After witnessing an inmate's execution, McCoy, Kincaid, Briscoe, and Curtis react in different and extreme ways.After witnessing an inmate's execution, McCoy, Kincaid, Briscoe, and Curtis react in different and extreme ways.After witnessing an inmate's execution, McCoy, Kincaid, Briscoe, and Curtis react in different and extreme ways.
Photos
Jennifer Estlin
- Cathy Briscoe
- (as Jennifer Bill)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaEvery episode of Law & Order opens with the investigation of a crime, usually a murder. This is the only episode that does not open with a crime or feature a criminal investigation and prosecution. This episode opens with four of the main characters witnessing the lethal injection of a prisoner--a convicted murderer--and it revolves around the characters' reactions to the execution.
- GoofsThough this was arguably one of the most powerful entries in the series, the entire premise is fictitious. No one has been executed by the state of New York since 1963.
- Quotes
Mike: What is it with you guys? First darts, now pool.
Detective Lennie Briscoe: Never mess with a civil servant, my friend.
- ConnectionsReferenced in Law & Order: Sideshow (1999)
Featured review
Was Claire's fate always hinted at?
Of all the ADAs who came and went over a 20 year series, it is Gill Hennessy's character, Claire Kincaid, who is my overall favourite.
Though confident, bright, knowledgable and hard-working, Claire conveys a sense of the unsettled ingenue, and no matter how committed to each brief (read episode), she may not be a right match, psychologically, to her chosen profession.
This uncertainty is alluded to in another episode when she jokes with an old classmate from Law School (fitting setup to the close of this episode) about them both packing it all in to run a flower shop - I presume somewhere in Hicksville where there are no city cops, disillusioned lawyers and no dregs of urban mankind; the meat & spuds of the Law & Order franchise.
These career doubts percolates nicely into Kincaid's final episode on L&O, when she returns to aforementioned Law School (after a pointedly grim start to the day) and has a philosophical chat with her old Professor (step-father) about the whys & wherefores of the death penalty.
Her black leather jacket & denim jeans betraying a rebellious spirit; but also a sense that she's in soul searching mode about her career in law, after going through a recent work-related trauma.
*****
The subsequent ADAs, have their own strengths & merits...but none have Kincaid's self-deprecating charm and moral uncertainty about their chosen profession. It's this self-doubt and and a conveyed sense of uncertainty that made Kincaid particularly special IMO.
A forlorn ending, but a must-see episode for all fans as we get to see the very human side to cops & lawyers: Briscoe & Briscoe's sidekick, McCoy & Kincaid.
Poor Claire...
Though confident, bright, knowledgable and hard-working, Claire conveys a sense of the unsettled ingenue, and no matter how committed to each brief (read episode), she may not be a right match, psychologically, to her chosen profession.
This uncertainty is alluded to in another episode when she jokes with an old classmate from Law School (fitting setup to the close of this episode) about them both packing it all in to run a flower shop - I presume somewhere in Hicksville where there are no city cops, disillusioned lawyers and no dregs of urban mankind; the meat & spuds of the Law & Order franchise.
These career doubts percolates nicely into Kincaid's final episode on L&O, when she returns to aforementioned Law School (after a pointedly grim start to the day) and has a philosophical chat with her old Professor (step-father) about the whys & wherefores of the death penalty.
Her black leather jacket & denim jeans betraying a rebellious spirit; but also a sense that she's in soul searching mode about her career in law, after going through a recent work-related trauma.
*****
The subsequent ADAs, have their own strengths & merits...but none have Kincaid's self-deprecating charm and moral uncertainty about their chosen profession. It's this self-doubt and and a conveyed sense of uncertainty that made Kincaid particularly special IMO.
A forlorn ending, but a must-see episode for all fans as we get to see the very human side to cops & lawyers: Briscoe & Briscoe's sidekick, McCoy & Kincaid.
Poor Claire...
helpful•282
- rossmcfarlen
- Oct 19, 2020
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