Three cast members of the various Law & Order shows appeared on Celebrity Jeopardy on Friday night. It was pretty funny. Sam Waterston (original), Kathryn Erbe (CI), and Chris Meloni (SVU) competed for their favorite charities while giving their fans something to cheer for and laugh about (as is the case with most episodes of Celebrity Jeopardy).

The episode was notable mainly for the idiosycrasies of the cast members: Sam W. seemed fairly bewildered most of the time, Chris M. kept answering before being called on, and Kathryn was having more fun horsing around with Meloni than playing the game.

Highlights included their failure to know what controversial novel by Dan Brown begins with a murder in the Louvre, their trying to figure out what sitcom has a character named Kramer on it, Erbe getting cut off by the applause sign while going on and on about her charities, and a special Daily Double performance by a star of the Broadway show Mamma Mia. Also, the first round ended with the famous L&O "Chung Chung" sound instead of the usual beep-beep-beep-beep. Most of these moments and many more can be found in the video clips below.

Watch as the three are stumped by the Dan Brown/Louvre question:

In this clip, Sam is stumped as to which New York neighborhood hosts a film festival every year:

Here's the end of the game. You can find out who won, and who needs to brush up on their Shakespeare.

Downloadable videos

I am not going to upload all the clips I have to YouTube, but you can download all of them here. All videos are iPod/iTunes/everything-compatible MPEG4s.

• Intro to the show
• First answer/question
• Daily Double featuring Mamma Mia/ABBA
• Stumped by The Da Vinci Code
• Meloni confuses Bela Lugosi with the character he played
• Brief interviews with contestants about banal topics and charities. Note the way Erbe gets cut off.
• Sam forgets Joan Crawford's first name
• Meloni hams it up
• Waterston gets tongue-tied while choosing a category
• What NYC neighborhood has a film festival every year? Cast members somewhat stumped
• What's the name of the sitcom with Kramer on it? Erbe not sure.
• End of Double Jeopardy (second round)
• Final Jeopardy/End of game

Update: J. Bishop writes to tell us that Milena Govich, from Conviction, will replace Farina: I thought you might be interested in this.

J. Bishop
www.HelpMeImpeachBush.com

Pretty exciting moment today. I was walking down Spring Street on my way to work, and walked right into a L&O: CI shoot. I stopped for a second and thought, "I could run into Vincent D'Onofrio right now." Two seconds later, he walked out of a doorway onto a sidewalk, 10 feet in front of me. Vincent has been one of my favorite actors for a long, long time, so I took a quick picture of him and stepped up and told him I thought he was a good actor in everything he does. He said thanks and looked the other way, pretty much ignoring me. No problem...I pretty much expected that.

This was the second time I've "met" Vincent. The first time was way back in 1996 or 1997 when he was promoting Whole Wide World at the Boston Film Festival.

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 arrest report and meet her trashy old dad in a dirty t-shirt. He's estranged from Lotus Blosso (real name: Lorraine Selby), and his wife, Lorraine's mom, is dead. They visit the funeral home where Lorraine paid for the arrangements, and learn she also paid for the arrangements for another Chinese woman. They visit the doctor who signed the death certificate, and he has an address that leads to an apartment above a shady massage parlor. In the apartment, they notice indentations in the carpet which suggest something (like a desk) has been removed.

They talk to neighbors and learn someone had removed things to a white van a few days earlier. They also learn the cops had raided the massage parlor and that Lorraine appeared to run the parlor. One of the neighbors who wrote down license plates for vehicles he believed patronized the massage parlor gives them the plate of the white van.

They trace the van to "Enchanted Imports," where they find a guy watching over some shipping containers. Living inside one of the shipping containers are a dozen Chinese women who had been smuggled in from China and had been forced to work as prostitutes. They interrogate the watchman, who eventually leads them to a man named Eugene who apparently masterminded the smuggling and prostitution operations.

