a dead woman is found floating in the East River. Investigation indicates she died along with two men, and that the brother of one of the men is responsible. Briscoe and Green lead the investigation, and McCoy and Southerlyn prosecute, twice. The episode begins with two men (also brothers) discussing the marital difficulties of one of them. He's become involved with a yoga instructor, apparently. His brother cautions him to stick with his wife. As they discuss this, one notices a body floating in the river. Green and Briscoe arrive and learn the body has been in the water for some time, and has a gunshot wound to the head. She has no ID, but ME...
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September 09, 2004
3.10 Consultation
In this episode (3.10), a woman from Nigeria dies after one of the 60 heroin-filled condoms she swallowed bursts in her stomach on her way to a drug dealer in Harlem. Briscoe and Logan discover that a Nigerian tribal chief with diplomatic immunity is behind the smuggling scheme, but Stone and Robinette struggle to charge him. The episode begins with the woman riding in the back of a taxi cab from the airport to Harlem. She begins looking ill and distressed, so the cab driver takes her to the hospital, where she dies. It turns out she had something else in her belly: an unborn son, who also died. After talking to the doctor, the detectives track down the cab...
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September 07, 2004
5.13 Rage
In this episode (5.13), Courtney Vance turns in a great performance as a cocky Wall Street trader who kills his boss and then uses "black rage" as a a defense. Briscoe and Logan investigate, and McCoy and Kincaid prosecute against this novel defense. The episode begins with a young couple approaching a big townhouse. From dialogue we learn that the woman is excited to introduce the man, her boyfriend, to her father. The enter the home and walk upstairs, and discover the father dead, with a shotgun in his lap and blood splattered all over. Looks like killed himself, but the daughter insists to the detectives that he didn't. ME Rodgers agrees, saying that based on the way the blood...
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4.13 Breeder
In this episode (4.13), a young woman blackmails would-be adoptive parents by threatening to abort the babies she agreed to turn over to them. Logan and Briscoe investigate, and Stone and Kincaid figure out what to prosecute her for. The episode begins in a hospital waiting room, where someone comes across a woman who appears to be dead. It turns out she isn't dead, juts very sick. Her name is Deborah Elkins, 22. She gave birth very recently, the doctors say, but the baby is nowhere to be found. She says she gave birth in a taxi cab, and that's all she remembers. Van Buren is skeptical. They track down the cabbie, and he says she was sick, but doesn't...
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August 31, 2004
8.10 Ritual
This episode (8.10) deals with the African cultural practice of female genital mutilation and is extremely difficult to watch at times. The victim in the episode was arranging to have his niece undergo this procedure, and then one of her relatives killed him to prevent it. The episode begins with a tow truck driver preparing to haul away a BMW. He notices a body concealed behind a short wall nearby. Briscoe and Curtis investigate. They find some notes about a flight on him, which leads them to his hotel, and they learn his name is "Joe" Moussad. They begin to have mild suspicions that he might be involved in terrorism. Down at the precinct, the detectives pass a woman as...
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August 26, 2004
3.18 Animal Instinct
In this episode (3.18), a professor is killed at the university lab where she experiments on animals. At first, it looks like animal rights activists might be to blame, but then when it is discovered that her husband and a colleague may have been having an affair, the focus of the investigation shifts. Briscoe and Logan investigate, and Stone and Robinette lead an ill-fated prosecution until they figure it all out. The episode begins with the discovery of the victim, Fay Walsh, in her lab. Pro-animal graffiti ("Innocent Victims") adorns the walls. Briscoe and Logan talk to her husband, and he says she received threats from animal rights groups. They focus on Dirk Chesney, an activist with a violent past....
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July 13, 2004
4.6 Pride and Joy
In this episode (4.6), a "gifted" teenager kills his father, who he says was abusive. It turns out, however, he probably killed him because he was ashamed of his father's working class ways. The episode begins with a mom arriving home with groceries. She calls out to her family, and finds her son, Sean, in the back, listening to music. She finds the dad out back in the alleyway. He's dead. The cops arrive and look around, and then the mother's daughter, Maureen, shows up and freaks out. Cerreta and Logan investigate, and Stone and Kincaid prosecute. The neighbors say they heard an argument, but assumed it was another tenant. Back at the precinct, everyone agrees the details don't add...
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2.21 Silence
In this episode (2.21), a secretly-gay city councilor is blackmailed and then murdered by some unsavory types. The prosecution of the case is made more difficult because the victim's father, an old political supporter of Adam Schiff, is ashamed of his son's sexual identity, and essentially protects his murderers as a result. Cerreta and Logan investigate, and Stone and Robinette attempt to prosecute. The episode begins with a couple riding in a Checker cab discussing marital issues. The cab screeches to a halt, and the cabbie gets out and sees a body in the street, which he nearly ran over. It appears that the victim may have jumped from a bridge overhead. Cerreta and Logan arrive, and ID the victim...
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July 08, 2004
4.10 The Pursuit of Happiness
In this episode (4.10), a Russian mail-order bride and her boyfriend kill her domineering husband. Briscoe and Logan investigate, and Stone and Kincaid prosecute. The episode begins with two men going in to work at a butchery. They are surprised to find someone is already there. They walk around and find their boss, the victim, Billy Cooper, 56 years old. He's been shot. Cops on the scene give the detectives their interpretation of how the crime went down, and Briscoe and Logan repeatedly point out mistakes in their theories. They note that he has a young wife. The visit the wife who is crying a lot. Her name is Irina and she speaks with a Russian accent. It is the...
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July 06, 2004
1.19 The Serpent's Tooth
In this episode (1.19), two young adults sons are apparently responsible for the murder of their wealthy parents. The episode seems loosely based on the case of Menendez Brothers. Greevey and Logan investigate, and Stone and Robinette prosecute. The episode begins, as many early episodes do, with two cops discussing the mundanities of life while on patrol. They hear an alarm, and a man comes running out of a townhouse. He tells them his parents have been shot. He is their son, Greg Jarman. The detectives enter the house, and find the dead parents. Profaci is already at the scene. They find the father's gun collection. It appears one of the weapons from this collection is the murder weapon. Greevey...
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1.18 The Secret Sharers
In this episode (1.18), a priest covers up the murder of a drug dealer committed by one of his parishioners. Greevey and Logan investigate the case, and Stone and Robinette prosecute. The episode begins, as many early episodes do, with a couple of cops discussing the mundanities of life. They are near a church fair, and a couple of shady characters are shooting water guns into a clown's mouth, winning multiple prizes. They exit the fair. Moments later, shots ring out. A crowd gathers and we see that the victim is one of the dealers. Roll credits. (This teaser is unusual because no detectives respond to the scene.) When the show resumes, Logan and Greevey are at the scene. They...
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July 04, 2004
7.22 Past Imperfect
In this episode (7.22), an older woman, a former model, is found dead while she's supposed to be attending a surprise birthday party in her honor. It turns out that a daughter she didn't know she had was trying to blackmail her to get money from her rich and illegitimate father. Briscoe and Curtis investigate, and McCoy and Ross weave a prosecution together. The episode begins inside the scene at the surprise party. When she doesn't show up, the flamboyant host, Mr Holland, goes to her apartment to find her. There are professional photos of a model on the walls. He finds her with her head bashed in. Briscoe and Curtis respond to the scene. The victim's name is Christine...
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July 03, 2004
9.11 Ramparts
This is one of those episodes where McCoy gets all agitated about the Sixties because some case reminds him of it and whoever his ADA is can't possibly understand, at least according to McCoy. In any case, this episode (9.11) begins with the discovery of a skeleton in a VW bus sunk in the Hudson River and ends with McCoy trying to get the police to disclose their practices of spying on, and inciting, protesters during the Vietnam Era. Briscoe and Curtis investigate the 30+-year-old murder, and McCoy uses his prosecution of the murderer to launch his own investigation into police practices. Carmichael sits around. The episode begins with some women yelling after a shooting in the park near the...
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July 01, 2004
10.7 Patsy
McCoy delivers one of his most blistering closing arguments ever in this episode (10.7) about a woman who nearly kills herself in an attempt to frame the man she believed killed her sister. Here is an mp3 of McCoy's closing statement. A portion of it is seen in the TNT promos for L&O when the lady judge says to McCoy, "You're in contempt, Mr McCoy!" The episode begins with a superintendent and an exterminator approaching a woman's apartment. Hearing no answer, they enter, and see a badly injured, but somewhat conscious woman on the floor. Her name is Cecilia. Briscoe and Green investigate, eventually handing off to McCoy and Carmichael for a zealous prosecution. Briscoe and Green head over to...
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13.10 Mother's Day
Elisabeth Rohm takes her bad acting skills to a new low in this preposterous episode (13.10) in which a mother kills her son who had killed another girl by running her over in her car. All of this gets even more ridiculous when the woman's defense attorney turns out to be both a former law school classmate of Southerlyn's and the -- gasp! -- niece of the defendant. Briscoe and Green investigate, while McCoy tries to build a prosecution and stave off Southerlyn's lack of talent at the same time. The episode begins at a diner where a blonde college-aged girl sits down and talks to the folksy counter man, ordering a coffee and reading a chemistry text book. She...
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June 30, 2004
9.17 Shield
In this episode (9.17), a relationship between two cops leads to the murder of one of them. After much investigation, it appears a protective and vengeful partner is to blame. Briscoe and Curtis investigate, McCoy and Carmichael prosecute. 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...
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June 29, 2004
5.19 Cruel and Unusual
In this episode (5.19), a mentally disturbed boy dies while wrestling with Mike Logan in a jail cell at the precinct, and the investigation into the boy's life leads to a controversial treatment at a psychiatric facility. Eventually, the director of the facility is charged by McCoy and Kincaid for some highly unorthodox techniques that may have led to the boy's death. 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...
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June 27, 2004
3.16 Jurisdiction
In this episode (3.16), some nursing students are brutally attacked in their dormitory, and a man with mild mental retardation eventually is arrested and confesses to the crime. Not everyone is convinced he's guilty, though, and soon enough the Manhattan DAs office gets into a big fight with Brooklyn for jurisdiction over the case. 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...
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3.11 Extended Family
In this episode (3.11), a toddler girl is kidnapped, and her wealthy father, a Broadway producer, quickly becomes a suspect. But the investigation soon focuses on the girl's mother, who may have kidnapped the girl because she thought her daughter was the victim of sexual abuse. A prominent child psychologist may have gone too far in eliciting the girl's tales of abuse, however, and by the end of the episode, the truth of the situation is murky at best. Briscoe anf Logan do as well as they can on the investigation, and Stone and Robinette are left to make sense of it all. The episode begins with a young girl, about 5 or 6, walking with a woman who seems...
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June 26, 2004
5.22 Switch
In this episode (5.22), a woman with multiple-personality disorder kills a psychiatrist in a hospital office. The question is, Which personality killed her. Briscoe and Logan investigate, and McCoy and Kincaid figure out how to prosecute the deeply disturbed murderer, after first considering her father as a suspect. 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...
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June 25, 2004
7.7 Deadbeat
Jerry Stiller guest-stars as a defense attorney in this episode (7.7) in which a man is apparently killed by his ex-wife's aging father because of the victim's refusal to pay child support, but the truth appears to be slightly more complicated than that. Briscoe and Curtis investigate and McCoy and Ross prosecute. The episode begins with two kid and his tourist parents in a hotel, and the kid discovers a body in the hallway. Briscoe and Curtis responds, and talk to two old ladies who think they saw the shooter. The victim is an Arizona resident named Michael Malone. While they're investigating the crime scene, the phone in Malone's hotel room rings. One of the dets answers it, and invites...
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14.10 Ill-Conceived
In this episode (14.10), a garment factory owner is killed in his office. The paternity of one of his worker's baby appears to be a motive in his death, as those closest to him seem to turn against him. Briscoe and Green uncover as much as they can, and McCoy and Southerlyn figure it all out in the end. 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,...
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June 24, 2004
5.23 Pride: Mike Logan's Last Episode
In this episode (5.23), a conservative city councilor apparently murders another city councilor, get acquited, and then is punched in the face by Mike Logan during a fracas on the courthouse steps immediately after the trial.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...
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5.17 Act of God
In this episode (5.17), a young boy is killed when the building he is trespassing in is blown up by dynamite placed by an arsonist. Many people have a motive for destroying the building, and dogged investigation from Briscoe and Logan yield a couple of suspects. Unfortunately, McCoy and Kincaid get the wrong man convicted, and then have to figure out how to prosecute the real perpetrator. 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...
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June 23, 2004
4.9 Born Bad
In this episode (4.9), a teenager brutally beats to death another teenager, and his murderours tendencies are blamed on a genetic predisposition to violence. Briscoe and Logan investigate the case, and Stone and Kincaid refute the defense counsel's argument. 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...
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7.6 Double Blind
In this episode (7.6), a young man on an experimental schizophrenia treatment slays a janitor from the building where he works. After Briscoe and Curtis solve the murder, McCoy goes after the psychiatrist who is treating the killer. 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...
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June 22, 2004
12.3 For Love or Money
In this episode (12.3), a man is killed in a parking lot, and virtually anyone could be responsible. Eventually, it appears that a woman and her daughter are to blame, but even they are not wholly loyal to each other. Briscoe and Green unravel the complicated case, and McCoy and SS use their prosecutorial wiles to find out the truth. 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...
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June 21, 2004
13.14 Star Crossed
In this episode (13.14), a manipulative Latina vamp is behind a dim-witted young man's crime spree, which ends in the death of a car salesman during a carjacking. Briscoe and Green investigate and McCoy and Southerlyn and prosecute the femme fatale. 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...
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11.2 Turnstile Justice
In this episode (11.2), a woman is found dead, lying on a bench on a subway platform. She's been bludgeoned to death. Briscoe and Green's investigation leads to an emotionally disturbed person, but McCoy isn't content to prosecute just him: he goes after the health management organization that released him without medication from Rikers the day before the murder, even though they knew he was crazy and violent.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...
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June 20, 2004
8.13 Castoff
In this memorable episode (8.13), an attractive blonde social worker is gunned down outside her place of work. It turns out she was engaged in a kinky sex life that ultimately leads to her death at the hands of a sociopath she was sexually involved with. Briscoe and Curtis investigate, and McCoy and Ross prosecute. 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...
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13.12 Under God
In this episode (13.12), a priest confesses to the murder of a drug dealer (cutting short Briscoe and Green's investigation), and McCoy and Southerlyn figure out how to prosecute a man who says God made him do it. 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...
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June 19, 2004
12.6 Formerly Famous
Gary Busey and Joe Piscopo guest star in this episode (12.6) that is somewhat of a take on the actor Robert Blake's apparent killing of his wife. Briscoe and Green investigate the crime, and McCoy and Southerlyn prosecute. 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...
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4.11 Golden Years
In this episode (4.11), an elderly woman is essentially starved to death by her bitter granddaughter. It takes a while for Briscoe and Logan to figure this out, and Stone and Kincaid work to assemble a prosecution appropriate for the crime. 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...
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8.3 Navy Blues
In this episode (8.3), a female Navy fighter pilot is suspected of killing her married boyfriend, who was under her command on her ship. Briscoe and Curtis get stonewalled by the Navy as they try to investigate her, and McCoy and Ross have trouble getting the jurisdiction and the information they need to prosecute. 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...
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June 18, 2004
5.21 Purple Heart
In this episode (5.21), a cabbie is found slain outside an Irish bar. It looks like his ambitious wife arranged his murder, and then killed the hitman, too. It takes Briscoe and Logan a while to figure it all out, and even longer for McCoy and Kincaid to determine a motive. 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...
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02:34 AM
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June 17, 2004
7.12 Barter
In this episode (7.12), w woman is shot dead from behind in her building's parking garage, but it looks like the killer was aiming for a different, similar-looking woman who usually parked there. So who ordered the hit-gone-bad? Isn't it always the husband? Yep. But this time, there's a conspiracy behind the hit, and figuring out how the conspiracy is connected to a corrupt loan company is difficult. Briscoe and Curtis investigate, McCoy and Ross build a prosecution. The episode begins as a wealthy couple, the Tashjians, find a dead body in their parking spot. The victim is Shelley Ganz, and she's been shot in the back with a shotgun. Briscoe and Curtis show up, and Briscoe delivers the second-best*...
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07:31 PM
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10.3 DNR
In this episode (10.3), a civil court judge is shot and badly injured in her building's garage, and her Jaguar is stolen. It looks like a botched murder-for-hire, but it's unclear who did the hiring. After Briscoe and Green's investigation, it appears that the husband set up the hit, but McCoy and Carmichael have trouble building a prosecution because the victim refuses to testify against her husband. On top of all this, the victim tries to get legal permission to end her own life, a move which McCoy resists. The episode begins with Mr Grobman returning from a trip to Long Island, talking to his doorman. They hear gun shots coming from the garage, and they run down there, only...
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01:27 AM
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June 15, 2004
7.3 Good Girl
In this episode (7.3), a young black man is killed in his apartment, apparently by a young white woman whose family was very uncomfortable with their relationship. Briscoe and Curtis solve the case, and McCoy and Ross assemble the prosecution. The episode begins with two men discussing the graffiti and other maintenance problems is a low-rent apartment building. They hear loud music coming from an apartment, and the super enters the apartment and finds the victim, Charles Monroe, dead on the bed. He's been stabbed to death. They find his girlfriend, Arlene Williams, who is black and concerned about being implicated in his death: "You're not going to do a Fuhrman on me," she says, referring to the detective in...
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07:31 PM
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8.16 Divorce
In this episode (8.16), a lady psychologist caught between a couple in a heated divorce battle ends up dead. Who wanted her dead? A divorcing couple and possibly their attorneys, to name a few. Briscoe and Curtis try to figure it out, while McCoy and Ross assemble a prosecution. The episode begins with the discovery of the dead female psychologist in her office at the hospital. Her husband, Mr Burke, arrives, and is quite upset to hear his wife is dead. He says he called a security guard at the hospital to check up on her when she was late, and the guard told him she was fine. Well, the boss of the security guards, when pressured, admits to the...
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07:30 PM
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7.19 Double Down
In this episode (7.19), an armed robbery leads to a kidnapping, and McCoy has to decide whether to make a deal with one of the robbers to learn the location of the abductee before he's killed. Briscoe gets the strong impression that McCoy is being manipulated, but McCoy has to come to a decision anyway. The episode begins at the scene of an armed robbery, where a getaway driver (we don't know he's the getaway driver yet) is blocked in by another truck. As the robber runs out, another man emerges from the building, shooting. They can't enter the getaway vehicle so they run off. Briscoe and Curtis arrive at the scene to investigate, and learn that $1200 has been...
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06:59 PM
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June 14, 2004
6.12 Trophy: Battle of McCoy's Lovers!
In this terrific, densely packed episode (6.12), a serial killer is killing black boys and leaving behind ominous notes. The crimes closely parallel the work of a previous serial killer who was caught and convicted 5 years eaerli...or was he? Evidence begins to suggest that McCoy convicted the wrong man, and his assistant and girlfriend from that time period, Diana Hawthorne, may be to blame for the miscarriage of justice. Briscoe and Curtis investigate the killings, and McCoy and Kincaid figure out to do with their suspects and Hawthorne The episode begins with two city workers picking up garbage in the park, discussing the Mets. One of them discovers the body of a young black boy, found alongside his school...
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11:40 PM
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5.14 Performance
In this episode (5.14), some men at a bachelor party watch a pornographic videotape that, to their surprise, might be a snuff film: a young women is pictured being raped and shot in the head through a pillow. Briscoe and Logan try to identify the girl on the tape and the man seen shooting here, while McCoy and Kincaid try to get the victim to reveal everything about what happened. The episode begins at the bachelor party. They see a young girl strapped to a bed, screaming, and a man straddling her pulls out a pistol, puts a pillow over her face, and pulls the trigger. One of them men at the party brings the tape to Briscoe and Logan...
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09:11 PM
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7.23 Terminal: Schiff Takes on the Governor
In this intricately structured episode (7.23), the finale of season 7, a gunman shoots at a crowd of Jewish people as they exit a social cruise. The state Attorney General's office wants Schiff to seek Murder 1 and the death penalty against the defendant, but he refuses, so they take the case away from him. He fights the decision in court, even as he's dealing with another difficulty in his life: his wife suffers a stroke and dies at the end of the episode. Briscoe and Curtis investigate the shooting, and McCoy and Ross have to choose between ambition and loyalty. The episode begins with a crowd of people disembarking a small ship. Two women are discussing their social...
