Mayhem (9 Mar. 1994)

Briscoe and Logan catch three unrelated homicide cases in one shift: an aspiring actor shot in his car, a Lorena Bobbitt copycat who killed her husband, and a grocery store owner killed in a robbery.

Director:

James Quinn

Writers:

Dick Wolf (creator), Michael S. Chernuchin (teleplay),

Stars:

Jerry Orbach, Chris Noth, S. Epatha Merkerson

Cast

Episode cast overview, first billed only:
Jerry Orbach	...	Detective Lennie Briscoe
Chris Noth	...	Detective Mike Logan
S. Epatha Merkerson	...	Lt. Anita Van Buren
Michael Moriarty	...	Executive A.D.A. Ben Stone
Jill Hennessy	...	A.D.A. Claire Kincaid
Steven Hill	...	D.A. Adam Schiff
Carolyn McCormick	...	Dr. Elizabeth Olivet (credit only)
Tom Riis Farrell	...	Scott Hexter
Kathrine Narducci	...	Mrs. Louisa D'Angelo
Joyce Reehling	...	Mildred Kaskel
Jack Hallett	...	Bauer
Alice Drummond	...	Zelda
Shae D'lyn	...	Dory
Peggy Cowles	...	Mrs. Hexter
Robin Tunney	...	Jill Templeton

Storyline

Detectives Briscoe and Logan have a rough shift when they catch a series of unrelated murders. All Briscoe hopes for is that he'll get out of the shop to make to the Knicks basketball that evening. The first killing is the shooting of man in a parked car. Later in the day there's a virtually identical shooting and they fear they may have a serial killer on their hands. In their next case, they arrest a woman who has cut off her cheating husband's genitals. The third murder involves a violent drug user. After they make their arrests it turns out that one of them is innocent. That person won't make it out of Riker's Island jail alive.

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

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Details

Language:

English

Release Date:

9 March 1994 (USA)

Filming Locations:

New York City, New York, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Wolf Films, Universal TV

Technical Specs

Runtime:

60 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Quotes

Det. Mike Logan: We're going for a record.
Det. Lennie Briscoe: What scares me is the day's not over yet.

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Connections

Remade as Law & Order: UK: Dawn Till Dusk (2011)

User Reviews

Multiple Focuses.

This episode has three narrative threads, each of them up to the usual standards of the series' early years -- which is to say, pretty good. It's unclear why the writers decided not to go with the usual formula, which begins with a murder and leads the police into the internal milieu of some business or social organization.

As it stands, it looks as if there were three ideas and none of them, by themselves, could fill the entire time slot. I guess the A story has to do with some serial killer wielding a magnum and killing strangers. The detectives turn up some pale, chubby, slug-like mother's boy who works in a flower shop. The DA's office charges him and jails him, despite his protestations of innocence. He turns out to be not guilty. The reason he couldn't account for his whereabouts at the time of the murders was that he was staying with his boyfriend but was reluctant to admit it. Before he can be released, he's stabbed to death by another prisoner with a sharpened tooth brush. When Brisco and Logan are told about it, they look unhappily at each other, shrug, and walk away.

A viewer looking for sentiment won't find it here, and there's little enough of it in any other episode. A wife has an argument with her husband, cuts off his genitals, beans Logan with a frying pan, the man dies on the way to the hospital, and the entire incident is treated rather as a joke. The wife, Narducci, gives a spot-on performance of an outraged working-class Italian wife.

I prefer the more focused and intricate episodes that take us into the bowels of some obscure business or the intrigues of ethnic communities. "Columbo" investigates misdeeds among the high-end, "Dragnet" rarely got out of the arid middle class except for some forays into the Hippie subculture, but the characters of "Law and Order" are drawn from all social strata and usually pinned like butterflies. And the heavies are not always rich white people.