One of the Chinese women says through a police translator that she saw Lorraine fighting with a man with a mustache. Eugene tells them where they can find security video tapes from the parlor. On a tape marked "Insurance," they find video of a police raid. During the raid, two mustachioed cops are seen planting evidence (a marked bill) at the scene.

They question the cops, who admit that they planted the evidence and that they were being extorted by Lorraine. They were forced to act as protection for her, lest she reveal the evidence-planting. They claim they did not kill her.

You would thing the script would pursue this angle, but instead it starts to go astray here.

They go through the files they find on Lorraine's computer and learn that she was chatting with someone who was threatening her. Long story short, they eventually trace the username of this person to a kid in Queens who was obsessed with her and had spent $50K on her, charging it to stolen credit cards and those of his parents. The kid said stuff to her like, "Meet me or I'll kill you." Skoda, having not met the kid, says he's an "internet addict," and he and the ADAs have a big discussion about what that means.

But then of course it turns out that the boy's father, desperate and powerless over his son's obsession, tracked down the girl and killed her. Physical evidence: fibers from his torn wool gloves.

During the trial (51'), the defense trashes the victim, and the jury goes along with it. They ask if they consider a reduced charge, and the judge lets them consider Manslaughter I, which they convict him of (off camera). McCoy is angry over the reduced charge.

As the episode ends, Schiff says, "A crime that started somewhere in China destroyed a family here in New York." In fact, this isn't true. The incident that led to the prostitute's death had nothing to do with the smuggling: her involvement with her killer was one-on-one and through the interactive website. More evidence of the script sucking: the entire first half of the episode -- all the stuff about smuggling and the corrupt cops -- had nothing whatsoever to do with the crime.

Sloppy, loose writing in yet another L&O episode that approaches the internet with paranoia.

[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 Kincaid's getting killed in an already emotional episode.

Southerlyn's departing moments break with that tradition of narrative integrity and substitute shock value instead. What else could the writers have been hoping to achieve with this one? It's not like there has been rampant speculation about Serena's sexuality that has finally been "paid off" by this revelation. It's not to achieve any kind of political end, since the character is gone now and can't serve as an example or whatever. Although Serena's self-outing had some possible subtextual precedence in an earlier episode ("Guv Luv," the McGreevey one), it seems the only goal was to surprise the audience and get people talking about the show again. Quite a deviation from the show's usual "procedural" story-telling technique.

If this is where they eventually wanted to take things, the writers would have been better served had they established some indicators of Serena's sexuality earlier in the series. If that was part of her backstory, they could have worked it in a lot better than they did, shoe-horning the admission into her closing moments on the show. Also, I had a dim recollection of a previous episode in which she flirts heavily with a man she was working with. (A reader's comment below helped me find that episode.) The writers have written inconsistencies into the show before, but this one comes at such a crucial moment, it's especially disappointing.

The thing that it reminded me of more than anything else is that moment in the last Presidential debate when John Kerry went out of his way to remind everyone that Dick Cheney's daughter is a lesbian. It made no sense for him to bring it up, but he did anyway, essentially because of the shock value. I wonder if this part of the script was being written around the time that happened, and the writers were subconsciously influenced by it.

Oh well. At least she's gone.

So let's get to a summary of the actual plot of the episode (15.13), which bears some resemblance to the real-life case of Jam Master Jay's murder.

The episode begins at a red carpet event in Times Square, where it appears well-to-do types are arriving for an awards ceremony or movie premiere. Some characters are looking for someone, and one says something like, "He's going to miss his award." One of these people goes to look for the missing person at "the studio."

Cut to the recording studio, where the victim, a youngish black man, is found on the floor, shot to death, with a red plume of blood covering his chest.