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03:33 AM
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June 13, 2004
6.17 Deceit
In this episode (6.17), a lawyer is killed because he was gay and had an affair with a closeted senior partner. Briscoe and Curtis investigate, and McCoy and Kincaid prosecute.The episode begins with cleaning lady entering an apartment, discovering Mr Wells, who has been shot 3 times. As the detectives go through his things, they discover dresses in his closet. An old lady neighbor says Mr Wells had a girlfriend named Liza, and she noticed that Wells was being watched by someone. She even wrote down the license plate of the car she noticed watching him. It turns out he was being watched by a law firm, which kept an eye on him because he litigated critical cases, including one...
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07:39 PM
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5.8 Virtue
In this memorable episode (5.8), a drunk driving accident leads to an investigation of an ambitious city councilman's history of rape, but with a lack of reliable witnesses, it's hard to prove the case. Briscoe and Logan do their best to sort it out, and McCoy and Kincaid try to get witnesses to bolster their prosecution. The episode begins with cops on patrol coming across a traffic accident, late at night. But there's something strange about it: the female victim is in the driver's seat, but her feet don't reach the petal, and whiplash doesn't explain the discrepancy. It appears that she was placed into the driver's seat after the crash, and the actual driver fled the scene. The victim,...
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12:28 PM
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10.8 Blood Money
In this interesting episode (10.8), an old insurance salesman is found stabbed and shot in the back of a cab. When it's discovered he reneged on life insurance policies sold to Polish Jews during World War II, everyone realizes the list of people with a motive to kill him is almost infinite, but it turns out the real killer has more than just a business relationship with him. Briscoe and Green investigate, and McCoy and Carmichael orchestrate difficult prosecutions against some unlikely defendants. The episode begins with the discovery of the old man, Peter Grimaldi, in the back of his cab, stabbed to death. The cabbie, Mr Singh, was talking on his cell phone and didn't notice anything amiss till...
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01:55 AM
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June 12, 2004
13.24 Smoke
In this episode (13.24), a famous comedian/movie star is investigated after his adopted baby falls to his death after being dangled out a hotel window during a fire. The investigation leads to evidence of a conspiracy by the comedian to commit child abuse, abuse which in one case occurred at least 5 years ago. Briscoe and Green uncover the conspiracy, and McCoy and Southerlyn figure out how to prosecute it.The episode begins at the scene of the fire, out on the street looking up at it. A crowd has gathered, and a woman says audibly, "I heard he fell out of Monty's window." Briscoe and Green show up to learn the details, and find that the victim in the case...
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11:13 PM
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7.13 Matrimony
In this episode (7.13) an old man is dead, and it looks like his young trophy wife is responsible. But the case gets more complicated when it is revealed that the trophy wife has an even more conniving and villainous mother. Briscoe and Curtis investigate, and McCoy and Ross ultimately solve the case by setting up a sting against the perpetrator. The episode begins with a young couple looking at their neighbors through a telescope. As they survey the cityscape, they spot a dead man on the floor. The police investigate, and learn the victim is a wealthy man named Peter Triandos. They talk to his young Southern wife, Kim, who shows up. She says she was out socializing at...
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08:10 PM
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14.23 Caviar Emptor
In this rather bad episode (14.23) a family feud over a caviar business turns violent, and a various members of two Persian-Americans are suspects. Briscoe and Green investigate, and McCoy and Southerlyn prosecute. But what's the point. The episode begins in a home where it's clear a wedding has just taken place. The patriarch of the family is found dead. The son wants an autopsy, but the new wife doesn't. Southerlyn has to go to a judge's house -- in the episode's opening moments -- to settle it. The judge allows the autopsy because the marriage papers haven't officially been filed yet (it's a weekend). The ME determines the case was a homicide. They talk to the new wife, who...
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07:52 PM
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5.18 Privileged
In this episode (5.18), a troubled young man kills an elderly couple who he thinks are his own adoptive parents. Briscoe and Logan investigate, and Kincaid and McCoy figure out how to prosecute this man who had violence in his heart, but was psychotic and molested as a child. The episode begins with with the discovery of a very bloody crime scene: an elderly couple stabbed to death in their bed. Each victim has been stabbed a dozen times. Their names are David and Arlene Lerner, and they were married for 25 years. At the precinct, they learn the murder weapon was a knife taken from the house. They talk to the couple's daughter, who is clueless. They check out...
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07:27 PM
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8.23 Tabloid
In this episode (8.23), a couple of murders take place because of a gossip columnist's efforts to uncover a story of an unwanted pregnancy in a Kennedy-like family. Briscoe and Curtis investigate, and McCoy and Ross try to pressure the family into revealing the truth. The episode begins with a doorman and a UPS deliveryman squabbling over the where the UPS guy parked his truck. He says he's just trying to do his job, and the doorman says the same thing. The dispute comes to an abrupt end, however, as they look up and see a woman getting run over by a car. The victim is Margaret Abbott, a Hudson University law professor and member of the prominent Abbot family....
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07:26 PM
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8.12 Expert
In this episode (8.12), an expert on a certain psychological malfunction who often testifies in criminal trials is nearly shot to death. Briscoe and Curtis investigate, trying to determine whether someone upset with him for getting a defendant acquitted might be to blame, or whether there was a different motivation. McCoy and Ross head up and unusual trial in which the victim essentially testifies on behalf of the defendant. The episode begins with a group of people having a fun time in a restaurant. One gets up to use the bathroom, and shots are fired. Two customers run toward the restroom, guns drawn, yelling, "Mike? Mike?" Mike is fine, his mafia buddies are happy to learn, but Mr Milton, a...
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01:26 PM
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5.16 Wannabe
In this episode (5.16), a man is shot dead in the street, and the investigation eventually leads to a couple of boys who are "wannabe" thugs. Briscoe and Logan generate the leads, but McCoy and Kincaid have to figure out who is actually responsible for the crime. The episode begins at a birthday party, where people are waiting for the father to arrive. Shots are heard outside, and the victim, Bill Prescott, is the father everyone was waiting for. He's been shot twice in the back. Logan and Briscoe arrive to investigate. The livery driver who dropped him off at the corner doesn't remember seeing anything. Ballistics says the weapon is a "Charter Arms Undercover." They check out his place...
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12:25 PM
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June 10, 2004
6.16 Savior
In this episode (6.16), it appears that a desperate father kills his family to spare them, and himself, the humiliation of watching him fall apart. Olivet cautiously suggests the man might fit the profile of a "family annihilator," but the truth turns out to be more complicated. The episode begins with woman and her son walking down the sidewalk. The son is discussing his stomach ache. They enter a townhouse, and call out to the occupants. They go upstairs and discover the woman's sister and nephew dead, and her niece seriously injured. Briscoe and Curtis arrive and learn that the victim's name is Joyce Elder, and her son Billy, 10, was also shot to death. The CSU team finds an...
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10:17 PM
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8.14 Grief
In this episode (8.14), an assault case leads to two incapacitated women -- one comatose, one mentally unstable -- who appear to have been raped in a hospital environment. But each case -- the assault and the two rapes -- turn out to be more complicated than they first appear to be. Briscoe and Curtis investigate, while Ross and McCoy figure out who they can put on trial, and for what.The episode begins with a beating victim in a tunnel in central park. He talks to the detectives, but won't explain what happened. They talk to some other cops who happened to have arrested the victim, George Harding, a few days earlier. They say that two guys were chasing him....
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07:24 PM
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6.15 Encore
In this episode (6.15), McCoy gets another shot at prosecuting Michael Dobson, a man he suspected of killing his wife in an episode (Coma) in the previous season. Briscoe and Curtis investigate Dobson this time around. The episode begins with an older couple walking in the park. The woman spots an assault occurring, and a man runs after the attacker. Cops on horseback respond and try to chase down the suspect, but find only the man who tried to help: he has a knife sticking out his chest, but he's still talking and nearly standing. The suspect is described as a Hispanic male, 5'8". The assault victim is dead. Briscoe and Curtis respond and learn that a Colombian peso was...
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05:07 AM
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5.2 Coma
In this episode (5.2), a woman is shot in the head, and lingers in her coma while Briscoe and Logan investigate her husband for a connection to the shooting. The case becomes more complicated when McCoy and Kincaid fight to retrieve the bullet from her brain so they can use it as evidence, an operation which leads to the victim's death. The husband, Michael Dobson, goes free, but McCoy gets another chance for a conviction when Dobson re-appears in an episode (Encore) the next season, accused of killing his second wife.The episode begins with a couple walking down a sidewalk. They complain about a man who seems to be stealing radios from parked cars, and the husband is about to...
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04:43 AM
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June 09, 2004
4.7 Apocrypha
In this pretty crazy episode (4.7), a young woman drives a Mercedes into a downtown office building's garage and the explodes a car bomb, killing her and damaging the building. It turns out that the woman is involved with a religious cult whose charsismatic leader may have led to the bombing. The episode begins with the woman driving in heavy traffic downtown. She gets her windows washed by a squeegee man, and then enters the parking garage. Moments later, as the parking attendants are talking, a large explosion is heard and seen, and, in an unusually spectacular bit of staging, destroys the facade of the garage [screen shot]. Briscoe and Logan respond to the scene and learn that there is...
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June 08, 2004
5.9 Scoundrels
Edie Falco guest stars in this episode (5.9) in which a swindling lawyer is killed in his office, and several suspects had a motive for killing him. Briscoe and Logan investigate, and McCoy and Kincaid build a prosecution. The episode begins with the discovery of the lawyer, Arthur Kopinsky, dead in his office. Before the detectives even finish processing the scene, Kopinsky's own lawyer arrives, and starts passively hindering the investigation. After not getting very far with a conventional investigation, the detectives get the help of Kinciad who serves a warrant, raising her voice at Kopinsky's office. The detectives and Kincaid are trying to figure out the relationship between Kopinsky and a disgraced former banker named Tappan. They learn that...
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07:24 PM
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14.8 Embedded
In this episode (14.8), a television "tabloid journalist" is shot outside a bar. The prime suspect is a US soldier angry over reporting the journalist did in Iraq which led to the deaths of three other soldiers. Briscoe and Green capture the suspect, but McCoy and Southerlyn develop doubts as to whether they have the right man. The episode contains vigorous debate about the ethics of the war in Iraq and the usefulness of embedded journalists. The episode begins with the journalist, Frank Elliot, talking with some friends in a bar. They're talking about women when he spots his ex-girlfriend, a blonde woman. He tries to get her to go home with him, since he's leaving for Iraq again the...
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01:03 AM
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June 07, 2004
9.15 Disciple
In this episode (9.15), an ex-nun performs an excorcism that leads to the death of a young girl. The victim's mom tries to obfuscate what happened, but ultimately the full story becomes known. Briscoe and Curtis investigate the death, which takes a while to figure out, and McCoy and Carmichael figure out how to prosecute a woman who says she was guided by divine intervention. The episode begins in a hospital waiting room, where two women talk until a guard notices a dead girl lying down next to them. Briscoe and Curtis respond, and get only vague information from witnesses (a doctor who saw the girl after she died is hurried and unhelpful, and a woman describes the man she...
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01:30 AM
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June 05, 2004
14.9 Compassion
In this episode (14.9), a pediatric oncologist uses cyanide to kill a man who claims he can talk to dead people. It turns out the psychic was previously a real estate con man who ripped off the doctor, and that appeares to be her motive. Briscoe and Green connect the dots, and McCoy and Southerlyn prosecute the doctor, who may or may not be crazy. The episode begins with two middle-aged men eating together in a restaurant and discussing the merits of Viagra. One man swears by it, the other is reluctant to try it. The Viagra advocate gestures tolds an older gentleman sitting alone behind them and says that he is probably waiting for a twenty-something date to show...
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07:20 PM
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1.4 Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die
In this episode (1.4), a young woman dies after being savagely beaten in her bed. After much detective work, Greevey and Logan settle on the young scion of a formerly wealthy, high-society family. Stone and Robinette have trouble making the case, however, until they secure the co-operation of some other love interests of the defendant. The episode begins, as many of the early ones do, with a pair of cops on patrol, discussing a mundane issue (their kids). They see a lady enter a home, and the camera leaves the cops and follow the lady. She walks up the stairs, calling out to her roommate Paige Bartlett. She finds Paige in her bedroom, twitching and in shock. It appears she...
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03:09 AM
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2.20 Intolerance
Sam Rockwell guest stars in this episode (2.20) about a Chinese-American boy killed over academic rivalry. Cerreta and Logan determine his jealous friend's mother and brother (Rockwell) are responsible, but Stone and Robinette have trouble getting all the evidence they need admitted to the trial. The episode begins with several school kids walking down the street near their school ("Manhattan Science") discussing a scholarship. The Chinese-American boy and the white girl taunted by some older Chinese boys in a passing car. Shortly thereafter, gunshots ring out and we learn that the Asian student, Tim, is dead. Logan and Cerreta arrive to investigate. Logan remarks that bullets don't recognize IQ. Over at the precinct, they talk to the white girl, Kate,...
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01:53 AM
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June 04, 2004
7.11 Menace
In this well-written episode (7.11), a woman leaps to her death from the Brooklyn Bridge. It appears that she was being chased by a large, angry man whom she had a traffic accident with. After much investigation, it is revealed that this seemingly random encounter may have had its roots in an arson she was aware of. Briscoe and Curtis investigate, and McCoy and Ross try to make murder charges stick, despite the unusual circumstances. This is also the episode in which Curtis and his wife get separated. The episode begins with a wealthy-looking couple (husband and sexy wife) stuck in traffic on the ramp to the Brooklyn Bridge. They're flirting with each other when they hear some yelling and...
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09:56 PM
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9.2 DWB
In this great McCoy-on-a-mission episode (9.2), McCoy goes after some New York City cops for the dragging death of a black man. The storyline is like a cross between the Amadou Diallo case and the dragging case in Jasper, TX. The episode begins with two men discussing fishing in the Hudson River. As they walk back to their car, one of them notices a body in the underbrush. Briscoe and Curtis are called in, and there is strong evidence that the body has been dragged down a road by a vehicle. When they find the victim's Bulova watch, Briscoe issues this wisecrack: "It stopped ticking when he took a licking." The ME examines the body in the presence of Briscoe...
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12:39 AM
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June 02, 2004
12.22 Attorney Client
In this episode (12.22), the wife of a well-off defense attorney is murdered in her Jaguar, and either some former clients or the attorney himself is to blame. Briscoe and Green investigate, and McCoy and Southerlyn figure out how to prosecute a defense attorney. The episode begins with a couple walking down the street. They are just leaving the woman's 40th birthday, and are having a discussion about the nature of time when they hear shots ring out. Briscoe and Green respond to the scene, and find the victim, Marjorie Jensen, dead from 3 gunshots, and the hood ornament of her Jaguar is missing. They talk to her husband, Harold, a defense attorney. He is pre-occupied with his current case,...
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02:25 AM
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May 31, 2004
3.9 Point of View: Lennie Briscoe's First Episode, Phil Cerreta's Last Episode
Lennie Briscoe makes his first appearance in this episode (3.9) about a woman who apparentl killed a man because feared she was going to be raped. Phil Cerreta (Paul Sorvino, in what is essentially a guest-starring appearance) also makes his final appearance in the series. The episode begins (as many early episodes do) with two cops on patrol, talking about something benign. They drive by a couple walking down the street. There appears to be some tension between the couple, but they keep driving. Soon enough, they get a call to a shooting. The victim is the man from the couple they just drove by. Logan is already on the scene, and before you see him, you can hear Briscoe...
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04:50 PM
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3.14 Promises to Keep
In this muddled episode (3.14), a female psychiatrist manipulates a male patient into killing his girlfriend to recover a diary which details his sexual affair with the psychiatrist. Briscoe and Logan investigate, and Stone and Robinette try to determine whether the psychiatrist is criminially responsible. The episode begins with a middle-aged couple jogging in the park at night. They are discussing the lack of safety in the park and the man's "eating disorder" when the man notices the body of a woman. Briscoe and Logan are called to the scene. Items from the woman's purse are recovered all they way down the western edge of Central Park, but it appears she wasn't mugged, because she was strangled, not beaten or...
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04:29 PM
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May 29, 2004
13.7 Open Season
Danielle Melnick, the defense attorney who is a longtime recurring character on L&O, gets shot in this episode (13.7) after she defends a member of a radical militia group already facing trial for killing another attorney. The episode begins in the courtroom as a verdict is read. Darnell Marbury is acquitted of Attempted Murder in the first degree for the shooting of a police officer. There is pandemonium in the courtroom. Afterwards, the defense attorney, Vance Grodie, and his friends gather in a bar where they celebrate. Grodie steps outside for a cigarette, and shots ring out. His friends rush outisde, and find him dead. Briscoe and Green arrive on the scene and recognize Grodie and learn he's been shot...
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07:02 PM
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May 28, 2004
14.1 Bodies
In this episode (14.1), a creepy cab driver turns out to be a serial killer, but after he's caught, he won't reveal where all his victims' bodies are. McCoy must decide how much to give up to find out where they are, and the killer's defense attorney gets too deeply involved in his client's affairs. The episode begins with two guys peeing in an alley, getting their stories straight so their wives don't find out why they've been out so late. One of the guys looks down and sees a dead girl. The crime scene techs tells Briscoe and Green the girl has been dead a few hours, beaten and strangled to death. Briscoe is in some ways distressed to...
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07:24 PM
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6.18 Atonement
Michael Imperioli of The Sopranos guest stars in this episode (6.18) in which a model turns up dead, and any number of loosely connected people may be responsible for her death. Briscoe and Curtis investigate, while McCoy and Kincaid assemble a prosecution. The episode begins with a woman running down the street yelling that a man has stolen her purse. The apparent purse-snatcher is also running. He's caught, and when police go through his garbage back full of purses, they find one that has fresh blood on it. The purse belongs to Sharon Lasko, a model who recently went missing. At some nearby docks, Curtis finds a jacked embroidered "Sharon," but no body. Curtis and Briscoe are told they have...
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07:23 PM
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6.14 Custody: The Return of Paul Robinette
In this episode (6.14), former Assistant District Attorney Paul Robinette returns to defend a former crack addict accused of kidnapping the baby she lost to foster care, and killing a social worker in the process. Curtis and Briscoe investigate, while McCoy and Kincaid take on Robinette. The episode begins at the murder scene, where Curtis and Briscoe have already arrived. A uniformed officers tells them that a film crew shooting a video discovered the body of Lawrence Bellow in a playground. Nearby, they find his briefcase and a contractor-grade screwdriver that was apparently used to open the briefcase. They learn that Bellow was a social worker who placed kids into foster care. From the contents of his briefcase, they begin...
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12:22 AM
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May 27, 2004
9.10 Hate
In this episode (9.10), the brutal death of a 16-year-old girl in Central Park is traced to a group of young skinheads and Nazi sympathizers who were encouraged by a charismatic advocate of White Power. Briscoe and Curtis investigate, while McCoy and Carmichael figure out how to prosecute hate speech in the context of a murder charge. The episode begins with a young Latino couple walking in the park. The man picks up a ring case from the ground, and uses the ring inside to propose to his girlfriend. She says yes, and as they embrace, she looks over his shoulder and sees the body of a young girl hanging from a tree. The detectives show up and learn she...
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10:45 PM
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1.7 By Hooker, By Crook
In this early episode (1.7), a guy turns up dead, apparently by the hands of the prostitute. Greevey and Logan investigate while Stone and Robinette present their prosecution in a series of unusual courtroom scenes. The episode begins with some cops riding on horseback through Central Park. A woman's dog finds a badly injured man. He's taken to the hospital, where Greevey and Logan begin their investigation. They talk to some callous nurses, who have set up a pool on the likelihood of the victim's death. They learn that the victim suffered a blow to the head and had a heart attack. Strangely, his underwear was found to be on backwards.The victim is identified as Irv Diamond. His glass eye...
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07:50 PM
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14.22 Gaijin
In this episode (14.22), a wealthy Japanese couple appears to have been violently robbed downtown, resulting in the death of the woman, but Briscoe and Green soon learn that there is more to the story than it initially appears. DA Branch helps McCoy and Southerlyn build their prosecution. The episode begins at a 911 call center, where here that a Japanese tourist has been shot and robbed. The woman's husband says the assailant was a black male. The husband, Mr. Yoshida, is OK, but the woman is in critical condition. He tells the detectives that he and his wife had gone down to Ground Zero and then gotten lost. He says the robber took his wife's necklace and fled in...
