Law & Order (TV Series) Genius (2003) User Reviews

When they want to die

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 3 September 2020]

A cabbie is stabbed to death and it looks like a robbery of which we had a flurry of New York City back then. But it's hardly that and the arrest is made of David Wike, a budding author who did some time in the joint and did kill a man there.

The joker in this deck for Sam Waterston is that Wike eventually says he'll plead guilty if he's promised an execution. All kinds of a fuss is raised by anti-death penalty activists. Among them is Saul Rubinek a Lawrence Tribe like law professor who Elisabeth Rohm has history with.

Stanley Anderson plays a Norman Mailer like author who leads his own campagn to save Wike. Anderson and Jesse Martin have a long extended scene when Anderson was on the police radar as a suspect. A most informal interrogation.

Thr right of the state to impose capitak punishmwnt versus the right to die. It don't get clearer than that.

I can't think of a better candidate for execution. Albert Einstein kills Jack the Ripper

[Mrpalli77 · 8/10 · 26 November 2017]

Some teenagers were playing American football on the street when one of them noticed a body stabbed to death beneath a cab. The victim was a supporter of KKK movement and the cab belongs to an Asian guy who used to borrow his vehicle to the victim to help him make ends meet (they forged a close bond in A.A. meetings, much to Briscoe understanding). Fingerprints inside the cab lead detectives to two well-known writers of crime novels, both addicted to alcohol. They spent together the night drinking booze at a local pub; totally drunk, one of them killed a cabbie after a petty argument and stole some bucks from his wallet. The perp had priors, having spent many years behind bars for selling drugs in his freshman year, and inside the prison he committed a murder in the laundry room in the same way (by stabbing in the chest). McCoy was stunned when the defendant tells him he deserves the death penalty: then it's up to the psychiatric and the judge to determine if he's mentally insane or not.

An original episode: no defendant is willing to go to the death row, but the writer explained he'd rather end up his life than living his life in prison the same way day by day.

Demand

[TheLittleSongbird · 8/10 · 16 June 2022]

'Law and Order' is no stranger when it comes to talking about the death penalty, but the take on it in "Genius" is something not seen before in the show's history. Quite a unique and strange take on how people feel about it, with the perpetrator's really oddly fascinating and conceptually hard to believe attitude towards how they should be punished, when it is something that perpetrators make a big effort to avoid being sentenced to that.

"Genius" does this very well on the whole. Was worrying as to whether this take on the death penalty would be hard to buy, but although it did start off that way the more the episode explored it the more convincing the argument became. "Genius" struck me as a very good episode. Not one of 'Law and Order's' best episodes or quite one of the best of Season 13, but again there is a lot that is good and even great and it was refreshing to see a different slant on a familiar topic.

Did not get fully behind the perpetrator's want for his punishment for the crime at first, thinking it such a strange and extreme request. Especially when not knowing the reason.

Elisabeth Rohm continues to do nothing for me, can only think of about three or four times at the top of my head where she didn't bother me. Here though her stiffness and lack of variety in expressions and delivery sticks out like a sore thumb.

However, everything else works very well indeed. While the investigating is entertaining and carried by the great teaming of Briscoe and Green (not to mention Briscoe's wisecracking), the legal portion and the moral dilemmas that McCoy has to face when prosecuting fare even better and of this complicated issue and unique take on it and have a good degree of tension. What it has to say about the subject and the perpetrator's attitude intrigued.

Furthermore, "Genius" production values are still slick and suitably gritty (without being too heavy in it). The music is not too melodramatic and is not used too much, even not being too manipulative in revelations. The direction lets the drama breathe while making sure that the tension and emotion never slipped. The script is lean and thought-provoking, especially in the second half. The acting is excellent from the rest of the regulars and Stanley Anderson registers strongly in an initially strange but increasingly fascinating role.

Concluding, very good. 8/10.

The defendant DEMANDS the death penalty???...

[AlsExGal · 6/10 · 4 March 2021]

... Excuse me, is that how it works? He should DEMAND roast duck while at Riker's. Who knew it was that easy.

This episode is about a brilliant writer, Clay Warner, who is also a "bad seed" to the point that his mother hasn't seen him in years and doesn't want to. When a cabby grabs a cigar out of Clay's mouth one night to keep him from smoking, Warner stabs him in anger, steals his money, and takes off. When Warner realizes the jig is up concerning the evidence against him, he makes an offer to McCoy - He'll plead to anything as long as he gets the death penalty. Oh, and by the way, Warner has zero remorse.

This seems to put Jack in a dilemma. He seems to NOT want to give this guy the death penalty, but instead wants life without parole. So Jack brings in a psychiatrist hoping he will say he is insane, has probing discussions with ADA Serena and DA Arthur Branch over the situation. But the solution really is simple. In the words of Mick Jagger - "You don't always get what you want.". Give the guy life in prison - apparently that prospect is what he is really dreading anyways - and go home and sleep at night. As for what actually happens - watch and find out.

There were better episodes of L&O discussing the death penalty and even its aftermath. This is not a bad episode, just an extremely mediocre one, which is surprising.

How many l&o scripts are anti death penalty

[evony-jwm · 1/10 · 1 March 2021]

And here's another that's unsupported by reason to create an obscure twist where the guilty (yes multiple times) requests death penalty for the script writer's, producer's, director's political cause