Police, including Dets. Fontana and Green arrive. CSU brings up an empty plastic soda bottle that has been burned by gun powder. Fontana and Green immediately recognize this as "ghetto silencer." Apparently soda bottles can be taped to the barrels of handguns to dampen their noise. The victim is idenfied as Ronald Caldwell, ak "RC Flex," a well-know hip-hop DJ and producer who, Green says, has been involved in hip-hop since the early days and has had some success as a cross-over artist, too. Fontana is predictably clueless about recent hip-hop rivalries and so on.

They visit Caldwell's wife at their luxury apartment. The CEO of Caldwell's record label is there, too. Mrs Caldwell saays that Pete Andretti, Caldwell's bodyguard, would have been protecting him earlier that night at a talent showcase at a club. They visit Andretti's office, and meet his wife/receptionist, CC, who expresses noticeable dismay at the news of RC's death, although she says she didn't know him well. Hmm. Andretti (played by Soprano's veteran Al Sapienza) enters, and says he was with RC at the club but noticed nothing amiss. He has a .45, the same kind of gun as the murder weapon. He's also an ex-cop.

They go to the Groove Club, where the showcase took place, and a staff member tells them that Andretti was not with RC that night. She says another man, "Mooney," was serving as the bodyguard. Andretti lied to them. They talk to Mooney, who also happens to be a cop, and then they talk to Andretti's former partner, who says Andretti had gotten into trouble for moonlighting as a bodyguard while still on active duty. Andretti had also gotten in the middle of a hip-hop dispute during this time, and had fired shots with his service weapon in that context.

Mooney tells them that there was also a recent dispute between Andretti and RC, possibly having to do with RC's relationship with Andretti's wife, the receptionist. There's a motive, a lie, and a weapon.

Fontana and Green question Andretti at the precinct, but don't really get anywhere, despite his extremely weak alibi. He doesn't offer much of an excuse for lying to them, so we're pretty much left to assume that he did so because he was trying to hide the dispute from the detectives, a choice which has since backfired.

They talk to ME Rodgers who examines the body and tells them that there are compression wounds on RC's chest, indicating someone else was in the studio at the time of the murder and tried to resuscitate him after he was shot.

They talk to annoying omni-forensics guy Beck, who, in a bit of terrible writing that anticipates the crap to come later in the episode, mentions TWICE how much he likes gangsta rap, which he calls "gangster" rap. Ugh. Anyway, Beck's big contribution is that he gives them a demo CD containing three tracks that was taken from the crime scene. They take the CD to the record label exec, and he identifies the performer on it as a teenager named Stephen "Four Strike" Foreman. But the track is a remix of one that was intended to appear on Four Strike's forthcoming album, which suggests that Foreman was creating bootlegs of his own album material so he could sell them on the street and keep 100% of the profits. The dets theorize RC got in the way of this, and so Foreman killed him.

They visit Stephen's home in Hollis, Queens (where Run-DMC is from, by the way), talking briefly to his middle-class parents, and then find Stephen in his garage/studio playing video games with his friend. They are surrounded by expensive audio equipment. The dets tell his friend to take a hike, and Foreman denies any bootlegging or involvement in the murder, although his story is inconsistent with previous details.

Green and Fontana listen to the CD in Fontana's expensive Mercedes, and Green notes a lyric describing a murder that happened in 2003. Foreman appears to be confessing to the unsolved case on the track. They talk to the detective who originally handled the case, and learn that the prime suspect was a kid named Anthony Harrison who goes by the name "Psycho." Psycho, it turns out, is the kid who was playing video games with Foreman in the garage!

They revisit Foreman's garage, this time with a search warrant, and find boxes full of bootleg CDs, as well as a boot with gunpowder burned into it. They arrest Foreman.

McCoy meets with Foreman and his lawyer at Rikers, but doesn't get anywhere. At arraignment with Judge Feist, he pleads not guilty and immediately puts up $2 million in bail money.

Southerlyn and McCoy have a brief conversation about the importance of reputations in the rap industry. Southerlyn vists Foreman's parents, hoping to convince them to persuade their son to cooperate with the investigation, since SS seems to think Foreman is not guilty. The parents are in denial.