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07:21 PM
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8.11 Under the Influence
In this episode (8.11), McCoy commits the ethical transgression which will ultimately lead to Ross's testifying against him at the disciplinary committee. The episode revolves around a drunk driving incident that kills three people, including a 5-year-old boy. McCoy pursues first-degree murder charges, even though the defendant was apparently to drunk at the time of the accident to form intent. As I'll describe in more detail later, McCoy hides evidence regarding the man's drunken state so that he can make the charges stick. The episode begins with a mother preparing her children to go on a trip. As she brings her two daughters outside, she discovers her husband and her 5-year-old son dead in the street, run over. Nearby, an...
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May 26, 2004
7.2 I.D.: McCoy Jailed for Contempt
In this unusual episode (7.2), McCoy ends up jailed for contempt after he challenges a judge who is sexually harassing Jamie Ross and who isn't giving McCoy a fair chance at a criminal trial. The trial involves a woman who killed her sister because she was having an affair with the sister's con-man husband, or so it appears. We later discover that there is much more to the story. The episode begins with two businessmen walking through the lobby of a large office building. They are complaining that they have to come in so early to participate in a video conference call with some people in New Zealand. They discuss the international dateline's relevance to the proceedings for a few...
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11:58 PM
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6.10 Remand
In this emotionally grueling episode (6.10), an arson suspect says he has information about a 30-year-old brutal rape and assualt case that could exonerate the man convicted of the crime. Briscoe and Curtis have to prove the case all over again, and McCoy and Kincaid have to prosecute the case against the same man Schiff convicted three decades earlier. It's a difficult task for everyone, including the viewer. The episode begins with Briscoe and Curtis responding to an arson scene at a sidewalk Christmas tree market where one of the sellers died. They bring a suspect in immediately, and for leverage, he says he has information about a famous rape and assault case from 1965. The victim in the case...
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12:54 AM
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May 24, 2004
5.5 White Rabbit
In this episode (5.5), an investigation into the robbery of a safe deposit company leads to the search for a fugitive from a Vietnam-era payroll robbery that resulted in the death of a police officer and was committed to divert funds from the war effort. Briscoe and Logan try to track down the fugitive, and McCoy and Kincaid try to figure out how to prosecute a 23-year-old crime. Famed attorney William Kunstler guest stars as himself [screen cap]. He died the next year. The episode begins with a security guard and a manager opening a vault at a safe deposit company. Inside, they find another security guard who has been hit over the head, a bunch of empty safe deposit...
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01:32 AM
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May 23, 2004
3.2 Conspiracy
In this episode (3.2), the leader of an African-American political group is assassinated at a rally, and Logan and Cerreta encounter opposition from the group's more militant members as they attempt to find the killer. The episode begins at the rally, where the leader of the group, Marcus Tate, is giving a rousing, but somewhat balanced, speech about race releations in America. As he leaves the stage, he is surrounded by a crush of people. A shot rings out, panic ensues, and when the scene clears he's on the floor, critically injured. Cerreta and Logan arrive to investigate, and all the witnesses agree on one thing: the shooter is white. They quickly determine that the shooter set off a small...
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11:01 PM
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May 20, 2004
7.1 Causa Mortis: Jamie Ross's First Episode
In this episode (7.1), the premiere of season 7, Carey Lowell makes her first appearance as ADA Jamie Ross. She and McCoy prosecute a young man for carjacking and murdering a woman who begged for her life. The episode begins with a woman talking to a young man in a car about how she's dealt with troubled boys before and there is hope for him. She calls him Fernando, and she pleads with him as they drive into a deserted area by the water and he orders her out of the car. She starts praying despite his objections and begs for her life. Cut to Curtis and Briscoe arriving at the scene. The woman his dead, having been hit on...
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11:28 PM
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14.24 C.O.D.: Lennie Briscoe's Last Episode
Detective Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) makes his last appearance in this episode (14.24), the finale of season 14.ExtrasHere are some screen captures from the episode: Lennie says he's retiring. Green's reaction. The caricature Green gives Lennie. Lennie's last scene. Episode's closing shot: Lennie's nameplate. Plot SummaryThe episode begins with a woman and her teenaged daughter talking as a delivery man delivers an envelope. The woman opens the envelope, which is empty. Just as she does so, they hear shots outside, and she walks out to find the deliveryman shot dead. Briscoe and Green arrive to investigate. The woman says she never heard of the person on the return address of the envelope ("Mary Johnson"). The victim's name is John Byrne....
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12:12 AM
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May 13, 2004
2.9 Renunciation
In this episode (2.9), an ex-football player is purposely run over by a black Mercedes. It appears that his wife and possibly her young lover are somehow involved. Logan and Cerreta investigate, Stone and Robinette prosecute. The episode begins with a man walking his little dog (whom he calls "OJ", in a pre-Nicole nod to the world's most famous running back). He buys some stuff in a convenience store, and as he exits, a Mercedes strarts up and runs him down. Logan and Cerreta learn from the deli owner that the car has been around the block a few times that night. The victim's name is Lawerence Kealy.They talk to his apparently distraught wife, who tells them that the victim...
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10:20 PM
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14.18 Evil Breeds
In this episode (14.18), an elderly Holocaust survivor is found dead in her apartment, and it looks like one of her Nazi guards is to blame. Briscoe and Green investigate while McCoy and Southerlyn figure out how to prosecute a crime whose roots go back 60 years.The episode begins with a Chinese food delivery man discovering the body of the dead woman. Police determine her name is Leah Glaser and that the door was pushed in, she was hit in the head, and smothered. A younger friend of Glaser tells cops Glaser had a lot of money around the apartment, which the police didn't find. Briscoe and Green check the files for similar cases and talk to victims of similar...
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10:08 PM
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May 12, 2004
5.10 House Counsel
In this episode (5.10), a juror in a mob trial that ended months earlier is killed, and McCoy thinks the defendant's counsel, an old friend of his, might be complicit. Briscoe and Logan investigate, and Kincaid helps McCoy make the case. The episode begins with two guys coming off a basketball court at the YMCA. As one of them calls his wife to make dinner plans, he hears gun shots, but doesn't recognize them as such. He walks outside and sees the dead body of the guy he was just talking to. Briscoe and Logan arrive and interview witnesses, including a prostitute who says she saw a man enter a black Lincoln and flee the scene. The victim is identified...
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11:24 PM
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May 11, 2004
6.23 Aftershock: The Death of Claire Kincaid
In this extremely unusual episode (6.23), Briscoe, Curtis, McCoy and Kincaid witness the execution of a rapist/murderer, and then have an emotionally volatile day. The episode follows each character through his or her day as they meet new characters and sometimes intersect with each other. The episode ends with Kincaid being killed in a traffic accident as she drives Briscoe home.ExtrasHere are some pictures from the episode.Plot SummaryThe episode begins with a doctor and a man on a hospital bed (of sorts) discussing a meal. As they continue talking, we learn from the conversation, what the camera reveals to us, and an additional character that we are watching the preparation for an execution. When a man who is apparently the...
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08:18 PM
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1.2 Subterranean Homeboy Blues
Cynthia Nixon of Sex and the City guest-stars in this episode (1.2), the second of the series. She plays a woman who shoots two young black men on the subway, apparently because she thought she was about to be attacked. Greevey and Logan investigate while Stone and Robinette try to figure out how aggressively they should prosecute her. The episode begins with a rather long sequence down in the subway, following Nixon's character, Laura Di Biasi, as she transfers from the 6 to the A train where shots ring out off camera. She encounters a coupel of young black mem, one of whom is carrying a large boom box playing by music from Ice-T or someone who sounds like him....
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12:31 AM
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May 10, 2004
12.18 Equal Rights
In this episode (12.18), a reasonably well-off man turns up shot to death near the Hudson River Ferry terminal, and lots of people held a grudge against him, including his wife. Briscoe and Green investigate, while McCoy and Southerlyn have trouble building a case against their prime suspect. The episode begins with two women walking off the ferry discussing women's rights. They discover a man who has been shot two times. Briscoe and Green notice that the man's coat is opened, but one shot went through it, indicating that he was shot, opened his coat, and then was shot again. They find blue fibers on him, but his watch wasn't taken, indicating it wasn't a robbery. He was shot with...
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10:23 PM
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7.14 Working Mom
In this episode (7.14), to upper-middle class soccer moms moonlight as high-end prostitutes, and the consequences are fatal for an ex-cop. Briscoe and Curtis investigate, while McCoy and Cheekbones apply prosecutorial pressure. The episode begins with a couple of guys attempting to steel the wheels from BMW on a deserted street. Cops show up, and discover a dead body in the driver's seat. Briscoe and Curtis arrive and find that the victim has an empty gun holster on his belt and has his pants unzipped, and has lipstick below-the-belt. They find a business card for the "Birnham Woods" golf club manufacturing company, and learn his name is Gilbert Keane. Keane is a retired cop. They talk to his boss as...
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10:17 PM
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May 09, 2004
7.10 Legacy
In this somewhat memorable episode (7.10), a harmless-looking witness turns out to be a hitman responsible for several murders. Briscoe and Curtis investigate and McCoy and Cheekbones (Ross) put together a case. The episode begins with a mother and her young daughter returning home from a birthday dinner for the daughter. Soon after, they hear gunfire on the street. Turns out it's the woman's husband. Briscoe and Curtis arrive on the scene and question various witnesses, including a nebbishy guy with a small white dog who identifies himself as Paul Sacket, a podiatrist. He says he saw a man he can't describe running away. The husband is still alive, but has been shot in the head. Ballistics matches the bullet...
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11:48 PM
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1.13 A Death in the Family
In this early episode (1.13), Greevey and Logan investigate the shooting death of a police officer killed in the line of duty. The structure of the episode -- I guess because it was made so early -- is very unusual. The episode begins with Greevey and Logan driving around, bantering in about the consequences of the computer age and how it relates to police work. They are talking about how because of a computer error, they were sent to the apartment of Bruno Walker instead of Brutus Walker, and now they must correct that mistake. Just as they arrive at Brutus's apartment building, a body comes flying down from above and lands on a squad car. They rush up to...
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02:11 PM
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May 08, 2004
6.19 Slave
In this episode (6.19), an elderly woman is killed by a gunshot, and an unloved 13-year-old boy and the drug dealer who "owns" him appear to be somehow to blame. Curtis and Briscoe investigate, while Kincaid and McCoy figure out whom to prosecute and for what. The episode begins with a woman entering her parents apartment, and finding her father in bed with her mother, who is covered in blood and who has been shot. Curtis and Briscoe arrive and see that the father is drunk and has a history of abuse. At first glance, it appears to be one of those cases where the drunk husband murders his wife in her sleep without realizing it, but developments in the...
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02:41 PM
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4.12 Snatched
In this episode (4.12), the adult son of a wealthy New Yorker is kidnapped and nearly murdered, but there is more to the story than meets the eye. Briscoe and Logan get to the bottom of things, while Stone and Kincaid try to figure out who to prosecute and how.The episode begins with two cops on patrol coming across a van and a black Mercedes. As they approach, the van speeds away, and the driver of the Mercedes is found face down, uninjured, in the front of the car, with a duffel bag full of cash in the back seat. How much cash? 4 million dollars. That's how much cash. When Briscoe and Logan show up to investigate, they learn...
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01:54 PM
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May 04, 2004
6.20 Girlfriends
In this somewhat memorable episode (6.20), a group of female college students runs a prostitution ring, an enterprise that leads to the death of one of its members. Briscoe and Curtis investigate.The episode begins with two grad students discussing poetry in the aisles of a university library. One of them discovers the body of the victim, identified as Bridget Kahlen, another student. She has a significant headwound, and has a light ligature mark around her neck. For leads, the detectives talk to the campus security department, who points them to a nearly-militant anti-rape activist group which distributes a list of alleged sex offenders on campus. This strategy doesn't pan out, though, especially when the ME reveals Kahlen wasn't raped. For...
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01:36 AM
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5.11 Guardian
In this episode (5.11), a young woman is found dead in a park, overdosed on heroin. But she's no ordinary junkie -- she's the daughter of a wealthy family. Who is responsible for her death? McCoy thinks he knows, but he needs to prove a connection. The episode begins with two nuns cleaning up a lot near a shelter. One nun is telling the other a somewhat dirty joke about a woman and a mugger when they discover the victim's body behind a dumpster. Briscoe and Logan investigate, and Logan quickly determines that the victim did not die there but was dumped. The ME informs the dets that the victim had $20,000 in dental work, and they notice her clothes...
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01:22 AM
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April 27, 2004
1.11 Out of the Half-Light: Best Episode Ever?
In this amazingly well-written episode (1.11), Logan and Greevey investigate the apparent abduction, rape, and assault of a young black woman, but their efforts are hindered by a leading black politician who says he is trying to protect her rights. Stone and Robinette must confront, and then work around, the politician to uncover the truth.The episode closely mirrors the famous case of Tawana Brawley, whose interests were represented by Al Sharpton during the controversy following her allegations that she was raped by a group of men, including a white cop.Plot SummaryThe episode begins in the parking lot of a housing project, where a few passers-by move on, and an older woman walking her dog discovers a young woman, Astria Crawford,...
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10:57 PM
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April 23, 2004
14.21 Vendetta
Giancarlo Esposito guest-stars in this well-written and richly plotted episode (14.21) in which a baseball fan who accidentally caused a local baseball team to lose a chance to get to the World Series is beaten to death in a bar by a man wielding a whiskey bottle. Briscoe and Green investigate, and McCoy and Southerlyn find that proving guilt is more complicated than they initially suspect.Plot SummaryThe episode begins with a discussion amongst a group of friends in a bar that is interrupted by a fight in another area of the bar. They rush over, and find the victim, dead and bloody. His killer has fled the scene. Briscoe and Green show up, and all the witnesses describe the assailant...
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11:53 PM
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April 21, 2004
2.2 Wages of Love: Jerry Orbach Plays a Lawyer
In this early episode (2.2), a married man and his new girlfriend are shot to death in the man's apartment. His wife and son are the primary suspects. Jerry Orbach appears in a pre-Briscoe role as the wife's defense attorney.The episode begins with a couple of cops eating dinner at a Chinese restaurant talking about how little money they make. A delivery man enters, speaking frantically in Chinese, and he leads the cop upstairs, complaining that he got stiffed out of $26, and that something was wrong. The cops explore the apartment and find the bloody bodies of a man and a woman in bed. Cerreta and Logan arrive and investigate. They identify the man as a Mr. Cullen, but...
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12:12 AM
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April 18, 2004
14.20 Everybody Loves Raimondo's
In this episode (14.20), two men are shot to death inside a favorite restaurant of mobsters and celebrities. One was killed because he heckled a woman singing Italian songs, the other appears to be an innocent bystander. But as Briscoe and Green learn, the truth is more complicated then that.The episode is based on a similar shooting at an uptown Manhattan restaurant called Rao's a few months ago. The episode begins with a man singing opera inside a restaurant. After he finishes, a woman is encouraged to sing a song. It's not as good, and you hear some heckling in the background before shots ring out and panic ensues. Briscoe and Green arrive on the scene and learn that one...
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04:19 PM
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7.20 We Like Mike
In this episode (7.20), Briscoe and Curtis suspect that a guy named Mike Bodack committed a murder, but eventually Bodack becomes their chief witness against another suspect. Unfortunately, Bodack has to sacrifice a lot to testify, so the question becomes whether he has the courage to do so.After some investigation in the first 10 minutes of the show, Briscoe and Curtis settle on Bodack as their suspect, picking him up at a wedding reception and taking him in for questioning. He had the blood of his victim, Matthew Sherman, on the suit jacket he was wearing the night of the murder, but he says he merely helped him change a flat tire and moved on. Under pressure, he finally tells...
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01:35 PM
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11.13 Phobia
In this episode (11.13), one member of a gay couple is killed, and their adopted infant son is kidnapped. Looks like a jealous biological parent might be involved. Briscoe and Green investigate, while McCoy and Carmichael seek justice. The episode begins with a couple discussing their son moving back in with them when they discover the victim, one of their neighbors named Bradford. The responding police discover an empty baby carriage and a baby bottle several yards away from the body, and conclude that a kidnapping happened, too. Briscoe and Green question the people standing around, including a seltzer water delivery guy who says he doesn't recognize the victim. After the opening credits, we learn that the baby is prone...
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01:11 PM
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April 16, 2004
9.16 Harm
In this episode (9.16), an old, retired lawyer is found very badly beaten in his home. Was it someone who had an axe to grind over his arbitration work? Yes it was, but the case unexpectedly leads to an investigation into a medical practice where it appears the doctors botched a routine surgery, leading to a woman's death. Briscoe and Curtis investigate, then McCoy and Carmichael seek justice.The episode begins with the discovery of the unconscious and bloody lawyer by his daughter and granddaughter ("He's taking a nap....He won't wake up"). The murder weapon: a glass beer stein. Sounds like a crime of opportunity, one of those "I tried to talk to him, but he wouldn't listen" types. Briscoe and...
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01:26 AM
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April 14, 2004
9.9 True North
In this episode (9.9), a woman kills a wealthy man and his young daughter, but it looks like the man's ambitious Canadian wife might be behind it all. Briscoe and Curtis investigate.The episode begins with some uniformed police officers storming a townhouse where a neighbor reported hearing 3 shots. When they enter, the find the man, a Mr. Harker, and his daughter shot dead. The nieghbor says he saw a woman running from the scene. For some reason, the first place Briscoe and Curtis check is the woman's parking garage, I guess to see whether she has fled the scene. They learn from the attendant, after some pressuring, that the woman let another man share one of her spots in...
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02:56 PM
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April 13, 2004
7.5 Corruption
In this episode (7.5), a corrupt detective murders a small-time drug dealer in the presence of Briscoe and Curtis, and then tries to smear Briscoe as his own career falls apart. The episode begins with a bunch of detectives, including Briscoe and Curtis, undercover preparing to make a drug buy followed by an arrest. Briscoe and another detective, John Flynn, approach the suspect, with whom they had apparently arranged a meeting. Curtis and some other detectives look on from nearby positions. As Briscoe heads back to the car to retrieve the money, Flynn yells "Gun!" and two shots ring out. When Briscoe turns around again and everyone storms the scene, the dealer is dead, two shots to the chest.Flynn tells...
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04:48 PM
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April 09, 2004
9.5 Agony
In this elaborate episode (9.5), a mailman is killed and a young woman is tortured for 36 hours. It looks like a serial killer is to blame, but Briscoe, Curtis, McCoy, and Carmichael have trouble making the charges stick. The episode begins with an older couple bickering about whether to go to a wedding. The man almost stumbles over the body of a mailman in the building. He died of stabwounds. Briscoe and Curtis arrive on the scene and begin canvassing the building. They knock on a half-open door and enter the apartment. In the bedroom, they found an extremely bloodied young woman who has been slashed up, stabbed, and nearly strangled. She is still alive.The dets talks to her...
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11:15 PM
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10.18 Mega
Michael McKean guest stars in this episode (10.18) in which 6 people are killed in a helicopter crash that was the result of a bomb on board. Who was responsible: the jealous wife, the leader of a quasi-cult for rich people, or another jealous wife? Briscoe and Green investigate.The episode begins with the helicopter taking off and crashing just off camera. The detecives learn that the explosion was a small one. ("We're not talking about Osama Bin Laden," one of the forensic techs says in an episode that pre-dated 9/11.) Since the helicopter was en route to JFK, they wonder if the bomb was meant to detonate on a jet. They learn that one of the victims had fun permits...
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08:13 PM
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11.5 Return
In this episode (11.5), the prime suspect in a murder flees to Israel to escape prosecution, and McCoy and Carmichael try to get him back. The murder involves a family business. Briscoe and Green investigate.The episode begins with some teenagers going into the basement of a store they shouldn't, and discovering the body. It's a leather goods store, and the owner is the victim, Saul Kaplan. He's found with two gunshot wounds and $240 in his wallet. The kids reluctantly admit they were with a hooker that night. They talk to the hooker, and she tells them that another hooker she knows, a transvestite named Toreador, has a brand new leather jacket. They track down Toreador, a real character, who...
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07:54 PM
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14.12 Payback
In this episode (14.12), the murder of a small-time bookie leads to some tension between a man and his nephew struggling for control for their branch of the mob, and a real estate agent with an unusual part-time job. Briscoe and Green investigate.The episode begins with the discovery of the victim, Jerry Tortino, in a horse's stable. The uniformed police officer who greets Briscoe and Green offers some off-the-cuff crime scene analysis. Everyone's a crime scene specialist now, Green cracks. Briscoe turns to the horse, hoping for a witness, and says to an employee, "His name's not Mr. Ed, is it?" They learn that Tortino used to be a big bookie, but his business had diminished in recent years after...
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07:41 PM
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12.10 Prejudice
In this episode (12.10), a black publishing executive is murdered, apparently because of a fight over a cab with a guy who turns out to be a sort of white-collar white supremacist. Briscoe and Green investigate.The episode begins with an incompatible couple on a first date talking about how incompatible they are. She likes tofu, he doesn't, etc. They find a dead body down some stairs by an apartment. He's ID'd as Thomas Reddick, the CEO of a prominent publishing company that specializes in publications for African-Americans. When he learns this, Green says, "He's on the other side of the camera now." Briscoe retorts, "He's on the other side, period." The dets talks to a security guard at Reddick's office,...
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07:16 PM
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9.8 Punk
In this episode (9.8), which I feel like I have seen and written about a million times, a young female convict arranges the murder of a male corrections officer who raped her repeatedly and threatened her child. Briscoe and Curtis investigate, though Abbie Carmichael plays a prominent role.The episode begins with two kids playing football in a small paved park. One kid discovers the victim's body near the bathroom in the park. The man was shot with a 9mm pistol. They learn he was a corrections officer, and they talk to cons who may have had a problem with the victim, Charlie Tyner. One con they talk to says that Tyner was corrupt. Another convict, a female, says Tyner used...
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06:56 PM
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13.19 Seer
In this unusual episode (13.19), a man claiming to have psychic visions is a suspect in the murder of his attractive female neighbor. Briscoe and Green investigate.The episode begins with a couple having an argument in the kitchen of their apartment. The woman is about to throw the man's keys out the window when she looks out and sees the body of a woman next to a dumpster several floors below. The victim is well-dressed, and there is a foot-print near the body, apparently from the murderer. Briscoe and Green check in with the annoying forensics guy, Beck, who has been showing up almost as much as Medical Examiner Rogers lately, and Beck, since he knows everything, tells them all...
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06:37 PM
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12.7 Myth of Fingerprints
In this episode (12.7), the brother of a man jailed for 12 years for a crime he didn't commit is the suspect in the real killer's death. Lt. Van Buren was the original lead detective in the case that led to the conviction of the wrong man. Green and Briscoe try to straighten it all out.The episode appears to be based in part on the case of Joyce Gilchrist, an Oklahoma police chemist who falsified evidence and sent innocent people to prison. The episode begins with some Staten Island-y party girls discovering the body of the victim, James Foley, in his apartment. The murder weapon, apparently, was the victim's large tv set, which landed on his head with some force....
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06:12 PM
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13.8 Asterisk
In this episode (13.8), a baseball star is the lead suspect in the murder of his limo driver. Why'd he do it? Briscoe and Green investigate. The episode loosely mirrors the case of Jayson Williams, the former basktetball star currently on trial for the apparently accidental killing of his own limo driver. The episode begins with some young women picking up garbage in Central Park as part of their community service for a minor drug offense. As they talk, one of them discovers the body of the victim, whose neck has been snapped and is who is lacking a wallet or ID. All that's left is a scrap of paper with a to do list on it which Green decodes...
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05:42 PM
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April 05, 2004
Genius
In this episode (13.17), a cab driver is found slain in the street. A famous, colorful author or his young protegee appear to be responsible. Briscoe and Green investigate.The episode begins with two kids playing football in the street (an activity that often leads to the discovery of dead bodies on L&O, by the way). The body is found with a copy of A Season in Hell by the French poet Rimbaud. The victim's name appears to be Josh Chernoff, but he's not the person to whom the cab is registered. It turns out a friend of his from AA let him moonlight in the cab. The victim's real name, it turns out, is Bobby Lee Redburn, a convict who...
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12:33 AM
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April 04, 2004
12.23 Oxymoron
In this somewhat memorable episode (12.23), a pretty young upper-class part-time drug dealer is found dead in the street, and a Russian mobster or his father is apparently to blame. Briscoe and Green investigate.This is the episode exhaustively documented in the official Law & Order: Crime Scenes book available at Barnes & Noble.The episode begins with two women walking down the street discussing the breakup of a friend's marriage. They notice a well- but sexily-dressed dead woman between two cars. She has no ID on her, but she has a number written on a piece of paper which turns out to be the hack license of a cab driver. The detectives track down the cabbie, who say he had a...
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06:43 PM
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11.8 Thin Ice
In this episode (11.8), a hockey coach is beaten to death near his practice rink. Is one of his players responsible, or perhaps an angry parent? Briscoe and Green investigate.The episode begins with a mother telling her daughter all the sacrifices she makes so the daughter can take ice skating lessons. The daughter discovers the body of the victim, alerts her mom, and the police arrive. Brisco and Green soon discover that the victim, Russell Cryder, is a hockey coach of a youth team. The parking attendant says he didn't hear anything going on, but a witness quickly surfaces who said she heard a car alarm coming from the garage. The detectives revisit the garage attendant who at first says...
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06:18 PM
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April 01, 2004
14.19 Nowhere Man: The Mayor Bloomberg Episode
Mayor Bloomberg guest-stars in this episode (14.19) about a talented Assistant District Attorney who is found murdered in Central Park. The attorney was a close colleague of Jack McCoy's, but McCoy soon realizes he didn't know the victim as well as he thought he did.PicturesHere's the fun stuff:Screenshot of Bloomberg at first press conference. Notice L&O DA Arthur Branch standing behind him.Screen shot of Lt. Van Buren watching Bloomberg on TV. A pretty post-modern image, if you think about it: we're watching TV and seeing a fake character watch our real mayor on TV.Bloomberg's second press conference, at the end of the episode. Branch is behind him again, and that looks like Serena Southerlyn's blonde hair and Jack McCoy's gray...
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02:52 AM
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March 30, 2004
5.12 Progeny
In this episode (5.12), an abortion doctor is assassinated. Is a radical pro-life leader behind her death? Sure looks like it. Briscoe and Logan investigate.The episode begins with the doctor talking to a parking garage attendant. She climbs into her Mercedes and drives off, but shots ring out a moment later, and the attendant discovers her shot in the head, dead. Briscoe and Logan find her wearing a bulletproof vest and come across a wanted poster with her name and face on it in her purse.They visit her place of work, which is almost surround by rabid abortion protesters who are apparently there every day, harassing the doctors and the patients. They learn that a woman named Nancy Gunther specifically...
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09:08 PM
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March 28, 2004
11.24 Deep Vote: Abbie Carmichael's Last Episode
In this episode (11.24), the finale of season 11 and Abbie Carmichael/Angie Harmon's last episode, a state senator seems to be connected to the murder of a woman, but the relationship between the two is unclear. Briscoe and Green investigate.The episode begins with a kid and his grandfather discussing the old days vs. the modern era of baseball. Suddenly, there's a loud car accident between a woman in a Volvo and a pick-up truck. Briscoe and Green are called to the scene because the woman is found with small-caliber bullet hole in her skull. A bag lady says she saw an SUV leave a spot, and then the two other cars crashed. The immediate theory of the crime was that...
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12:18 AM
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March 27, 2004
12.12 Undercovered
In this episode (12.12), a health insurance adjuster is killed, apparently by an unhappy client. Briscoe and Green investigate, and it takes them quite a while to track down the killer.The episode begins with the driver of a street sweeping truck coming across a dead body in the street. Briscoe and Green quickly learn his identity, but they can't figure out why someone would want to kill him, or what he was doing in the uptown neighborhood where he was found. They track down a homeless guy who frequents the area, but he didn't see much. The victim's wife says they led a normal life, and a co-worker says he was meeting someone downtown the day he died.Along the way,...
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11:56 PM
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13.13 Absentia
In this episode (13.13), a jewelry store owner is shot to death in his shop, and a customer visiting from Chicago is critically injured. The customer survives, but disappears before he can testify. It turns out that he, too, has something to hide. Briscoe and Green investigate.The episode begins with a young hipster couple walking by a jewelry store and hearing gun shots. A man runs past them, and they enter the store, finding a carnage-filled scene. Green and Briscoe go undercover from pawn shop to pawn shop, and find a guy who bought the stolen merchandise. They get a hit on a fingerprint, and trace it to a Georgian national, who they arrest at a local bar, and who...
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04:55 PM
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13.21 House Calls
In this episode (13.21), an unconventional doctor appears to be responsible for the drug-related death of a beautiful, but struggling, Russian model. Briscoe and Green investigate.The episode begins in a boutique where two employees watch as the model, Nadia Parkova, attempts to shoplift some merchandise. She slips into a dressing room, and they wait for her to come out. When she doesn't, they open the door, and find her dead. Did she fall on the stool and crack her head? Does the needle in her purse have anything to do with it? Briscoe's teaser-ending wise crack: "She shopped til she dropped."The ME finds that Parkova was loaded up on a variety of drugs, including Valium, Halcyon, and one called Deverol...
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04:41 PM
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4.18 Wager
In this episode (4.18), a professional baseball player's father is killed, apparently over his large gambling debt. A local chiropractor who is also the neighborhood's gambling czar is the prime suspect. Briscoe and Logan investigate.The episode begins with a cable guy discovering the beaten body of the ball player's father. They talk to the victim's second wife, who divorced him in 1982, who tells them that he was a hustler, always on the make for money and women. They also talk to a woman who was having an affair with the victim. She has a black-eye given to her by her husband, who learned of the affair. He's briefly a suspect, but they discount him as Briscoe plays a game...
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04:27 PM
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9.19 Tabula Rasa
In this episode (9.19), a woman is pushed into the path of a subway train, and a figure from her past seems to be the murderer.The episode begins with the Briscoe and Curtis investigating the death of the woman in the subway station. Their victim is Marianne Hollis, a professor at New York City University. They learn that the woman ran out of a diner without paying, followed someone into a bookstore, and then into the subway, where she was pushed.After some legwork, including some clues from the bookstore, the detectives find their suspect, a man visiting NYC with his daughter, to drop her off at college. Once he's identitied as a suspect, the man retains Prof. Norman Rothenberg (a...
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03:40 PM
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13.11 Chosen
In this episode (13.11), a man who runs a semi-legitimate gambling operation is murdered, apparently by a business partner who had ulterior motives for the murder. The episode introduces Randy Dworkin, an unconventional defense attorney who confounds McCoy and breathes life into every scene he's in.The episode begins with two yuppies attempting to play a prank on one of their friends outside a bar. They try to mess with his Lexus, but they pop the trunk (somehow) on the wrong car, and discover a man's body. Green and Briscoe investigate.The victim's apartment contains $100,000, giving the detectives the idea that the man was not completely lawful. They find a financial connection to a doctor, whom they visit. As they walk...
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03:27 PM
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March 26, 2004
9.13 Hunters
In this memorable episode (9.13), two bounty hunters chase after a target in NYC and leave death and destruction in their wake. McCoy and Carmichael have a heck of time finding anything to prosecute them for.The episode begins with two city tow truck operators discussing golf. They come across an abandoned vehicle and pop the trunk, apparently to see if there's anything worth stealing. That's when they discover a body in the trunk of the car. Briscoe and Curtis investigate.The first step is to figure out what the victim, Douglas Bender, was doing there. The car is registered to a Millicent Sheridan, who turns out to be a nurse named Millie Bender, wife of the victim. Her husband had a...
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08:58 PM
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13.15 Bitch: Skoda vs. Olivet, Round 2
In this episode (13.15), a fabulously wealthy and famous female entrpeneur is a suspect in the death of a stockbroker who helped her make an unlawful stock trade. Sound familiar? The ep is L&O's take on the Martha Stewart scandal. Along the way, police psychiatrists Emil Skoda and Elizabeth Olivet end up on opposite sides of the case, a situation that has happened once before. The episode begins with a professional dog walker finding the deceased victim in his house. Briscoe and Green investigate, and learn the victim is Bradley Osterhaus, a high-profile stock broker. Soon enough, they connnect the stockbroker to Jackie Scott, aka "the Makeover Maven," who has made a fortune and earned fame selling beauty products. They...
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08:21 PM
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5.7 Precious
In this dead baby episode (5.7), a couple is apparently responsible for the death of their infant, who they initially claim was kidnapped. Then it seems they may have killed two earlier babies, too. Briscoe, Logan, McCoy, and Kincaid investigate.The episode begins with two cops in a park discussing a trip to the Grand Canyon, when a man approaches them and says he dozed off in the park for 5 minutes and someone stole his baby. Initally, Briscoe and Logan focus their investigation on a bald man seen with a camera in the park earlier that day. But they check him out and he's not responsible -- he was just interested in picking up nannies. This leads the detectives to...
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08:04 PM
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March 25, 2004
11.12 Teenage Wasteland
Extraordinarily well-written episode (11.12) in which a Chinese food delivery man is brutally murdered by a group of middle-class, thrill-seeking teenagers, and McCoy and Lewin have to decide whether to seek the death penalty against the only 18-year-old among them. The episode begins with a couple of painters discovering the delivery man's body outside the door of a basement apartment. The body has been brutally beaten, and there is blood everywhere. The back of the man's skull has been pulverized. Briscoe and Green investigate.The focus their investigation on a homeless man who was known to sleep outside the apartment, which had been unoccupied for some time. They track him down through some previous tenants, who mention that he said he...
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10:37 PM
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March 24, 2004
5.1 Second Opinion: Jack McCoy's First Episode
In this episode (5.1), a woman releases toxic fumes when she dies, and it seems like an alternative treatment for breast cancer may be to blame. The episode is McCoy's first. Here are some screenshots.The episode begins with the woman being worked on in an emergency room. As they work on her, a nurse asks, "What's that smell?" and passes out. The patient dies, and her body is treated as a bio-hazard. Briscoe and Logan investigate, and discover that there were traces of cyanide in her system.The medical examiner is not able to examine the body fully because her office is not equipped to deal with it, so while they're waiting, the detectives poke around the victim's life and try...
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01:53 AM
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March 19, 2004
14.17 Hands Free
In this episode (14.17), a kid finds a human hand in the trash near his apartment. Down the street, responding cops find a second one. Briscoe and Green investigate.By combing through various trash cans, the team eventually discovers lots of body parts, all from the same person, all wrapped in the same brand of trash bag. The learn the brand of trash bag, and then find one more bag of the same brand with regular household trash in it. This bag contains a magazine, and the magazine has a page torn out. The page was an advertisement featuring a photo of a man who turns out to be...the victim's son. Briscoe and Green tell this guy what they know about...
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02:00 PM
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March 18, 2004
5.3 Blue Bamboo
Somewhat boring episode (5.3) in which a Japanese man is shot dead in a New York hotel, and it looks like an American woman is responsible. Briscoe and Logan investigate.The episode begins with the Japanese man staggering down the stairs of the hotel's lobby and collapsing. At first they think he had a heart attack, but one of the detectives notice he has a small bullet hole under his arm. They trace his business contacts and reasons for being in New York, and eventually learn that he was a night club owner in Japan who hired blonde American women to sing and, eventually, serve as prostitutes. Briscoe and Logan track down some of these women, and find one who claims...
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11:36 PM
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13.5 The Ring
Unconventional episode (13.5) in which the body of a woman supposedly killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11 turns up in Hell's Kitchen. Briscoe and Green investigate.The episode begins with an unusually long sequence in which two boys shoplift from a bodega, and flee after he spots them. They run into a vacant lot, where they come across a skeleton with a missing left hand. The ME tells them that a stain on a finger bone on another finger indicates that a ring had been on the finger for a long time, post mortem. The detectives realize that the boys probably took the ring. The boys fess up and turn the ring over to them. They trace it. It's...
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11:05 PM
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March 16, 2004
12.5 Possession
In this somewhat unusual episode (12.5), an old lady is found stabbed to death outside her apartment, and it looks like her landlady or superintendent is involved. Briscoe and Green investigate, McCoy and Southerlyn prosecute.The episode begins with some elevator inspectors discovering the woman's body. When Briscoe and Green enter her apartment, they learn that she was a packrat. Meanwhile, her superintendent gives off a strange, creepy vibe. They canvas the building but no one saw anything. They talk to a dressmaker downstairs, who also happens to own the building, and she says she didn't see anything. During the interview, however, her employees seem to know something, but won't say it in front of her. She refers them to the...
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11:20 PM
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5.4 Family Values
In this episode (5.4), a woman's car is found on the Manhattan-bound side of the Queensboro Bridge, but she is nowhere to be found. Eventually, her body turns up, and Logan and Briscoe try to figure out who in her family is responsible for her death.The possible suspects are her husband, her ex-husband, and her 17-year-old daughter. Can you guess who did it? That's right! Can you guess why? Right again!After many false starts, including a misconceived investigation into the ex-husband, who happens to have been abusive, Briscoe and Logan learn that the current husband lied to them three times, and knows more than he is saying. Eventually, they learn that the daughter was IN LOVE with her step-father, and...
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11:00 PM
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4.19 Sanctuary
In this episode (4.19), riots break out in the city after a Jewish man is not indicted for a hit-and-run accident that kills a black boy.The episode begins with two boys tossing a football around, until it bounces into the street, and boy runs out to get it and is killed by a passing car, a black Cadillac, which speeds off. Logan and Briscoe investigate, but the perpetrator eventually turns himself in, in the company of a lawyer. He says he was driving slowly, and forensics looks at the skid marks and confirms this. A grand jury hears evidence, but decides not to indict him. He is free to go.A local reverend who is prominent in the black community is...
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10:53 PM
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14.16 Can I Get a Witness
In this episode (14.16), McCoy and Southerlyn have trouble keeping their witnesses alive as a string of drug offenders and murders protect each other by intimidating and killing the witnesses against them.The episode begins with a drive-by shooting on a bicycle. Witnesses say they saw a cloudy-eyed shooter kill their young friend "Big Boy," who it turns out, is a small-time drug dealer, or perhaps just a "mule" who carries drugs from one place to another. Briscoe and Green discover that the shooter's cloudy eye is actually a glass eye that hasn't been properly maintained. They check with local clinics to get a list of kids who have glass eyes, and eventually hone in on a young man named Foster...
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10:38 PM
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11.17 Amends
In this episode (11.17), Briscoe and Green attempt to solve a 20-year-old murder case. The case closely resembles that of Martha Moxley, the young woman killed in Greenwich, CT, by a relative of the Kennedys.The episode begins with Lt. Van Buren being chastised by department brass at what appears to be a department-wide meeting. Her commanders tell her that her clearance rate of homicide cases -- 22% -- is too low, and she better improve her numbers, or they're going to find someone else to take her position. They tell her to close cases, even it involves opening up cold cases. Why the department would want her detectives to concentrate on decades-old cases is beyond me, but it makes for...
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02:14 AM
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14.15 Veteran's Day
In this episode (14.15), a young peace activist is murdered, apparently by some grizzled Vietnam veterans.The episode begins with the discovery of the young man's body. He was strangled to death. Briscoe and Green seek witnesses, but don't find many. They do, however, catch a break when the medical examiner discovers a shirt button in the boy's stomach, a piece of evidence which becomes crucial later on. They also talk to the boy's girlfriend, who says they were soul mates and gives them insight into the boy's seemingly contradictory personality: he was a peace activist, yet he was prone to confrontation. She tells them that he was active in a demonstration against a Halliburton-like company that was capitalizing on the...
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01:53 AM
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4.2 Volunteers
In this episode (4.2), various members of a neighborhood association are suspected in an attack on a mentally-disturbed homeless person who harassed the people on the block.The episode begins with a couple making out and stumbling over the comatose victim, who turns out to be a homeless man named Roland Kirk.* Briscoe and Logan find the victim with a crack pipe and $2200, and a business card indicating that he is a psychiatric patient. One witness, Leon Proskey, the owner of a nearby restaurant says he didn't see much but a man with a red hat near the scene. Briscoe and Logan manage to track down the red hat wearer who is in possession of the victim's Medicare card, but...