In the episode's second-most ludicrous scene, SS tells Jack about some stuff she found on a website called "hiphopnations.com" (nothing there -- i checked). She was going through the chat rooms or bulletin boards and finds a message written in hip-hop-ese, which she then reads to Jack, affecting the slightest gangsta-accent. Oh it is truly terrible and laughable [mp3]. Regardless, the message says that Harrison ("Psycho") is claiming to be responsible for RC's murder.

McCoy and SS visit the record label, "Detention Records," and seek the email address of the user ("New G") who left this message. At first the label's executives seem like they're co-operative, but then they demand a subpoena, which they then fight. McCoy wins the right to have the email address turned over to them, and the judge also demands that the indentity of the user be turned over to them. The label's lawyer satisfies that request, announcing that the user is "Anatoli" something-or-other, and he lives in Ukraine. Oh well. Cross one lead off the list.

SS confronts Foreman and tries to persuade him to admit the truth, or what she believes is the truth: that Harrison, not Foreman, killed RC, and Harrison is the one who tried to resuscitate him. Foreman gets all pouty, and says he's just trying to protect himself, and Southerlyn spouts off this classic line: "This was a war for your soul, wasn't it?" God. Who writes this garbage?

They confer with Branch, who tells them to try the case against Foreman, which they do.

At trial (42'), Fontana testifies, and Harrison enters the courtroom, looking suspicious. I was hoping he had smuggled a gun into the room and was going to shoot Serena, but that's not how it played out, unfortunately. Instead, Harrison eventually whispers to Foreman's lawyer that he wants to testify and confess to the killing of RC.

This causes a big debate in chambers, because McCoy is worried this is going to scuttle his case against Foreman. He asks for and receives a continuance of 72 hours to investigate.

McCoy learns that Foreman withdrew $500,000 of his advance money from the bank and apparently gave that money to Harrison in exchange for his testimony.

They call in Foreman to talk it over. He tells the story: Before the murder, Harrison wanted to use Foreman's money to buy, and then re-sell for a profit, a large quantity of drugs. Foreman was going to go along with the plan, but then RC talked him out of it. Harrison therefore saw RC as an obstacle, and murdered him. Foreman just happened to be at the studio when this occurred, and even buzzed Harrison in through the building's doors.

Afterwards, Branch and the ADAs talk it over. Southerlyn is reluctant to proceed on the case. Branch asks her what she wants the group to do, and she says something like, "What difference does it make? Every time I express an opinion around here the last few months, I get shot down." I wish that were literally true.

They debate with the trial judge whether to proceed with the trial and/or let Harrison testify. McCoy agrees to allow Harrison testify, which he does. He confesses to RC's murder. McCoy gives him a hard time on cross-examination, apparently trying to reduce the witness's credibility.

Fontana and Green arrest Harrison for the 2003 murder as he leaves the courtroom.

The verdict comes back for Foreman: Not Guilty! McCoy lost, but he immediately asks that Foreman be arrested for witness tampering.

In the aftermath, Branch calls Serena into his office, and we know what's coming. He tells her she may have been right about Foreman, but she was "right for the wrong reasons." She allowed her emotions, not evidence, to dictate her thinking, he says, and this approach is more suitable (he says) for defense attorneys. As foolish as this is, especially given the number of times that McCoy has followed hunches, passions, and emotions over the years, he stands by it. Southerlyn looks a bit perplexed until she realizes where all this is headed.

He fires her, and she asks her crazy question, and he replies, "No. No, of course not." And she says, apparently convinced, "Good....good." Roll credits!

Does anyone else suspect that the episode's title -- "Ain't No Love" -- is an acknowledgment of the audience's distaste for Serena, and an explanation for her departure?