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01:38 AM
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13.1 American Jihad: First Appearance of Arthur Branch
In this episode (13.1), the murder of a couple is traced to a young, white, middle-class convert to Islam who hates women. The suspect closely resembles John Walker Lindh, known as "the American Taliban."The episode begins with a man walking his dog who hears gun shots coming from an apartment and sees a Hispanic male running from the scene. The police find a dead couple inside the apartment. Initally, they focus their investigation on a former assistant of the male victim, who was a researcher of Parkinson's disease. The assistant, now a cab driver, is an arrogant bastard, and calls Green a "primate" and refuses to cooperate until Green threatens to kick his ass. Doesn't matter, though: he isn't the...
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01:18 AM
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March 14, 2004
11.3 Dissonance
In this episode (11.3), a violinist's affair with her conductor turns deadly, and Green and Briscoe try to connect the conductor to her death.Initially, it appears the motive for the violinist's murder is robbery: her violin, worth a million dollars, is missing. Through some black market connections, Green and Briscoe learn of a fence who would likely be the one moving such stolen merchandise. The scene in which they go to question him is very unconventional: it begins with the fence running through a door. The camera holds on the door for a few seconds, and then our man Eddie Green comes bursting through, looks around, and chases after his prey. This turns into what must be the longest Ed...
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09:34 PM
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9.7 Venom
In this episode (9.7), what appears to be a near-fatal conflict between an older woman and her younger lover turns out to be a power struggle between a murderous con-woman and her son, with whom -- yuck! -- she has a sexual relationship.The episode begins outside a benefit concert, when two rich people hear a gun shot and rush to an alley where they see a wealthy woman shot in the arm, and a dead man. They were hit by the same bullet. The woman was taken to the hospital, but the man died. Briscoe and Curtis investigate, and at first try to figure out who would want the man dead. The man was an escort of the shot woman,...
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09:09 PM
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March 12, 2004
8.19 Disappeared
In this episode (8.19), after a couple is kidnapped from their home in Chelsea, Briscoe and Curtis try to track them down with the help of a reluctant informant, who turns out to be the kidnapper's brother. Once the suspect is in custody, McCoy and Ross must choose whether to seek the death penalty for him, even though it seems likely he is mentally unstable. The situation is very similar to the case of the Unabomber.The episode begins with a boy entering his home with a family friend. His parents are missing, and the apartment looks like it was prepared for a dinner party that never happened. Curtis and Briscoe find evidence of foul play, but come up short as...
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12:29 AM
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March 11, 2004
14.5 Blaze
In this episode (14.6), a washed-up rock band's pyrotechnic display is responsible for a fire in a small rock club that kills 23 people. Sound familiar? The episode is based on a 2003 incident in Rhode Island in which 96 people were killed at a performance of the band Great White.The episode begins with two brothers in the club's bathroom fighting over one brother's cocaine use. As they are talking, we hear a boom. They open the door, and the stage is on fire, and people are screaming. They run to the bathroom window, but it's been barred over. By the time Briscoe and Green show up at the scene, the bodies are lined up outside. The investigator from the...
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08:57 PM
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March 10, 2004
6.2 Rebels
In this episode (6.2), the second one featuring Benjamin Bratt as Rey Curtis, an NYU student is stabbed to death at a biker bar.Plot SummaryThe episode opens with the guys, who are apparently supposed to be gay, checking out the biker bar. One tells the other, "Our bar is down the street." As they're leaving, the NYU student, Tommy Bell, staggers out of the bar, bleeding. When they ask the people remaining at the bar whether they saw anything, they all unconvicingly say they didn't. Curtis brings one remaining biker, who gives his name as "Rocky Mountain," for questioning, but he doesn't have much info. Meanwhile, Van Buren asks Briscoe whether Curtis is getting the hang of things. He's learning,...
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12:35 AM
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March 07, 2004
Misconception
In this episode (2.6), a young, pregnant woman is savagely beaten late at night outside her office. She survives, but her unborn baby soon dies. Initially, Logan and Cerreta suspect her cab-driving boyfriend, who seems to have a temper and a brief history of beating her. The detectives' investigation in hindered because the victim keeps lying to them, But she eventually admits she was having an affair with her boss, David Alcott, so they focus on him. Of course, he at first denies any affair, but eventually admits it. They eventually charge him with the murder of the fetus, but the fetus must be 24 weeks old to be considered a "victim." The margin of error of the test to...
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11:10 PM
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9.4 Flight
In this episode (9.4), a boy dies from a rare virus that is not usually found in America. Briscoe and Curtis investigate the death, concerned that it might be a bio-terror death. Soon, they learn that the boy was injected with the virus -- there was a puncture wound on his thigh. The authorities become increasingly nervous when another man turns up dead from the same illness. Briscoe and Curtis talk to the man's girlfriend, who tells him where the dead man got his needles from. Ironically the man is a junk dealer (junk = heroin, junk = garbage) who keeps his "gallery" in a park downtown. He shows the detectives where he found the needle he sold to the...
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10:54 PM
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Harvest
In this episode (8.4), a 30-year-old woman is shot while driving with her husband near the George Washington Bridge, but her assailants may not be as responsible for her death as the ambitious doctor who may have hastened her death so he could harvest her organs for transplant.The epsiode opens with a man bringing his wife into an emergency room. She has been shot in the head, and she is bleeding badly. Briscoe and Curtis talk to the man, and quickly get the sense that there is more to the story than he is letting on. They take him to the scene of the crime to get an idea of what happened. While they are visiting the victim's parents, they...
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07:00 PM
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The Fire This Time
In this episode (12.8), a young woman is burned to death inside a just-built apartment building that was supposed to be unoccupied.Briscoe and Green at first focus their investigation on a married man who was having an affair with the victim and who had access to the building. He claims that he led the woman to the building and was preparing to have sex with her when he realized he didn't have any condoms. He ran out to get some and when he came back the building was on fire. He says he went to call 911, but a young blonde woman was on the nearby payphone already and said she called. Using the records for this phone, they visit...
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06:41 PM
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4.14 Censure
Claire Kincaid gets a censure from the disciplinary committee in this episode (4.14) in which a judge extorts and threatens a woman he was having an affair with.The episode begins with a woman arriving home to find her daughter missing. She checks her answering machine messages and hears an electronically altered voice talking about her daughter and her daughter's doll. She calls the school, and then calls the police. Briscoe and Logan show up to investigate, but before they really get started, the girl shows up with her nanny! They had been out shopping at a toy store. Nonetheless, Briscoe and Logan feel the voice on the machine is not done with this family.Sure enough, the extortionist sends a note...
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06:31 PM
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12.1 Girl Most Likely
In this episode (12.17), a teenage girl is found murdered in the laundry room of her apartment building. Green and Briscoe initially focus their investigation on a married photographer who lives in the building, and their suspicions seem confirmed when they discover a darkroom full of photographs of the girl. However, he is dismissive of their charges, and said he took the pictures of her for her yearbook, as a favor. He also gives them a clue: she had a relationship with a boy at school.Briscoe and Green visit the school to learn more about the girl, and notice that the athletes at the school all wear a varsity jacket that matches the description of the jacket given by the...
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06:14 PM
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Big Bang
In this episode (4.16), a woman is killed when she opens a package sent to her in the mail. The bomb ordinarily may not have been big enought to kill her, but it launched the letter opener she was using into her neck, causing her death. Logan and Briscoe initially focus their investigation on her ex-husband, a highly regarded nuclear physicist, who seems to have a large motive for wanted to see her dead: she was purposely making their divorce as difficult and expensive as possible.The husband was also having an affair with a young blonde chemistry student. The mistress says that a few days before the murder, she saw the husband arguing with a scruffy, bearded man outside the...
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05:58 PM
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9.12 Haven
In this episode (9.12), a man is found murdered inside the community center he helped found. Briscoe and Curtis initially focus their investigation on some local drug dealers who were constantly being harassed by the victim, but eventually they turn their attention to a young man who received a scholarship of sorts from the victim, and who was considered to be a model for other young men in the neighborhood. Once Briscoe and Curtis realize that this student lied to them, they arrest him, and learn from various witnesses that he was struggling at the school: his tutor says he was 4 years behind other students, and he bombed all his midterms. Cheekbones visits a guy who runs a website...
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05:45 PM
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Bad Faith
In this episode (5.20), a detective who was a childhood friend of Det. Logan turns up dead in the park, shot to death. Briscoe and Logan investigate and try to determine a motive. They visit their former lieutenant, Donald Kragen (Dann Florek), who is now working with the anti-corruption unit. He thinks the victim may have been somehow involved with corruption, like many other officers at his precinct, Logan doesn't want to believe it, but Briscoe is more keen on the possibility. When they talk to his wife about any problems he may have been having, she says she believed he was seeking counseling...with a priest named Father Joe. Logan recognizes the name: Father Joe was their childhood priest. Logan...
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05:35 PM
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March 04, 2004
Suicide Box
In this episode (13.16), Gregory Hines turns in an outstanding performance as the defense attorney for a young black man accused of shooting a white female police officer. It turns out that the young man's brother had been murdered 8 years earlier, and he held a grudge against the police because he felt they did not fully investigate his death.The episode begins with some cops eating at a diner. One of the cops catches the eye of a female cop, and soon goes to the back of the diner and kisses here near the restrooms. We learn that they were having a brief affair, but she wants to cut it off. She walks out of the diner, and is shot....
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11:42 PM
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4.22 Old Friends: Ben Stone's Last Episode
In this episode (4.22), an executive at a baby food company is apparently killed by being pushed into the path of an oncoming truck by a homeless man, but Briscoe and Logan eventually learn his connections to the Russian mob may be to blame. The episode also marks the final appearance of Michael Moriarty as Ben Stone.The episode begins with a homeless man shouting abuse at people waiting at a bus stop because they won't give him money. We then see a businessman stumble in front of an oncoming truck and get run over. Briscoe and Logan track down the homeless man (by a coffee cup he was carrying), but it's clear he didn't actually push the man. Fibers found...
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10:20 PM
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Bad Girl
Very entertaining episode (8.21), in which an extremely angry young woman kills a female police officer in Central Park, and the issue of whether to seek the death penalty against her becomes a political issue in Schiff's re-election campaign.The episode begins with a sanitation worker hearing gun shots and rushing to the scene, where he find the dead officer and another badly injured man. At first, Curtis and Briscoe focus on the injured man, who was shot, as their chief suspect. The investigation is hindered by the fact that he is unconscious and in the hospital during much of this time. But they manage to track down witnesses who saw him follow the officer from a city bus to the...
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10:01 PM
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Standoff
In this episode (11.4), a Latino gang leader is killed in a transfer area at a prison. Briscoe and Green investigate, giving Green a chance to return to his past as a gang unit detective.Briscoe and Green first suspect a small-time drug dealer who was in the prison at the same time, who happened to have also been injured during the incident but was released. They investigate him vigorously, and when they finally track him down, Green and Briscoe rush in on him and another gang member in the back of a restaurant when Green recognizes the other gang member: it's one of his old colleagues from the gang unit, who addresses him as "Detective Green," a gesture that implies...
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09:29 PM
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February 28, 2004
8.24 Monster: Jamie Ross's Last Episode
A lot goes on in this episode (8.24), the finale of season 8: McCoy prepares to face the disciplinary committee, to answer charges brought against him by the judge running against Schiff for the office of District Attorney, Briscoe considers doing something unethical that might lead to the murder of his daughter's killer, Cheekbones (aka Jamie Ross) announces her resignation, and Van Buren confronts department brass about apparent racism and their desire to see her quit.The episode begins with the discovery of a 10-year-old comatose black girl in the basement of a housing project. Briscoe and Curtis investigate, retracing the girl's steps and eventually coming up with enough information to release a sketch of the suspect. The detectives ask Van...
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06:25 PM
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6.4 Jeopardy
In this episode (6.4), McCoy and Kincaid think they have a strong case against a man accused of a triple murder, but things take an unexpected turn when a judge keeps ruling against them without apparent reason.The episode begins at the scene of a triple homicide at a computer magazine's editorial offices. Briscoe and Curtis at first focus their investigation on disgruntled former employees, and then turn their attention to a computer programmer whose game was savagely, but prematurely, reviewed in the pages of the magazine. The programmer had a pending lawsuit against the magazine, and although the magazine had few assets, the programmer's attorney discovered that the magazine's editor, who is also one of the murder victim's, was a...
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12:34 AM
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February 27, 2004
Shadow
In this episode (8.8), McCoy and Cheekbones use unusual legal tactics to uncover a corruption scheme in the court system that led to a the murder of a bailbondsman who discovered the scheme and wanted a cut of the action.The episode begins with two women discovering the body of the bailbondsman in his office. Briscoe and Curtis investigate, and learn that one of his clients had skipped bail, and his mother risked losing the restaurant she put up for collateral as a result. To track down this suspect, they use an elaborate ruse involving a payphone and his girlfriend, in which Curtis calls her and pretends he's a doctor. These leads to the location where the fugitive is staying. They...
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11:12 PM
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Tragedy on Rye
In this episode (13.4), a young woman is found murdered in her apartment by a delivery man. She was an unemployed actress, but she had over $50,000 in stereo equipment in her apartment. Briscoe and Green investigate, trying to establish why someone would want to kill her. They visit the comedy club on Staten Island where she worked nights, go through her locker there, and find some traffic tickets that reveal there is traffic camera right by her building. During a visit to the DMV to inspect the camera's records at the time of the shooting, they find a shot of a couple of tourists filming the victim's building directly. They track the tourists down via the plate on their...
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09:59 PM
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February 26, 2004
In Memory Of
In this episode (2.7), Cerreta and Logan attempt to solve the 31-year-old murder of an 8-year-old boy found behind a brick wall in an apartment building undergoing renovation. After contacting one of the detectives who originally worked on the case, and who has a sharp recollection of the details, they focus their investigation on a gay couple who lived in the building where the boy was found. One of the men is still living, however, and when the detectives track him down in a convalescent home, he tells them to "go to hell," and is admanant that he had nothing to do with the death and that he is only a suspect because he is gay.Using power and telephone company...
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12:39 AM
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February 25, 2004
Stalker
Very good episode (8.18) in which a young woman is heard being thrown down the stairs in her apartment building. Although she is severely injured, she survives. As Briscoe and Curtis investigate, they learn that she was being stalked by a ex-con who calls himself "Giovanni" and who seemed to have exceedingly detailed information about her life, including what kind of products she owned. They find several emails from Giovanni in her apartment, and, after talking to another detective who worked the stalking case, eventually come up with a suspect.They bring him in, but have very little evidence to go on. They are able to hold him a bit longer by getting one of his neighbors to file a harassment...
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01:16 AM
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February 23, 2004
Damaged: Briscoe's Daughter Gets Killed
This episode (8.22), contains an event that will be referred to in countless future episodes: Det. Briscoe's daughter is killed, apparently by the drug dealers she testifies against earlier in the episode. The main storyline of the episode deals with a semi-retarded girl (with an IQ of 65) who is raped by three young men at her high school, but she denies that the incident happened against her will.The episode begins with a shooting at the high school in which a two teachers are shot at, and one of them is severely injured. Briscoe and Green cross-check students at the school with those whose parents had gun licenses, and they wind up talking to a young girl whose father own...
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04:25 PM
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February 22, 2004
Trade This
In this episode (10.16), a gunman storms into a brokerage firm and opens fire, injuring a secretary and killing a young broker. Briscoe and Green try to figure out who would want the broker dead. At first they think it's someone who sent him a harassing email about his nearly-naked appearance in a "Boys of Brown" calendar put out as a "college prank," or one of his clients who lost a money during the dot-com bust. When they investigate, they learn that a disgruntled client has been missing since the shooting. They put out a notice on his car's license plate, and it gets reported at JFK's long-term parking. The man is found dead inside, shot by his own hand.From...
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08:38 PM
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February 21, 2004
4.20 Nurture
In this episode (4.20), a ten-year-old girl is reported missing by a friend from school. Her irresponsible foster mother didn't report her, even though she was missing for two nights. A visit to her alcoholic natural mother yields little information, but after going through some of the girl's things and talking to her principal, Logan and Briscoe begin to get the idea that a volunteer teacher at her school may be somehow involved. The woman appears a bit deceptive when they talk to her, so they get a limited search warrant to look for the girl, but to no avail. Eventually, as the evidence mounts that the teacher is involved, the get a more extensive search warrant and find that...
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11:00 PM
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February 20, 2004
Carrier
Very well-written and well-acted episode (8.17) in which a young man with HIV knowingly infects as many young women as possible. McCoy and Cheekbones dedicate themselves to prosecuting him so they can keep him off the streets, but they encounter many legal obstacles along the way.The episode begins with a well-to-do couple returning to their park-side apartment after a short vacation. When they get upstairs, they find numerous teenagers in various stages of consciousness and undress strewn about their apartment. When they go to their daughter's bedroom, they find her dead from a gun shot wound, and the weapon on the floor beside her.Briscoe and Curtis arrive and question the young guests. They learn that the victim was quiet and...
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12:13 AM
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February 19, 2004
Judge Dread
This episode (11.23) starts off with promise, but then descends into a bottomless pit of boring and simple narrative.The episode begins by showing us the crime as it is being committed: a man sits outside the courthouse, reading the paper. When a livery car drives up, he stands up and approaches it. A woman exits the vehicle with a guard of some sort, and the woman is talking about what is happening in court today. It is apparent she is a judge. The man gets within about 20 feet of her, and then aims his gun and prepares to fire. The woman's guard responds, draws, and fires at the same time as the assailant. The guard is hit, but he...
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09:49 PM
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Swept Away: A Very Special Episode
Slightly unusual episode (11.15) in which a participant of a "Real World"-type reality television show is found murdered in the house he shares, on camera, with the show's other participants. It doesn't take long for Briscoe and Green to settle on a suspect: one of the other housemates. The two had a history of conflict, and it appears that things just got out of control one night, and the victim was pitched off the roof.Briscoe and Green get stone-walled for a while by the show's producers, who appear to be very protective of their "kids," the show's participants. But it's also clear that they also act out of self-interest, and do not want to get caught up in the investigation....
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03:35 PM
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February 18, 2004
Mayhem
Fast-paced and unusually structured episode (4.17) in which Briscoe and Logan attempt to solve FIVE consecutive murders which take place all over the city.Murder #1: The episode begins with two horseback officers discovering the body of a young man in a car in Battery Park. He'd been shot to death by a high-caliber weapon. Shortly after the discovery of this body, Briscoe and Logan get a call that a topless woman was found several blocks uptown screaming. It turns out that she was in the car when he was shot, and she ran away mid-encounter. She is able to offer a description of the shooter, a heavyset man with thick black plastic glasses (think Roger Ebert). Briscoe wants to wrap...
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12:55 AM
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Episode Title Unknown
In this episode (), a passed-out woman is discovered bleeding and ill in an emergency room waiting room. Doctors determine she recently gave birth to a baby, but the baby can't be found. Logan and Briscoe are called in to help. They learn that the woman arrived at the hospital via a taxi, and they initially suspect her cab driver with abducting the child. Soon, however, they trace her journey back to a hotel, where she apparently gave birth to the child with her boyfriend. After much running around, they track down the boyfriend, who indeed has the baby. They then begin trying to puzzle out what happened.They learn that the woman had offered the baby to various couples for...
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12:30 AM
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February 15, 2004
14.2 Bounty
In this episode (14.2), L&O offers a take on the Jayson Blair scandal: a young black reporter gets in over his head when he starts manufacturing stories for his newspaper. But in the L&O version, the story ends in murder. In fact, this episode takes two recent real-life stories and smashes them together, namely the Blair scandal and the story of Duane Mad Dog Chapman, the bounty hunter who chased down a wealthy fugitive rapist in Mexico.The episode begins with a young couple discovering a murdered bounty hunter in a low-rent hotel. It takes a while to Briscoe and Green to figure it out, but eventually they learn he's a bounty hunter from Philadelphia. Briscoe's humorous insistence that they check...
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10:58 PM
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Violence of Summer
Philip Seymour Hoffman and Samuel L. Jackson both guest star in the early episode (1.14) in which a woman is gang raped, but Stone and Robinette have trouble building a case against the defendants.The episode begins untraditionally, with Paul talking to an attorney about a deal to "sever" one defendant's trial from the other two. At the severance hearing, the two older defendants berate the younger one, who wants the severance. Things get out of hand, and one of the older defendants takes the gun from a security guard and nearly shoots the younger one.Later, the younger defendant rebuts the confessions of the other two, and says he was only tangentially involved in the incident, but both Stone and Robinette...
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05:52 PM
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Faccia a Faccia
In this mob-themed episode (8.15), a badly beaten body turns up in the lagoon in Central Park. Briscoe and Curtis investigate, and trace his steps: based on his stomach contents, they visit nearby peanut stands, then an Italian restaurant he mentioned to the peanut vendor. Because his face was so mutilitated and had previously undergone extensive plastic surgery, the detectives rely on a sculptor to reconstruct what he originally looked like. As soon as they see the bust, they realize that their victim is a former mob hitman who testified against his cohorts and then entered the witness protection program. Unfortunately for him, he made the rather unwise decision to return to New York to talk to a writer about...
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04:01 PM
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14.7 Floater
In this episode (14.7), the body of a long-missing woman turns up floating in the Hudson River. After some brief investigation, Briscoe and Green identify the woman, and focus their investigation on her ex-husband. But when Serena Southerlyn begins digging into her marital troubles, she has a strange encounter with her high-powered divorce attorney that makes her suspicious that he is involved in something illegal. Soon enough, she and McCoy begin gathering evidence that the divorce attorney had an arrangement with a court clerk and a judge that was allowing him to win his cases and receive large awards for his clients. Branch reluctantly asks McCoy to pursue the matter, because the judge involved was, he says, the smartest student...
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02:38 AM
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February 14, 2004
Blood Is Thicker...
In this episode (2.14), the the wife of a wealthy New Yorker is found murdered, apparently by a serial mugger whose weapon of choice is a baseball bat. When Cerreta and Logan visit the woman's husband, he appears to be in shock and can barely respond to them. Eventually, of course, the detectives learn that the woman was having an affair with a married Jewish doctor. Although the husband at first denies he had knowledge of the affair, the detectives learn that he was aware of it, and that it particularly bothered him because his WASP-y family doesn't think much of Jewish people. So there's the motive. Unfortunately, his mother (who seems to control him) offers an alibi for him,...
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08:19 PM
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6.1 Bitter Fruit: Rey Curtis' First Episode
In this very good episode (6.1), a homeless man stumbles on the corpse of a teenage girl in an empty lot. Briscoe and Curtis quickly determine the girl's identity, and trace her last steps, learning that she was dropped off by a school bus driver at her piano lessons, who claims he saw her walk in the door of the teacher's building. When the detectives learn the street he claims he drove down was closed at the time, he briefly becomes a suspect, but then tells the whole story: he broke the rules of his bus company and dropped the girl off at a nearby corner. The detectives view an ATM security camera tape, and see the girl walk by,...
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07:03 PM
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February 13, 2004
Savages
Terrific episode (6.3) in which an accountant murders an undercover cop, and McCoy and Schiff must decide whether to seek the newly-legal death penalty against him.The episode begins with two guys -- building workers, I think -- discovering a body in a commercial building, surrounded by TV and stereo equipment. When Briscoe and Curtis arrive, a cop comments that the dead guy is wearing a girdle. Briscoe lifts up the body's shirt and reveals a gun tucked into the girl. "Old undercover trick," he says, suggesting that the body is that of an undercover cop.From their, they try to figure out who killed him. They talk to his partner or boss (it's not really clear which), who says the cop...
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12:29 PM
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High & Low
In this very complicated episode (10.22), a young woman is found brutalized and dead in a Hudson University dormitory during spring break. Briscoe and Green learn that she made money by dancing at several strip joints around the city and Long Island. By talking to various people who worked at the strip clubs, they eventually learn that two Long Island skinheads were looking for her, and severely assaulted another woman while trying to get information about her whereabouts.The detectives trace the skinheads to a "shack on the beach" via a surf shop they bought a roof rack from. They approach the shack with a bunch of LI cops, guns drawn, and find the skinheads along with an elaborate lab to...
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03:54 AM
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Surrender Dorothy
In this episode (10.19), a married female graduate student turn up murdered in the trunk of her car. Briscoe and Green learn that she was having an affair with a younger student, and that her husband has an unusual marriage in which she was a very passive "surrendered wife." But apparently the pressures of being a surrendered wife were too much for her, and she rebelled by having the affair, which her husband, a psychologist, learned about. The detectives learn, however, that her husband wasn't the one who originally discovered the affair or killed her: it was her husband's father, another psychologist, who also happens to have written several books on the benefits of being a surrendered wife.Apparently, her father-in-law...
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12:37 AM
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February 11, 2004
14.14 City Hall
In this episode (14.14), a shooting at city hall leaves a city councilman dead and a water inspector wounded. Briscoe and Green focus their investigation on people who had a motive to shoot the councilman, including a man who was preparing to face him in the primaries. Their investigation reveals that the would-be opponent was bribed not to run by family members of the councilman, who gave him a no-show job at a printing company. The dtectives reasoned that after the no-show job was terminated, he would be angry enough to seek revenge. However, further investigation exonerates the man, and the episode becomes one of those where the apparent target isn't the actual target of the killer: it turns out...
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11:32 PM
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The Fertile Fields
In this somewhat boring and slow-paced episode (2.19), a diamond merchant is found beaten and burned in an alley. As police arrive on the scene, they see four young black men running away. Cerreta and Logan initially pursue the case as if it's a hate crime, despite Logan's belief that someone else is to blame. After the case against the boys falls apart at the grand jury when a witness changes his story, the victim's brother, who is also his business partner, comes forward and claims that he is responsible for his brother's murder. However, Stone and Robinette don't believe him and they seek evidence that he is confessing out of fear of someone else. Eventually, they link him to...
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10:09 PM
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Skin Deep: Claire Danes, Murder Suspect
In this snappily-written episode (3.1), the first episode of season 3, a 13-year-old Claire Danes turns in a great performance as the daughter of a former model suspected of killing a fashion photographer. After Cerreta and Logan investigate, they learn that the photographer also served as a pimp to struggling models, particularly those who had fallen on hard times as they got older, including Danes's mother. Despite her shifting alibi, it doesn't take long for the detectives to settle on the mother as their prime suspect. They come up with some underwear found in the woman's apartment that is an 80% DNA match on material found at the crime scene, but an overly cautious judge throws it out. Stone and...
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01:12 AM
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February 10, 2004
6.9 Blood Libel
In this episode (6.9), an art teacher is killed after school in her classroom. Briscoe and Curtis first focus their attention on a fellow teacher, whom they believe was having an affair with a student that the victim discovered. Instead, it turns out that the teacher was engaged in a money-for-grades scheme that the victim learned about. This gives both the fellow teacher and the students involved in the scheme motive to kill her. Forensics indicates that the killer had a predisposition for diabetes, so the detectives orchestrate a blood test of the wrestling team, since their chief suspect among the students is a wrestler. The sample from the test matches the sample at the crime scene, and they arrest...
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11:53 PM
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Whose Monkey Is It Anyway? aka Curious George
In this episode (11.10), a recent convert to animal rights activism liberates more than a dozen monkeys from a lab where he is a security guard. In the process, a monkey escapes and eventually bites a researcher, who suffers an allergic reaction to the monkeys saliva and dies. The activist, George, is eventually arrested and stands trial.The episode begins with two researches coming across the body of a colleague. The medical examiner concludes that the monkey bit led to his death, while Briscoe and Green attempt to track down the person responsible. They learn that two people have been arrested at the lab previously for protesting, one of whom has a prior record of assault and robbery, They have some...
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10:48 PM
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February 09, 2004
Showtime
In this episode (7.17), part 3 of a three-part series, McCoy prosecutes a movie director for the murder of the director's ex-wife, a film studio boss. But McCoy runs into some severe obstacles along the way. The first part of this series is "D-Girl," and the second is "Turnaround."The episode begins with some civil attorneys going over evidence for a sexual harrassment lawsuit at the film studio. They come across an audio tape made while the victim was still alive which features someone saying that Ms. Ellison, the victim, should be killed if she plans to testify against the studio. The civil attorneys bring the tape to Schiff, McCoy, and Ross. Ross quickly learns that the person making the threat...
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11:24 PM
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Turnaround
In this episode (7.16), part 2 of a 3-part series, McCoy gets an arrest warrant for a murder suspect who fled to California, but legal wrangling prohibits him from getting the suspect back to New York to stand trial.This story arc began in the episode "D-Girl" and continues in "Showtime". In D-Girl, a female film studio boss turned up in the river, hacked to pieces. At first, the prime suspect was her personal trainer, with whom she also had a physical relationship. However, by the end of D-Girl, he has pretty much been cleared, and the focus turns to a movie director named Eddie Newman, the exec's ex-husband.. This effort is all about gathering evidence linking him to the crime,...
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08:52 PM
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February 08, 2004
D-Girl
In this episode (7.15), part one of a three-part story arc, a man just released from prison is caught dumping his brother's body into the river. As police investigate the scene, they discover the headless torso of a woman. By tracing her breast implants, Brsicoe and Curtis learn the woman is the head of a Hollywood film studio. The ex-con is quickly eliminated as a suspect because he was in jail at the time the woman was killed, so the chief suspects soon become her ex-husband (a film director) and her personal trainer, who was the last person known to have seen her alive. The trainer becomes the main suspect, but refuses to yield to a blood test. When his...
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09:53 PM
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Loco Parentis
In this episode (10.10), a high school boy turns up dead, wrapped in a trash bag. Investigation leads Briscoe and Green to believe the boy was killed by another boy he was bullying, but then they learn he was the victim of bullying himself. The boy who bullied him apparently killed him using a scythe-like weapon called a kama, and then disposed of his body. The suspect had a history of bullying and fascination with violence, but a judge prohibits McCoy from introducing this as evidence. Their case against him is entirely circumstantial, and it's weak circumstantial evidence, at that. As a means of getting the boy's violent history introduced, Schiff raises the novel idea of charging the defendant's father...
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06:10 PM
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8.2 Denial: Emil Skoda's First Appearance
Dead baby episode (8.2) which begins with some maids in a hotel discovering blood-soaked sheets, but no injured person. Forensics indicates that a baby was born, and Briscoe and Curtis track the credit card used to pay for the room to an Upper West Side architect who says the card was stolen. It turns out, however, that his daughter took the card, and her boyfriend paid for the room. After repeatedly denying and lying about what happened, the girl says she miscarried a fetus and flushed it down the toilet. However, additional forensic evidence shows that the baby was carried to term and was alive when it was born. McCoy can't get the couple to turn on each other because...
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04:12 PM
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February 07, 2004
Night and Fog
In this episode (3.13), Briscoe and Logan investigate the apparent assisted suicide of an elderly Holocaust survivor. Her husband immediately admits that he gave her the pills she requested so that she would die peacefully, but evidence shows that he also put a pillow to her face and suffocated her, breaking her nose in the process. Soon enough, the detectives come to the conclusion that he probably killed her without her consent.But why? Apparently because his wife came to believe that under another name, he was a collaborator in Poland during the Nazi occupation, and was responsible for the deaths of many fellow Jews. Poland had even convicted him in absentia, and under his previous name, of war crimes. So...
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07:41 PM
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February 06, 2004
14.13 Married with Children
In this episode (14.13), a woman is found dead, suspended in the branches of a tree beneath her hotel balcony. Did she fall or was she pushed? She was pushed. And just like the other two episodes with victims who've plunged to their deaths I've watched tonight, guess who the prime suspect is. That's right: the ex-wife. Only this time, the ex-wife is (practically speaking) the ex-wife of the female victim: they were lesbians, squabbling over the custody of their adopted daughter.The victim was a former Olympic swimmer and a motivational speaker. At first attention focuses on some basketball players she was hanging out with, but then Briscoe and Green shift their attention to a woman who at first claims...
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11:57 PM
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Securitate
In this episode (3.20), a Romanian immigrant is shot in the head and dragged underneath his car. Briscoe and Logan eventually find the car through a chop shop, find the kids who brought the car parts into the shop, and then connect a counterfeit credit card found on one of the kids to a counterfeiting ring run out of the antiques shop the victim ran with his brother. The victim apparently had no knowledge of the counterfeiting operations, but his brother Alex, a former member of the Romanian secret service, ran it with his right-hand man, Tony. The theory of the crime becomes that when the victim learned about his brother's illegal operations, he was going to turn him in,...
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11:52 PM
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Dazzled
In this episode (12.20), a young woman is found in the garden area outside her apartment building. Did she fall or was she pushed? She was pushed. Sounds like the ex-wife might be involved. Sound familiar? It's the oldest story in the book, one we've even seen on L&O a few times before.In this ep, however, the motivation seems to be jealousy and money. The ex-wife has been cut out of the will because the new, younger wife is pregant. At first the detectives suspect the husband, then the boyfriend of the current wife, and then finally set their sites on the ex-wife, but they think the boyfriend might have been involved to.A tox screen on the victim shows that...
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10:45 PM
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8.7 Blood
In this episode (8.7), a white woman married to a pharmaceuticals executive is found dead on the pavement outside her apartment building. Did she fall or was she pushed? She was pushed. At first it seems that her husband, named Joshua Burdett, killed her, because three weeks earlier, she gave birth to a black baby, whom the couple gave up for adoption. Briscoe and Curtis try to figure out with whom she had an affair, but when they learn that the baby had a rare inherited medical condition that Burdett also has, they come to a more surprising conclusion: Burdett is a black man, "passsing" as a white one. This supposition is all but confirmed when Van Buren confronts him...
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09:54 PM
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Endurance: First Appearance of Nora Lewin and Rudy Giuliani
What an episode! This episode (11.1), the season premiere of season 11, features the first appearance of Dianne Wiest as DA Nora Lewin, a guest appearance by Mayor Giuliani, and a twist ending that is actually surprising.The episode begins with a woman running out of a burning apartment building and grabbing the cell phone away from a passer-by so she can report the fire to the FDNY. But it's too late: the woman's son dies in the fire. The fire investigators quickly determine that paint thinner was used as an accelerant in the fire. Briscoe and Green initially focus their investigation on a store owner who had a failing business on the first floor, but then move on to the...
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12:25 AM
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February 05, 2004
DR 1-102
Serena Southerlyn faces the disciplinary committee in this episode (12.13) after putting her life at risk to free a hostage from a knife-wielding sexual predator.The episode begins with two young men discovering the bodies of two women in an apartment across the hall from a party they're attending. Forensics and other evidence indicates that the women were killed a few hours apart by a visitor to the building who did not have to force entry. Eventually, the Briscoe and Green suspect a worker at a hardware store who duplicated keys for many people in the neighborhood. It appears that he would copy the keys and then break in to their apartments and sexually assault the women. When the detectives go...
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10:49 PM
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8.5 Nullification
In this very unusual and engaging episode (8.5), three masked men commit armed robbery at an off-track betting facility in New York City, opening fire with sub-machine guns and killing a security guard and severely injuring another. One robber is killed in the gun battle, one is injured, and one escapes. When Briscoe and Curtis arrive on the scene, they discover that two of them men have the same tattoo, which they use the Internet to trace to a militia group in a New York suburb. The detectives quickly establish that more than a dozen local men are involved in the group, and they get twenty search warrants, executed simultaneously at 6 AM. Dozens of heavily armed officers storm the...
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09:23 PM
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February 04, 2004
Burned
In this episode (8.9), Robert Vaughn guest stars as the rich, powerful, and controlling grandfather of a boy accused of a fatal arson. The episode begins with a man coming home with a woman he apparently met at a bar. As they start to get busy, he leaves her for a moment to get a drink, and she takes the opportunity to listen to his answering machine, apparently trying to figure out if he has a girlfriend or something. The message she hears scares her. It's is a woman's voice saying, "Don't worry...I killed Didi." She freaks out and runs out of the apartment, and heads to the precinct, where she tells Briscoe and Curtis her story. Although Briscoe is...
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11:12 PM
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3.12 Right to Counsel
In this colorfully-written episode (3.12), a rich old lady is found murdered in her big apartment. It turns out the woman is worth $20 million, and many people stand to gain from her death. The initial suspect is her much-younger boyfriend, a 38-year-old fashion designer in serious debt. Logan, Briscoe, Stone, and Robinette work up a pretty strong circumstantial case against him. On the advice of his working class attorney, the designer please to Manslaughter, and is sentenced to at least 7 years in prison. However, during his allocution, he mis-describes certain details of the murder, and Robinette suspects he might be innocent. Further investigation points to the trust attorney responsible for the management of the victim's estate, who was...
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09:53 PM
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The Collar
Decent episode (12.11) in which a teenager kills a priest while the priest is in a confessional. It turns out that the teen killed the wrong priest, though: his intended victim has taken the night off from hearing confessions, but the killer didn't realize it until it was too late. This mixup causes Briscoe and Green to spend some time investigating various motives to kill the dead priest, so they have to rework their investigation once they realize who the intended target was.Once they get themselves on the right path, they connect the dots between the intended victim and the murderer through the murder weapon (which had been stolen from a gas station) and some evidence suggesting the teen's involvement...
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12:36 AM
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February 03, 2004
Untitled
In this episode (10.20), an unbalanced former artist dismembers and murders the patroness of a controversial artist, then claims "the painting made me do it." Briscoe and Green track down the man through a variety of means: witnesses at the scene, a drug store bag he left behind, and witness accounts of his belligerent behavior at an exhibition. The defendant claims that the artist's work was so reprehensible, he had to do something to stop it. He cut off the hands of the patroness, a gesture that mirrored the very painting he objected to.The trial part of the episode goes on far too long, a victim of a plot that had nowhere to go. The episode was co-written by Richard...
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11:11 PM
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February 01, 2004
Virus
In this episode (3.19), two patients die and several become critically ill after being administered incorrect dosages of insulin at a clinic that specializes in diabetes. Initially, Logan and Briscoe focus their investigation on a male nurse who was a doctor in the Dominican Republic but is not board-certified in the US. That turns out to be a dead end when more patients go into hypo-glycemic shock while the nurse is being interrogated at the precinct. While talking to one of the directors of the clinic, Briscoe suggests that maybe the insulin machine could have been tampered with. A discussion with a technician leads to evidence that a computer virus has infected the hospital's computer network, and the virus was...
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03:07 AM
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January 31, 2004
Panic
Tom Berenger guest stars in this episode (10.13) about a married couple (both of whom are FBI agents) and their involvement with a mystery writer named P.K. Todd. As Todd is walking away from a restaurant, shots ring out: she is hit, and her male companion is killed. Briscoe and Green first try to figure out who the target is. They can't find anyone who would want the man (an accountant) dead, despite finding some people who don't like him very much. Then, clues indicate that Todd was the target, so they focus their investigation on her acquiantances, and even begin to believe that she arranged the shooting herself to create publicity that would boost her sagging book sales. Eventually,...
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03:36 AM
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January 30, 2004
All My Children
In this episode (11.20), a young man is found shot to death outside a school. At first, the leads point to the involvement of some low grade drug dealers, but using a key found on the victim's body, Briscoe and Green eventually discover he is the outcast son of a Donald Trump-type real estate developer, and the father/son relationship is quite complicated. Detectives think a young woman from Brooklyn, who was seen with the victim in the days and hours before the shooting might be involved, too. They discover the victim and the girl visited an ob/gyn together, so they assume the young couple was expecting a baby. When they finally track down the girl (via doctor's building's sign-in sheet),...
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11:42 PM
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Self Defense
Entertaining, straight-forward episode (3.7) in which Adam Arkin stars as George Costas, a jewelry store owner who claims self-defense after shooting two young black men who attempt to hold him up. As Cerreta and Logan investigate, they conclude that Costas fired at the men while they were trapped in a metal security cage between the door and the interior of the store. In other words, although they were armed, they were sitting ducks. The man's claim of self-defense is further called into question when the detectives conclude that after the robbers fled, Costas reloaded and chased after them, killing one of them at close range as he tried to seek cover in his car. While Cerreta is convinced the man...
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10:29 PM
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14.6 Identity
In the fun little episode (14.6), an unemployed software manager's family discovers him murdered at home. Brsicoe and Green are puzzled to learn that not only had the man been fired from his job months earlier (unbeknownst to his wife), but also he had deposited nearly $400,000 in his bank account around the same time. Briscoe and Green chase the money trail from bank to bank to bank and from diamond dealer to diamond dealer trying to figure out where the money originated. Eventually, the learn that the money came from the refinancing of the home of Lonnie Jackson, and elderly man living in Harlem. But Mr. Jackson is nowhere to be found, so the detectives go from place to...