Related: Ain't No Love by Whitesnake (lyrics)
Related: Ain't No Love by Jay-Z (lyrics)

Amazing.

[via amy's robot]

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 arrive in the aftermath to investigate and learn that from the bomb expert that a pipe bomb was to blame, and that the building was not entirely empty when the bomb exploded: a young woman, identified as Sandra Taylor, was killed. They recover $300 and a student id from her body.

They attempt to track down Taylor's family via the ID, but it turns out that her school, University of Manhattan, has no record of her. The ID is fake.

On Cragen's advice, they visit local pro-life activist groups, and encounter the leader of one, Ms Schwimmer. Ms Schwimmer says she was having brunch at the time of the bombing. After having their second argument about abortion, Greevey (pro-life) and Logan (pro-choice) go to the restaurant to check Schwimmer's alibi. The waitress there says Schwimmer had a female friend with her, and that friend was carrying a package.

They encounter a police tow truck towing cars away from the scene of the crime, and realize that one of these cars could belong to the victim, which would lead them to a positive id. The strategy works, and they id the victim as Mary Donovan, 22. They talk to her parents, who identify the body at the ME's office. As they see her, the father says the "Our Father."

The parents say Mary belonged to a pro-life group, so it looks like she is their bomber, but didn't get out in time. They search her room and find a picture of her brother, who works for a lumber company. They figure lumber means construction, construction means explosives, so they go to question him. He's distraught, but mildly combative.

They visit St Aloytius, the Catholic school where she taught. They talk to her boyfriend Patrick, also a teacher at the school. They reinterview Schwimmer, who says she had brunch that day with a young woman named Ms. McClure.

They find McClure at the community garden. In the trash can there, they find an empty bag for fertilizer. They learn the fertilizer is not necessary in NYC and is better suited for tropical climates and ... explosives.

Greevey and Logan have yet another argument about abortion and Greevey snaps at Logan. Back at the precinct, they fight again, and Logan stands up and starts yelling at Greevey. Cragen breaks it up with the news that prints on the fertilizer bag match prints on the bomb. They should go pick up McClure.

They talk to Stone and Robinette about the case. Greevey continues to semi-defend the bombing and excuses himself. Logan tells Stone that McClure wants to be a martyr, so he should just make a deal with her.

McClure is arraigned (31'), represented by her lawyer, Mr Ballard. Judge Sirkin oversees the proceedings.

Stone, Robinette, and Schiff discuss the case. Stone reveals he is personally opposed to abortion, but suggests he doesn't think it should be illegal. Stone meets with McClure, and she is unintimidated by the prospect of going to jail for six years for her role in the bombing.

But Stone things someone else ordered the bombing. He suspects Schwimmer but wants confirmation. They decide that since they can't pressure McClure into testifying against Schwimmer, they should try to get Schwimmer to feel guilty about hanging McClure out to dry. It sort of works, but not quite well enough.

Robinette visits Mary Donovan's parents, and the mother is upset that her daughter had chosen to be a martyr instead of a living human being. The father is content with the martyrdom. The mother says that Donovan had a fight with her boyfriend the morning of the bombing, and Kevin, Mary's brother, broke it up.

Patrick's prints are found on the fake ID, suggesting he had a role in the bombing. They arrest him (43') and bring him in for questioning, alongside Kevin. Patrick says he can prove he is innocent and begins to suggest that Mary was there to get an abortion. Kevin punches him in the face and is arrested. Patrick later confirms that Mary was pregnant and went there not to bomb the clinic but to get an abortion.

So it looks like McClure and Schwimmer were the conspirators behind the bombing. They tell McClure they're going to charge her with Murder 2. Finally she agrees to testify against Schwimmer, saying Schwimmer was the mastermind.