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01:38 AM
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January 29, 2004
Merger
In this episode (10.4), a 15-year-old girl, the daughter of extremely wealthy parents, turns up beaten to death outside her home. The episode is replete with twists and turns, as it seems everyone involved had a motive to kill her. At first it appears that two sons of a neighboring wealthy family, the Vances, are responsible. Both brothers had sex with her, but they murder charges against them are not pursued. Since the older brother was engaged to the victim's older sister, the older sister then becomes a suspect. Because she's on more than a dozen psychotropic medications, the older sister, Mercedes, can't seem to remember whether she had a role in her sister's death or not. The actress who...
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10:48 PM
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9.1 Cherished: Abbie Carmichael's First Episode
Abbie Carmichael (Angie Harmon) makes her first appearance in this dead baby episode (9.1) in which it appears an adopted sociopathic 7-year-old appears to be responsible for the death of an infant, thought to be 13 months old. After many twists and turns, investigators learn that the infant was (a) actually 2.5 years old and malnourished and (b) dead before the 7-year-old attacked him. McCoy and especially Carmichael trace the history of the infant back to a lawyer who appears to have illegally gotten the child from Russia. The lawyer and a Russian intermediary are arrested for Murder 2, showing depraved indifference toward the baby's medical conditions.This is the first appearance of Abbie Carmichael (Angie Harmon). She pursues her case...
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09:32 PM
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January 28, 2004
Forgiveness
In this episode (3.3), a young, intelligent Mexican immigrant college student is investigated for the killing of his wealthy white girlfriend. Logan initially believes the girl's abusive father is to blame, but Cerreta has his eye on the boyfriend the entire time. Cerreta's instincts prove to be more accurate, however, and a search of the boy's apartment turns up materials used in the murder. Before the detectives can arrest him, he shows up at the police station with his priest, to whom he has previously confessed.The remainder of the episode hinges on whether the crime is Murder 2 or Manslaughter 1. Stone argues there was intent, but it's hard to come by evidence of this. Meanwhile, the defense argues mental...
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10:33 PM
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10.11 Collision
In this episode (10.11), a young emotionally disturbed woman is heard being attacked in Riverside Park and then goes missing. Briscoe and Green eventually identify her and try to track her down. They find her body in a storage trailer on the waterfront, and identify her killer as another emotionally disturbed man she was involved with. However, things are not always what they seem, and Sokda discovers the suspect may not have precisely the mental deficiency he appears to. Additionally, McCoy and Carmichael discover that the facts of the case may not be what they had believed, either.The episode is notable because it involves one EDP attacking another, and because of the subtle emotional performance of Tovah Feldshuh as the...
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08:05 PM
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11.18 White Lie
In this episode (11.18), the wife of the US Army major in charge of drug interdiction in Colombia is investigated for smuggling cocaine into the US on military aircraft. The smuggling operation leads to a double murder, and Briscoe and Green try to uncover her connection to the deaths.The episode is one of several over the years that have depicted the testy relationship between the New York City investigators and the US Armed Forces (cf. Conduct Unbecoming, which reimagines the Tailhook episode), but unlike many similar episodes, this one doesn't deal explicitly with the Army brass meddling in the investigation.The episode is also notable for the almost non-existent participation of the murderer himself. He barely says a word the whole...
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06:06 PM
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11.6 Burn Baby Burn
In this very good episode (11.6), a detective is shot to death inside an apartment building. After some quick detective work, Briscoe and Green learn that the detective was shot while trying to track down a witness for a case he was working on. An informant led him to St Nicholas Place instead of St Nicholas Avenue, and the mistake cost him his life, as he was unexpectedly confronted by someone who either didn't want to be found or who had a grudge against police officers. A bit more work leads Briscoe and Green to identify the prime suspect: Lateef Miller, a former Black Panther who is now the successful director of a non-profit housing agency in the city, but...
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12:43 AM
January 27, 2004
13.6 Hitman
In this episode (13.6), things are not what they seem to be as Briscoe and Green try to solve the death of a mob-connected contractor. At first it seems his wife and her lover are to blame, and they keep pointing the finger at one another until the truth is eventually revealed by a surprise videotape. Telling you the nature of the video would give the whole episode away, but maybe you can guess what happens if I tell you it's a cheap, cliche, unsatisfying trick unworthy of this series. The episode takes a long time to get where it's going, and although it begins with promise, it's not particularly engaging or creative....
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10:08 PM
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10.12 Mother's Milk
Disturbing episode (10.12) in which McCoy and Carmichael attempt to assign blame for an infant's death. Carmichael eventually takes the lead chair in the trial of the baby's mother, who essentially starved the baby to death by refusing to breastfeed it or give it formula. The young mother claimed the hospital's lactation counselor intimidated her into using breast milk or nothing, but Carmichael badgers her until she nearly admits she wanted to the baby dead because she couldn't deal with the responsibility.Briscoe and Green spend the first half of the episode trying to find the baby and the mother, eventually discovering the mother living with a guy from the local coffee shop and the baby buried in her in-laws' backyard....
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09:21 PM
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January 26, 2004
Vengeance
In this episode (2.16), Logan and Cerreta track down a serial rapist/murderer who strangles a woman and leaves her on top of an elevator. Old fashioned police work leads to the discovery that the women's ob/gyn's gynecologists each used the same bookkeeper. This bookkeeper has served prison time for a previous murder. He becomes suspect #1, and Logan and Cerreta lean on him hard -- for 12 hours -- until he reveals the location of a storage facility. A search of the facility yields Polaroids of his victims. Unfortunately, a judge determines that the interrogation lasted too long, and all the fruit of that poisonous tree must be thrown out. That makes convicting him extremelely difficult, but Stone is determined.Robinette...
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11:10 PM
January 25, 2004
9.21 Ambitious
In this episode (9.21), a man who installs stereo equipment in clubs is found murdered in his van near the Hudson River. It turns out he has tenuous connections to both the mob and the FBI which come back to haunt him. Sean Russo, a jailed crime boss's young son who is looking to step into his father's shoes is the lead suspect in the case, especially after it's revealed the victim was planning to tell his friends in the FBI about connections between the mob and a strip club that owed him money. Eventually, McCoy convinces the club owners to testify against Russo guaranteeing them time in a secure facility and witness protection for their family. However, when a...
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02:11 AM
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Stiff
In this episode (10.23), a wealthy woman falls into a coma after her second husband injects her with insulin. The episode is pretty boring until 23 minutes in, when it is revealed that ... get ready for this ... the wife consented to be injected as part of a sex game, whereby she would be in a near coma state while he had his way with her. Because she's in the coma, the husband gets power of attorney over her assets. McCoy is worried that the defendant's wealth will make it difficult to convict him, so they encourage his stepdaughter to seek power of attorney. She does, and she gets it, but then McCoy and Carmichael quickly learn that the...
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12:47 AM
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Whiplash
In this episode (11.19), Briscoe and Green investigate the death of an illegal Mexican immigrant who was involved in a car crash and then died several hours later. In attempting to identify the man, the detectives eventually link him to a moving company that hires illegal day workers and then entices them to participate in an insurance fraud scheme. The scheme involves forcing car accidents with unsuspecting drivers using a manuever known as "swoop and squat." The swoop-and-squat involves two cars that are part of the scheme, and one "mark". Car #1 pulls in front of the mark and slams on the brakes, while Car #2 blocks the mark from pulling over a lane. The mark rear-ends Car #1, and...
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12:00 AM
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January 24, 2004
9.3 Bait
In this episode (9.3), a young shooting victim doesn't seem to be telling the whole truth about what happened. He offers what Curtis calls the "all-purpose 'two black guys with a gun' excuse" which no one is buying. Eventually, Briscoe and Curtis discover the vicitim was involved in a drug transaction, but the case takes an unexpected when they visit the parents of the victim's friend, and learn she was killed -- in the same location where the original victim was shot. With a tip from a narcotics detective, they close in on a couple of suspects and raid a garage where they hang out. One of the suspects takes a swing at Curtis with a steel pipe, but soon...
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03:32 PM
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3.17 Conduct Unbecoming
Julianna Margulies guest-stars In this episode (3.17), Logan and Briscoe investigate the death of a female lieutenant in the Navy. Initially, the trail leads to two ensigns who were with here around the time of her death. One of these men is convicted of the murder in a Navy court, but Stone uncovers additional evidence that leads him to believe that the lieutenant's captain is responsbible for her death. The murder took place at a raucous party for the ship's crew on shore leave. The party depicted in the episode's teaser is reminiscent of what was described when the Tailhook scandal became public, and this episode seems to be L&O's take on the scandal. The episode begins with a party...
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02:16 PM
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Cradle to Grave
In this episode (2.18), an infant girl is found abandoned in a hospital waiting room, dead. Turns out a slumlord trying to harass its low-income tenants is responsible for the baby's death. The slumlord ordered its superintendent to cut the heat to the building so the tenants would move, opening the way to renovate the buildings and charge higher rents. Pretty unremarkable episode overall, although maybe it's notable because so many of the people in the episode are sleazy....
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02:39 AM
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January 23, 2004
Wedded Bliss
Very good episode (3.5) in which Cerreta and Logan's investigation of two drowned and handcuffed Mexican teenagers leads to a slavery operation run by sweatshop owners.The episode is exceedingly well written and acted, and very engaging. It's one of the better "straight" episodes I've seen. By "straight" I mean that it strictly follows the L&O formula, and begins with a fairly typical (albeit grotesque) crime. Most of the truly extraordinary episodes rely on either a particularly savage crime, a remarkable twist, or some duress suffered by one of the regular characters. By contrast, this episode sticks to the routine, but is simply one of the finest examples of that routine I've seen.Logan and Cerreta are both affected by the age...
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01:21 AM
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January 21, 2004
Working Stiff
Really great episode (2.22) in which Schiff has to go after an old and powerful friend for his connection to the murder of a businessman worth hundreds of million of dollars. The episode begins with the discovery of the businessman in his office at 5.30 am. The investigation leads to an aging and cancer-striken elderly union member whose pension and health insurance were gutted by the businessman's corporate dealings. The union member, brillantly played by Eli Wallach, is eager to represent himself at trial, but Robinette discovers he's not responsible for the crime. The man admits he wanted to go to trial just so he could make public all the things the victim did to the other union members.Once the...
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12:39 AM
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January 20, 2004
Access Nation
In this episode (12.15), a young woman is found murdered under some garbage bags in her neighborhood, and the trail leads at first to a troubled girl whom the woman mentored. It turns out the girl arranged for her to be mugged by a friend, but the mugger is innocent of her murder. Eventually, detectives discover that the woman, who was a psychologist, had some rather violent clients, including one who is a convicted rapist and was seeing her as a condition of his parole.Detectives bring in the rapist, and through a search warrant, learn that he had full access to the victim's computer files, via a software "worm" he managed to get installed on her computer. Through this access,...
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10:55 PM
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January 19, 2004
7.21 Passion
In this episode (7.21), an arrogant novelist and his lover are alternate suspects in the murder of the novelist's young editor, with whom the novelist was also having an affair. The episode's plot is quite complicated, and towards the end, it's pretty difficult to keep the story straight. In the end, the identity of the actual murderer seems somewhat arbitrary, and the psychological motivation of another key character isn't entirely clear. Still, the episode engages your interest, at least until it becomes too complicated to follow.The episode's teaser begins in the 911 call center, where you hear the victim calling for help, and cuts to the crime scene where you see the damage done. The detectives also take a trip...
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03:59 PM
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12.14 Missing
In this episode (12.14), a young woman goes missing, and an older, powerful, married lover may be responsible. Sound familiar? It's not just because it echoes the Gary Condit/Chandra Levy case: This plot structure is a recurring one on Law & Order, and to be honest, there isn't much difference between this episode and the one, say, where the woman gets involved with the man in the state's Office of the Attorney General. In fact, the two episodes are almost interchangeable, except this time, the official she's involved with is chairman of the state's Gaming Commission.The episode is notable only because of a tiny bit of backstory we get during McCoy's conversation with the defendant's attorney. As Southerlyn gets righteous...
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03:29 AM
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A Person of Interest
In this episode (2.23), Goran and Eames investigate the murder of a nurse connected to some missing anthr*x vaccine booster shots. Goran pursues a hot-headed scientist who appears to be connected to an effort to use anthr*x for terrorist purposes. In his efforts to break the suspect, Goran pushes too hard, and the suspect appears to kill himself, and Goran blames himself, just as the media incriminates him for causing the death of an innocent man. But even after all this, the episode is really just getting started: Olivia D'Abo shows up, reviving her terrific Elizabeth Hitchens/Nicole Wallace character from the episode "Anti-Thesis" in which she nearly drove Goran mad. In much the same way Sherlock Holmes is transfixed by...
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01:38 AM
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Unrequited
In this episode (3.12), Goran and Eames investigate the relationship between a needy young fundraiser and his recently-widowed wealthy patron, a wannabe stage actress. The couple is involved in some fraudulent activity as well as a murder or two, but each seems to be keeping some secrets from the other.The funny thing about CI is that it's loaded with subtext, but there's nothing particularly "sub" about the subtext: everything is right there in the open. Harvey, the fundraiser, has a facial tic that activates whenever he gets nervous, and the older lady's obsession with being loved is so obvious she acts like she's on stage even when she's not. Nuts like these are not tought to crack, especially for Goran,...
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01:31 AM
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January 18, 2004
10.9 Sundown
In this episode (10.9), a woman is killed while awaiting minor surgery at a hospital. An early suspect is a clever con-man who preys on older women he meets at support groups for conditions he doesn't suffer from. Because he is so good at his cons, it takes Green and Briscoe quite a while to track him down. When they finally do, McCoy and Carmichael realize he is guilty of a crime, but not the crime. This leads to another suspect (the victim's daughter), and then another. The final suspect is Mr Hallenbeck, the victim's husband, who suffers from the intermediate stages of Alzheimer's. The episode begins with the discovery of the victim by her daughter and her husband. She...
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01:14 AM
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January 17, 2004
11.14 A Losing Season
In this episode ( ">11.14), a fender-bender leads to the discovery of a shot and dying pregnant woman in the trunk of a car. Thorough investigation yields a couple of suspects who, it turns out, stole her car, not knowing that she was in the trunk. Further investigation reveals that a prominent basketball players (a member of the "New York Cheetahs") is involved in her death. Criminal associates of the basketball player are brought in, and they point the finger at the player. McCoy and Carmichael have to figure out who's telling the truth, a process made more difficult by the efforts of the player's lawyer, played by semi-regular guest star and well-known character actor James Rebhorn.The episode is notable...
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11:06 PM
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6.11 Corpus Delicti
What starts off as a pretty silly episode (6.11) turns into a pretty decent one as Briscoe and Curtis look into the death of...a horse. It seems Mister Wickets, a horse that was worth half a million dollars, died an untimely death. As they reluctantly look into it and the death of several other horses, the detectives uncover a conspiracy to defraud wealthy old ladies that has resulted in the murder of one of them.Unfortunately, the old lady was allegedly dumped at sea, and McCoy has a weak case against the conniving killer because her body can't be found. When McCoy realizes his case is about to fall apart in the classroom, he appears to deliberately mention information that the...
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09:34 PM
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14.11 Darwinian
In this episode (14.11), a homeless man dies after a woman hits him with her $250,000 car and drives home with him stuck halfway through the windshield. Sound familiar? Something like this happened in real life, and of course the fact that the suspect is wealthy and a publicist also connects the episode to the Lizzie Grubman incident in which she ran over people outside a club in the Hamptons.Dylan Baker, the NYC character actor perhaps best known as the father in Todd Solondz's Happiness, guest stars as the publicist's defense attorney. He convinces a judge to allow an independent autopsy, and this move pays off: it is discovered that the victim died not because of the car accident, but...
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07:04 PM
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January 15, 2004
Family Business
Mostly boring episode (7.8) in which McCoy screws up at the end, losing a case against a wealthy murder suspect. The victim is the CFO of a high-end department store, and is married to the daughter of the store's founder. The family is fabulously wealthy, but the CFO was interfering with some illegal accounting procedures, so his wife and her sister decide to eliminate him. There is a decided King Lear quality about the episode, but instead of turning on the elderly father, they turn on the husband. Neither Briscoe and Curtis nor McCoy can figure out which sister is responsible for the murder. Predictably, they make a deal with one sister in exchange for immunity, but then during the...
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08:28 PM
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Sideshow: A Homicide Cross-over Episode
Part 1: Law & OrderIn this episode (9.14), what begins as an apparent suicide in Battery Park turns into a murder investigation that leads all the way to the White House. The episode is broken into two parts, crossing over into a Homicide: Life on the Street episode. The episode's plot is incredibly intricate and sometimes confusing. Here is an attempt to explain (with spoilers) the entire plot:The crime scene is in Battery Park. Dead victim in her thirties. Someone tried to make it look like a suicide, but failed. Upon identifying the victim, Briscoe and Curtis learn the victim, a government economist, lived in Baltimore at the time of her death. They call the Baltimore homicide detectives, and Munch...
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12:03 PM
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8.6 Baby It's You: A Homicide Cross-over Episode
In this episode (8.6), a 14-year-old girl, who turns out to be a runway model, is killed. The episode is a crossover with Homicide: Life on the Street, and it continues into an episode (6.5) of Homicide in which several L&O cast members appear. Part 1: Law & Order The episode's unusual nature begins with the teaser. The teaser is split between two locations, which doesn't happen very often. It starts backstage at a fashion show, where a designer is wondering where a model is, and then there is a cut to a doctor's office where a man is desperately trying to revive a woman who you assume is the model. Cut again, and Briscoe and Curtis are on the...
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07:44 AM
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January 13, 2004
Refuge: Parts 1 and 2
Extraordinary two-part episode (9.23, 9.24) that is among the most emotional episodes ever. I'll get to the plot in a minute, but I want to highlight a few of the reasons why this is such an unusual and amazing episode:The teaser involves a cop shooting a suspect dead during a traffic stop.Briscoe, Curtis, and Carmichael all shed tears on camera.McCoy has more impassioned outbursts than I was able to count.Schiff basically yells at McCoy and issues a direct order, which McCoy promptly countermands.McCoy defies a judge's habeus corpus order, and takes his appeals all the way to the US Court of Appeals, and nearly to the US Supreme Court.It's Benjamin Bratt/Rey Curtis's last episode. He leaves to spend more time...
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07:57 PM
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January 11, 2004
Sisters of Mercy
In this episode (2.17), a troubled young woman accuses a nun of molesting her at a home for recovering drug addicts. Ceretta and Logan are a little hesitant about pursuing the investigation, since they are Catholics (ex-altar boys, both). Logan is especially reluctant to believe the charges, but the case falls apart anyway when a witness to the alleged incident reveals she was lying to serve her own self-interest. The witness, another young woman at the home, was trying to get the nun fired because she thought the nun was aware of the young woman's affair with the director of the home.And who plays the director? Our old friend William H. Macy in a prototypical performance, full of the nervous...
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11:23 PM
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Doubles
In this episode (4.21), a young tennis player is assaulted just after a match, and a former friend who is also a competitor is believed to be the orchestrator of the attack. The story borrows equally from the Monica Seles stabbing incident and of course the Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding assault, which took place just 4 months before this episode aired.Notable details about the episode:I'm pretty sure one of the suspects is visible in the teaser, but you don't see him commit the crime. (He's the tall guy in the black jacket.)Both Tony Orbach and Ron Orbach appear in the episode, as a reporter and a lawyer, respectively. In Ron's scene, there's a wide shot in which he's standing face to...
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01:39 PM
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Fools for Love
In this episode (10.15), two teenage girls are found dead in an abandoned condo building, and Briscoe and Green learn that one of the girls' older sister is also missing. They spend a lot of time trying to track down this woman, and when they find her, she is badly beaten, but it turns out that she is the boyfriend of the main suspect in the case. The plot complicates even further as McCoy and Carmichael begin to believe that the woman may have played a significant role in the rape and murder of her sister.The story is based on the horrific case of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka in Canada. In 1990, Homolka offered her sister and some other...
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09:16 AM
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January 10, 2004
7.9 Entrapment: The Return of the Oracle
In this episode (7.9), the leader of the black activist group called the African-American Congress is shot outside a restaurant after an argument with a union leader. The teaser is notable because it opens with the argument, not with somebody discovering his body. Also, there is a cut in the middle of the teaser between the argument and the discovery of his injured (but not dead) body, which is a little unusual for the show.Does the plot sound a little familiar? That's because four seasons earlier, the previous leader of the AAC was shot to death on the show, in an episode called "Conspiracy" (3.2). Here's an interesting casting twist: we're all used to seeing the same actor turn up...