Schwimmer is arraigned (50') and stands trial (51'). It looks like the trial is going relatively well for Stone, but Schwimmer refuses to cut a deal with him, and then further messes up her own case by insisting that she testify on her own behalf. She begins her testimony by essentially admitting her guilt, but saying she is innocent "before God." Then she starts a lot of speech-making and the episode seems to veer off a realistic course. As the judge calls for her removal from the courtroom, Stone steps up to her and says, "I have one question, your honor." Even though her defense has not yielded to him. So Stone says, "If you believe that murder of a fetus is wrong, weren't you guilty of murder when your bomb killed Mary Donovan's unborn child?" Gotcha! Schwimmer wilts, and the rest is inevitable: she is found guilty of Murder 2 and Arson 2.

As the episode ends, Stone comments to Robinette on the ironies of the law: a few years ago, before abortion was legal, the abortionists would have been the murdered, and "if the law hadn't changed," those people would be on trial. Robinette says, "And if the law hadn't changed, I'd still be a slave."

The episode is notable mainly because I think it's the first time we see some interesting things: fierce debate about the episode's political theme and an on-camera explosion.

Also, Camryn Manheim shows up for about 3 seconds as an assistant to Ms. Schwimmer.

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 lady and trace the gun to Ian Mazer, a middle-aged guy who insists he's the only one with access to the gun. He has a son named Jamie, though. When they visit Jamie in his room, it's immediately evidence that he was involved in the shooting.

They bring him in for questioning, and he tells them they were fooling around, and he was holding the gun waist-high when Robby reached for it and it went off, killing him. But when the detectives attempt to recreate the shooting at the scene, they determine that due to the nature of the boys injuries, Robby must have been standing too far away to be reaching for the gun. Instead, he was covering his face with his hands, and the gun must have been aimed right at him from eye-level.

They question Jamie again, and he says he and Robby were playing a game called "Trust" in which the other person comes close to shooting you, but you have to trust him not to. He says he didn't know the gun was going to fire, because he thought you had to cock the hammer before pulling the trigger, and he hadn't done that. This kind of weapon is called "single-action," (as opposed to double-action weapons, which cock the hammer and fire when you pull the trigger). This becomes a crucial claim later on.

They talk to an official at Jamie's school, Bishop Academy, who says Jamie was a bit of a loner and was on some kind of psychiatric drug. Kids at the school says Robby was very much into guns, and he and Jamie got along.

They talk to Robby's dad, briefly, and then to Jamie's dad, again, who says he can't discuss the nature of Jamie's psych condition because it's sealed as part of his divorce agreement. They talk to the ex-wife, and she says the same thing. They do learn, however, that Jamie was involved in some kind of other criminal incident a few years earlier, but the record of that is also sealed.

Because they can't unseal the records, they go talk to the arresting officer, who kept his own notes on the incident. He says that Jamie and another boy, Graham Campbell, were playing with a gun, and Graham was shot and killed. Sound familiar? Jamie even offered the same excuse about not knowing the gun was double-action.

The dets talk it over with the ADAs. Stone wants to prosecute for Murder 2. They arrest Jamie (28') and arraign him with Judge Doremus. His lawyer, Mr Barnett, tells Stone that Jamie was "involuntarily intoxicated" by the psychiatric drug ("Trachon"?) he was taking, and so is not criminally responsible for the murder.

Jamie talks to Olivet, who determines he is the victim of an abusive, domineering father. He plays the games with the guns because he wants to feel powerful.

Schiff tells Stone to either get the records on the first shooting unsealed or to make a deal. Stone goes to trial (Judge Markman presides) after an unsuccessful bid to unseal the records, and after much testimony, Jamie is found not guilty of Murder 2 by reason of mental defect.

Stone tells Robinette to get the records of the first shooting unsealed so they can reopen the investigation. The detectives do a walk-through of that scene, and talk to the manager of a gun range who saw Jamie's father teaching him to use a double-action gun before either shooting. This would seem to invalidate Jamie's defense that he didn't know what he was doing.

They also need the mother to testify about what she knows, namely that Jamie once threatened her with a gun, too.

With all this, they go to trial, and the father testifies and freaks out a little on the stand. The jury finds Jamie guilty of Murder 2. He's carried off to Spofford.

One thing I don't understand is how the mother managed to lose custody of Jamie in the first place. If the father was abusive at the time of their divorce, how on earth could the father end up with custody rights? This is not properly explained in the episode.

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 into thinking she is a rich Japanese girl. They swipe some jewels while no one is looking, and escape to the subway. As they prepare to get away, a woman bumps into the man and he drops dead, almost mid-sentence. The Asian woman disappears, as does the bumping woman.

Goren and Eames arrive at the scene. Goren quickly notices a needle-puncture wound on the man's torso. They establish the victim's connection to the jewelry theft, which cost the store $750,000, and identify him as "Scott Talbert," an investment banker.

Goren and Eames visit the jewelry store and get a detailed description of the Asian woman and watch her on the security video. Goren concludes that she isn't really Japanese because (a) she reached for the door on her way out, and (b) she shrugged ("Japanese women don't shrug," says Goren.)

They learn that Talbert's business card, which they used to identify him, was a fake, but the trace to the card to a sort-of friend of his, who reveals that Talbert's real name is Zach Thaler. They go to Thaler's loft apartment and find the blinds are jammed open. Goren surmises this is because they were putting on a show for people across the street.

They visit the clothing store where the Asian girl bought her outfit. Evidence leads Goren to believe that the girl is a bike messenger and that she was parading around inside the store for the benefit of someone looking on from across the street. Goren surmises that there is a "sugar daddy" figure orcehstrating the Asian girl's movements.

In a way that wasn't exactly clear to me -- I guess via the hunch that the girl was a bike messenger -- they track down her parents, with whom she has a rocky relationship. They mention that their daughter, Ella, sent her grandparents a letter describing how someone in the family had an abortion. This letter served to further alienate Ella from her family, a fact which will become important later.

The parents also mention that Ella recently spoke with a Singaporan cousin. Goren surmises she is going to attempt to mimic a Singaporan girl, perhaps with the goal of robbing another jewelry store. They put out a bulletin to jewelry stores to look out for such a person, and this proves to be a smart move: Ella begins another jewelry heist, in the guise of a Singaporan girl, but aborts it after the jeweler gets suspicious.

Goren visits the scene of this almost-crime and concludes that, again, Ella was being watched by a handler from across the street. They visit the store across the street, and Goren begins to suspect that the handler is none other than his arch-nemesis, Nicole Wallace aka Elizabeth Hitchens, who has challenged him several times before and knows how to get inside his head like no one else. Last we knew, Wallace had been on trial, but we soon find out that she was acquitted.

They talk to Nicole's now-ex-husband (they were still married, last we knew), who still insists that Nicole is a good person, although you can tell even he is suspicious. He says they got divorced because he wanted kids but she is unable to conceive. Goren tells him that by divorcing her, the husband gave her a reason to harm him, and he now needs Goran and Eames to protect him. It's during this scene that we learn Nicole was acquitted at trial.

They track down Ella Miazaki, initially telling her they need to talk to her because of a missing persons report filed about her. When they notice scars on her arm that match the description from the clothing boutique witness, they arrest her.

They bring her in for questioning, and Goren tries to get her to understand the true nature of her partner/minder Nicole Wallace. He plays her an old videotape of his interrogation of Nicole Wallace, the famous "tit for tat" one where he answers a question about himself for every question she answers about herself. This is rather dumb, since most of what he plays back is him getting all emotional, but he does get the stuff about her talking about her abuse in there. I'm sure how this is supposed to be particularly effective, but before we get a chance to find out, Ella's lawyer shows up and the interrogation ends anyway.

But guess who else shows up with the lawyer...Nicole Wallace herself! She taunts them a little, but then says she wants a truce. She seems a little rattled, and then calms down by kissing Ella. (Yes, on the lips.) As they leave, Goren says of Nicole's rattled state, "She lost something...I smell blood in the water."