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07:35 AM
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January 09, 2004
13.2 Shangri-La
Almost terribly-written episode (13.2) in which a 16-year-old female student apparently kills a female teacher, at the urging of another teacher. I'm watching the episode as I type this, and it may be the first episode I've ever seen that I don't finish. The first half of the ep is filled with over-written colorful exchanges between Briscoe and Green that fall flat, and the plot details revealed in the second half are preposterous. The suspect --a chipper, bouncy member of the drama club from the first half -- becomes a brooding, manipulative vamp ("she was a runaway, living in the streets, eating out of garbage cans," her foster mother says) in the second half. I hate it when shows/movies change...
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10:48 PM
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January 06, 2004
Brotherhood
I'm sorry, but SVU is often a ridiculous show. Tonight's new episode (5.12) hinges on finding a paddle that had been stuffed up a fraternity pledge's butt. At least Serena Williams is a guest star.Thanks to DJ for covering the episode and including a screen shot of Serena....
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10:36 PM
2.5 God Bless the Child
In this episode (2.5), a couple refuses medical treatment for their sick child because of their religious beliefs. Logan and Cerreta have a strong disagreement about whether a crime has been committed (Logan thinks the law trumps religious beliefs), but they gather enough evidence for a charge of Manslaughter II and Endangering the Welfare of a Child. Stone and Robinette feel they have a tenuous case, but with some guidance from Schiff, they push ahead.The episode is notable for the presence of James Noble (the governor from Benson) as the judge, who does a decent job but not a great one, and for the large amount of time spent on jury selection. Stone even hires a jury consultant to help...
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12:27 AM
January 04, 2004
F.P.S.: Corniest Episode Ever
Criminal Intent is almost always corny as hell, but Vincent makes it worth watching. Unfortunately, this episode (3.10) is SO over the top and drawn out, it's barely watchable. Vincent and Red Hair see through an elaborate misdirection and uncover an unhealthy relationship between two video game designers which ends in murder. There's lots of in-the-know tech talk about avatars, bots, IP addresses, and so on, but it all adds up to nothing. Supposedly, every game programmer has a readily identifiable signature, and Vincent uses this signature to solve the murder. Ree-dic-u-lous.The episode's one interesting moment comes when Vincent realizes he's been tricked by whoever designed the elaborate ruse. He starts talking about Wally Stevens, the actuary with Asperger's Syndrome...
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11:19 PM
January 03, 2004
10.24 Vaya Con Dios: McCoy at the Supreme Court, Adam Schiff's Last Episode
This improbable, but fantastic season finale (10.24) keeps getting better as it goes on. Green and Briscoe investigate the death of an elderly man who was found in an apartment building he had no apparent connection to. It turns out the the man was investigating the murder of his son, who was in Chile during the Pinochet revolution. As Briscoe and Green gather more details, they learn that the man's killer has a connection the the killer of the man's son. This connection leads them to a Chilean general who commanded death squads during the time of the revolution and who happens to be in NYC for medical treatment. McCoy decides to pursue murder charges against the general, even though...
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05:20 AM
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The Blue Wall
In this early episode (1.22), the finale of season 1, Capt. Cragen is being investigated by Internal Affairs for his role in a corruption ring that involved erasing some computer evidence against money-laundering bankers. Instead of featuring a body discovery, the teaser shows Stone and Robinette in court as they lose their case against the bankers. It turns out that the erased data was to blame, and that someone in the department erased it. Most of the episode deals with Logan and Greevey's efforts to find out exactly what happened and what, if any, role Cragen had in it. The rest of the episode is about Cragen's loyalty to the chief of police, who has been Cragen's "rabbi" in the...
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05:18 AM
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January 02, 2004
Hubris
In this episode (11.9), Briscoe and Green investigate a quadruple homicide at a jewelry store. One of the victims is a six-year-old girl. The perpetrator is caught on tape, but the tape is suppressed after Green inserts a toothpick in a door lock to prevent the suspect from accessing his apartment before the warrant arrives.The suspect is played by Tim Guinee in one of the better performances in the show's history. He is on camera far more than most defendants on the show, mainly because he chooses to represent himself. As we learn about his criminal past, we see he has a history of charming women and then defrauding or killing them. He is soft-spoken, doe-eyed, and seems to elicit...
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12:26 AM
14.4 Shrunk
In this episode (14.4), a world-famous writer of musicals stabs to death a woman he met at a party. It turns out he's mentally ill and has an obsessive relationship with his psychiatrist, who may have known of his patient's desire to stab women. The episode was written by Richard Sweren, who I am increasingly coming to believe is not one of the show's best writers. The episode doesn't explore the relationship between doctor and patient deeply enough (the motivation is not provided) and it doesn't satisfactorily explore the relationship between the doctor and another character, either. Also, a great deal of time is spent early in the show running down an alibi for another suspect. It was as if...
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12:05 AM
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January 01, 2004
11.21 Brother's Keeper
Outstanding episode (11.21) in which the FBI covers up its relationship with a suspect in two murders. Briscoe and Green follow several different trails of clues all of which lead to Cally Lonegan, who is s described as "the last of the Westies," the Westies being an an old time NYC street gang. The detectives track down a cabbie who was a witness to the crime, and Green warns him to be careful. The cabbie was from Sierra Leone, and Green talked to him about the old country, reminding us again that his dad worked all over Africa, and that Green spent much of his childhood there. When Lonegan apparently murders the cabbie, the case becomes personal for Green and...
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10:22 PM
Foul Play
This episode (12.21) is L&O's take on Danny Almonte, the preternaturally talented Bronx little leaguer who used a false birth certificate so he could play baseball even though he was actually too old for the league. In both the real life and L&O's version, a private detective is hired by a competing team to determine whether the boy was older than he claimed. But in the L&O version, the president of the boy's little league encourages the father to go after the PI, and so McCoy puts the president on trial for second degree murder. This doesn't seem particularly realistic: the boy's father gets off even though he was the one who pulled the trigger.The episode is not particularly engaging,...
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10:08 PM
10.2 Killerz: Skoda vs. Olivet +
In this episode (10.2), McCoy attempts to prosecute a 10-year-old girl and her 13-year-old accomplice for murder. After evaluating her, Skoda determines that the girl is a sociopath and is convinced that she's a budding serial killer. McCoy moves towards getting her committed, but the girl's defense attorney hires....Dr. Elizabeth Olivet. The episode begins with a kid trying to get other kids to go see a body with him. Just like Stand by Me, except this kid wants to be paid for his efforts. The body, he says is at a construction site. The kids say instead of paying, they're going to call 911, which is apparently what happened. The victim is 7 or 8 years old, and half-stuffed in...
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02:35 PM
December 31, 2003
Bronx Cheer
In this episode (11.16), Briscoe and Green discover that their suspect in a Manhattan murder may have committed a murder in the Bronx of which another man has already been convicted. The also uncover evidence that the defendant in the Bronx case may have been railroaded by the detectives and the Bronx DA's office. They convince McCoy and Carmichael of this, but the Manhattan's DA office lacks jurisdiction over the original murder, and of course they can't just vacate the conviction. Eventually, they compile a mountain of evidence proving the convicted man's innocence, but the Bronx DA (well-played by Keith David) still won't budge. McCoy and his boss, Manhattan DA Nora Lewin (Dianne Wiest) pressure the DA but to no...
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07:29 PM
3 Dawg Night
Not a particularly well-written episode (12.9) inspired by the P. Diddy/J. Lo shooting at a Times Square night club. The episode is pretty true to the actual incident, and includes the detail about a provocateur throwing a handful of bills in the rapper's face and the couple breaking up after the incident. The episode's final act involves a fairly predictable twist involving the J. Lo equivalent, "Allie Lawrence," who is sort of a cross between J. Lo and Halle Berry. The twist leads to an unsatisfying and unbelievable conclusion.The writing of the episode is by far its weakest point. It's one of the weaker attempts to capitalize on the "ripped from the headlines" technique of screenplay writing. The dialogue is...
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05:37 PM
December 30, 2003
Paranoia
This episode (6.6) deals with a young suspect who fantasized about killing a victim on an Internet S&M bulletin board. The first half of the episode seems corny now: lots of "information superhighway"-type talk. A major theme of the ep is the old generation/new generation tension between Det. Curtis and Briscoe. Curtis is very familiar with the internet and technology, but Briscoe doesn't know what a Pentium processor or DOS is. It's an early episode and Ray and Briscoe haven't completely gotten themselves in sync. In one of the first scenes, Ray chastises Briscoe for accepting a free lunch from a diner, saying it's unethical. But later in the episode, Ray refuses to bring the young suspect to the bathroom...
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10:05 PM
12.19 Slaughter
A young animal rights activist killed by somone connected to the meat industry (12.19). There's lots of indirect conversation about food. Since the murder happened down in the seedy part of the meat packing district, Briscoe makes a crack about how the suspect is a transvestite "with a taste for sausage." In the teaser, a pizzeria father and son discuss indigestion caused by pizza, suggesting thematically that old food is less tolerable to new generation. This appears to apply to the young activist, who found animal-based food distasteful. His dorm room was wallpapered with "Go Vegan" posters.Eventually, the trail of clues leads to a fast food chain called "Big Bill's." There's an unintentionally funny scene in which Diane Wiest and...
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09:37 PM
11.17 Ego
In this episode (11.17), a rising star in NY state DA's office is implicated in murder of a female co-worker. Not a particularly notable episode, except for part of the performance of the suspect. During his trial, he turns the tables on one of his staunchest supporters who was forced to testify against him. He exhibits a barely-perceptible smile as he watches the witness squirm under a barrage of questions from the defense attorney. The moment tells more about his personality than the murder itself. The episode begins with a father and a son fishing on a riverside sidewalk. The father hooks a female body. Green and Briscoe arrive and are told the body has been in the water for...
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09:34 PM
4.8 American Dream
Best episode (4.8) I've seen in a while, notable mostly for the performance of Zeljko Ivanek, an actor you will no doubt recognize if you watch a lot of series television.Zeljko is probably best remembered as Ed Danvers, the District Attorney on Homicide: Life on the Streets. He was good on that show, but his character always came off as a little effete. He also turned up for a stint as a terrorist mastermind on the first season of 24. On that show, he was decidely menacing, and served as a nice prologue to the arrival of Dennis Hopper, who showed what menacing really was (even through his silly accent). Zeljko has made many other appearances on L&O over the...
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09:19 AM
Survivor
In this episode (7.4), the daughter of Holocaust survivors is a suspect in the killing of an antique coin dealer. Karen Allen stars as the suspect, and she gives a nerve-wracking, anxious performance. Her performance contrasts sharply with that of Michael Willis (official site), who gives a funny, light-hearted performance as businessman Richard Peterson. Willis has been on H:LOTS and L&O a million times, usually as a defense attorney. He's good on H:LOTS, but this is his best character to date....
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12:05 AM
December 29, 2003
Chinoiserie
In this episode (2.5), a woman is killed in Chinatown when she comes across a soldier she recognizes from Tiananmen Square. It turns out that the soldier is involved in an antiquities smuggling operation along with a dealer and a collector.Not a particularly thrilling episode, but there are a few twists and turns that hold your interest. The episode's best part involves a character who calls himself "Lord Pembridge." His interaction with Vincent is amusing, and there's a fitting twist (revealed by Vincent's inimitable manipulation techniques) that I won't mention here.When Vincent reveals the true murderer in his trademark episode-ending interrogation sequence, if you give it some thought, you might be left wondering why the murderer did it. If the...
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01:59 AM
December 27, 2003
4.5 Black Tie
This episode (4.5), while mostly conventional, is notable for about four things:The fabulous multi-story high-rise apartment in which the murder takes place. Probably the nicest crime scene in the history of the show.The appearance of early supermodel Beverly Johnson [screenshot] as a woman who I think slept with both the victim and his wife. The first appearance by the dignified and authoritative defense attorney Norman Rothenberg (Jeffrey DeMunn), who represents the exorbitantly wealthy widow of the victim. (DeMunn has appeared six times on L&O as Rothenberg, but plays a different character on SVU. Grr.)The defense attorney essentially shitcans the trial halfway through and concentrates all his energies on his appeal. He even allows his assistant to take over the...
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02:30 AM
December 26, 2003
Severance
Pretty conventional episode (2.13) in which Stone and Robinette take on a hitman, a middle man, and a capitalist who co-ordinate the assassination of a female informant. Two bystanders are killed along the way.The episode's title "Severance," refers the the eventual splitting of the cases against the defendants, a move which allows a crucial piece of evidence to be used, which in turn forces one suspect to roll on the other two. The subplot of the episode is a rivalry between Stone and the capitalist's defense attorney Arthur Gold (George Grizzard, in an admirable performance). This is the first of several appearances Grizzard has made as Gold over the years.Also notable, I think, is the portrayal of the relationship between...
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11:23 PM
12.24 Patriot: Nora Lewin's Last Episode. Thank God.
Scare-mongering post-9/11 season finale of season 12, notable only for three things: the big explosion in the prologue, a shot of where the WTC used to be and explicit dialogue reminding us of that fact, and a discussion of the issue of who is entitled to kill enemy combatants, and where. In this episode (12.24), a Yemeni man suspected of being a terrorist by a Gulf War soldier is killed. If he's acquitted of the crime, McCoy fears it would be open season on all people of Middle Eastern origin. He's right, but what the show also fails to mention is that it is itself guilty of the same stereotyping that leads to the thought that it's ok to kill...
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09:33 PM
Gun Show
In this episode (10.1), the premiere of Season 10, a misogynist uses a machine gun to shoot 15 female medical students in Central Park. The episode is the first with Detective Green (Jesse L. Martin), and he is masterful in it. His interrogation of the suspect is reminiscent of Andre Braugher's best work on Homicide, and it's certainly the best bit of interrogation this side of Vincent D'Onofrio on Criminal Intent. We also get to see our first Ed Green Foot Chase™, a 5-second-or-fewer sequence that we see regularly, but too infrequently, on the show. This is one of the best EGFC's ever...he races across a playground, and catches up to the suspect, but the suspect puts a gun to...
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07:36 PM
Empire: The Julia Roberts Episode
In this episode (9.20), Julia Roberts plays a femme fatale involved in a Viagra-induced murder. The episode pits the wealthy upper crust of Manhattan, including a Donald Trump-like figure, against the hard-scrabble cops and prosecutors determined to solve a murder. Roberts sets her heart on Detective Curtis (Benjamin Bratt) who soon finds himself in a perilous situation reminiscent of Body Heat: he skirts the edges of a romantic involvement with a possible suspect. The chemistry between the two is palpable, so it's no wonder they became romantically involved in real life. Roberts' performance is among the more captivating the series has offered as she shifts from a fearful witness to a manipulative vamp. Her clothing is more transparent than she...
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06:50 PM
Thrill
In this episode, the season premiere of Season 8, a pair of delinquent teenagers shoot to death a delivery boy "just to see how it feels." The legal wrinkle is that one of the boys confesses on tape to his uncle, who happens to be a Jesuit priest. This gets the Catholic church involved in a legal wrangling over the protected status of the taped confession. Several of the characters engage in a philosophical discussion about the relationship between the church and the law. It's freedom of religion versus separation of church and state. McCoy and Det. Curtis are both Catholic, but share different opinions: McCoy feels the tape should be allowed, Curtis feels it should be protected. Should a...
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05:32 PM
7.18 Mad Dog
In this episode (7.18), a serial rapist is freed on parole and McCoy suspects he commits a rape/murder soon thereafter. McCoy uses all of his prosecutorial authority -- including all the provisions of Megan's Law -- to pressure the rapist to confess and to find some evidence that he actually committed the crime. Schiff finally tells McCoy to give up, but just as he does, he is called to a crime scene that brings the story to a close.The rapist is played by Burt Young, who played Rocky's coach in the Rocky movies. His performance is subtle: he is a convicted rapist, and yet his daughter loves him and describes him as a "gentle man."The episode raises some interesting ethical...
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04:26 PM
December 23, 2003
Heaven
In this episode (2.10), 53 people die in a fire at a social club frequented by illegal Central American immigrants. Well-known character actor Luis Guzman makes an appearance as the arsonist, looking a lot thinner than he does now, but still featuring his trademark Charlie Brown "how did I get into this mess?" acting technique. He looks like he's about to wilt when Richard Brooks corners him.This episode is featured on the Law & Order: Crime Scenes DVD that you can pick up (exclusively) at Barnes & Noble. The DVD two-disc set features 8 episodes selected by Dick Wolf....
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11:45 PM
4.4 Profile
James Earl Jones guest-stars as a defense attorney in this episode (4.4) about a serial killer who murders minorities in his old neighborhood. Briscoe and Logan investigate the crimes, and Stone and Kincaid take on Jones' character, who defends the killer. The episode begins with some cops on patrol. They hear shots fired, and run to find the victim, and Indian woman. It appears the shooter has run into a garage across the street. One of the cops pursues him, but with no luck. Witnesses say the man was white, and about 30 years old. The detectives talk to the victim's husband. She worked at a grocery store called Wbb Market. Ballistics tells them the murder weapon was a sawed-off...
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10:40 PM
Marathon
A young murder suspect confesses to Briscoe during his arrest, but no one can corroborate Briscoe's story. The suspect also manages to get several pieces of evidence excluded from his trial, driving everyone in the squad crazy. Most of the episode (10.6) revolves around Briscoe becoming increasingly frustrated with those around him, especially Ed Greene and S. Epatha, because they seem not believe his story of the confession. Ed and Briscoe even get into a shouting match at one point, and S. Epatha has to break them up. Briscoe goes as far as to say he wants a new partner and implies he's jealous of all the attention Ed's been getting since he joined the squad.Something about Briscoe's anger feels...
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10:34 PM
The Wheel
A young Chinese woman burns herself outside the apartment of a Chinese diplomat (13.9). Turns out she was strangled before she was burned, and that she's a member of the Falun Gong. The episode's first half is notable because it takes a very one-sided view of Falun Gong, basically repeating the Chinese government's position that the movement is a cult and that the members are deranged. This is balanced somewhat in the second half, but only because other characters decry the injustice of the why FG is treated in China. Only one very minor character actually defends FG on its merits, which surprised me a little. There is one great shot as Blondie ("Serena") leaves the courthouse after one of...
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06:50 PM
Confession
George Dzundza ("Max Greevey") dies in the opening moments of this one (2.1), the first episode of Season 2. Logan chases down the suspect, but elicits a confession by putting a gun to his head. The rest of the episode deals mainly with the legal and ethical fallout of this incident, as Logan comes to terms with his grief.And who helps him deal with his grief? You guessed it: Elizabeth Olivet in her first appearance in the series. She's stunning and captivating. No wonder they decided to keep bringing her back, eventually making her a fully credited cast member.Since Dzundza dies, they bring in Paul Sorvino ("Phil Ceretta") from another precinct to lead the investigation. He becomes Logan's partner. They...
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06:39 PM
10.5 Justice: The First Return of Jamie Ross
This is a great episode (10.5) in which Carey Lowell ("Jamie Ross", aka Cheekbones) returns to defend a suspect in a murder someone else has already been convicted of. (In Carey's first episode, Causa Mortis, we learned that she was a defense attorney at a private practice owned by her husband. This is her first appearance since the finale of Season 8.) Early on, she's introduced to Angie Harmon and the atmosphere is cordial until she and McCoy start butting heads over a possible ethics violation. Jack even goes after a judge for attempted murder, since the judge (while still an ADA) purposely convicted an innocent man and sent him to death row. (Coincidentally, the judge (Richard Masur) has also...
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02:25 PM
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Sonata for a Solo Organ
Just finished watching "Sonata for a Solo Organ" (1.21) in which a wealthy man with a sick daughter pays a surgeon to extract a kidney from an unwilling patient. The episode is mainly notable for the appearance of Dominic Chianese, who we now know as Uncle Junior on the Sopranos. He plays the wealthy man's defense attorney, and he's given a very Uncle Junior-like monologue in which he complains about the way he's treated when he goes to visit his client at Rikers.Also good is a scary-as-hell Bill Moor as one of the defense attorneys. According to TV Tome (a bible for many shows, including L&O), Moor has appeared many times on L&O as "Bill Patton." Strangely, however, in his...
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01:37 AM