The camera follows Ella and Nicole home. Ella is mad because during interrogation, Goren showed her the letter about the abortion. Nicole wrote it, not Ella. But Nicole gets Ella to forgive her, and they cuddle and Ella calls her "Mommy". Gross!

Eames and Goren keep tabs on Ella, and make notes on all the messenger service deliveries. They note that she keeps visiting an office near Nicole's ex-husband's financial manager's office. They go there, and find a frequently inoperable, stuffy elevator. When the ex-husband shows up, they determine that Ella bumped into him on the way over, and switched his asthma inhaler for an empty one. Since the ex-husband needs to use his inhaler when the elevator breaks, he would have died of an asthma attack if Ella had executed the plan of jamming the elevator. Seems like an awfully roundabout way to kill someone, but whatever. Anyway, the ex-husband finally begins to realize that maybe Nicole Wallace, who just about arranged his death, maybe isn't such a great person after all.

Goren begins to develop a theory that Nicole didn't see a fertility specialist because such a doctor would have discovered something she didn't want anyone to know: that she had had a child. Goren does some telephone investigation and surmises that shortly before Nicole left her native Australia all those years ago, she killed her 3-year-old daughter, or was at least present when she died. At the time, Nicole said the child had drowned at the beach.

Nicole is brought in for questioning as a "material witness" since her girlfriend, Ella, is a suspect in the jewelry heist. The topic turns to fertility, during which she discusses Eames' pregnancy. Eames says she was carrying the child for her sister...so she was a surrogate mom. I guess this had been revealed before, but I must have missed that episode.

Anyway, Eames leaves, leaving Goren and Wallace alone. We know what a tinderbox that can turn into. But Goren knows Wallace is scared, and he has the upper hand. He gradually unveils his idea about Wallace killing her own baby because she suspected that the girl (again, only a 3-y-o) was flirting with her father. Goren connects this to Wallace's own abuse at the hands of her father. She starts to get emotional, but once again the lawyer arrives before the truth comes out. Goren is convinced she did it, though.

Wallace disappears after leaving the police station, and Goren decides he needs to talk to Ella again. He brings her in and shows her the evidence that Wallace killed her own baby years ago. He shows her pictures of the child's skeleton, which was found buried somewhere, not drowned. He suggests the drowning story was made up. Ella agrees to cooperate, which turns out to be a fatal decision.

She sets up a meeting at Pier 30, and Goren & Co. go along, listening in with surveillance equipment. They hear a commotion and rush in, and find blood all over the place, and broken shards of glass. It looks like Ella and Nicole fell out from a second- or third-story window and drowned.

Medical Examiner Rodgers, a familiar face from the other L&O shows, says that Nicole lost at least a quart of her own blood, so she can't be alive. Unfortunately, though, they haven't found her body. They did find Ella, though, which is in front of them as they talk.

So is Nicole Wallace alive or dead? During the episode, you could go to NBC.com and vote for an ending. This is strange, though: instead of voting throughout the episode for which ending would show on TV, they just showed the ending where Nicole's body is not found, and then a voice over says, "You just saw one ending. Now go to NBC.com and see another ending, then vote for which one you like more." I guess this means that whichever one gets more votes in the "real" ending, even though everyone just saw what may be a completely different ending that the "real" one.

Very confusing.

Anyway, in the ending you didn't see, Goren shoots Nicole twice in the heart, and Nicole and Ella crash through the window. We next see Ella and Nicole dead at the ME's office. As Eames and Rodgers leave, Goren looks at Nicole's body, and says, "sparkling little girl," referring at once to Nicole's daughter, and of course, to Nicole herself, before she became a murderer.

Like I said in my previous post, I hope the viewers decide to keep Nicole alive. Besides Goren, she is the best thing on the show.