Law & Order (TV Series) Trophy (1996) User Reviews

Search For The Truth

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 9 December 2011]

A couple of homicides of young black male youths with the signature of a jailed serial killer have thrown the NYS criminal justice system in a turmoil. Did in fact the cops arrest the wrong guy or is there someone out there copying the guy's playbook as Jerry Orbach put it.

As it turns out it's the former and as it turns out it was Sam Waterston's former second chair Laila Robbins who withheld exculpatory evidence and suborned some perjury to get a conviction in the belief she was helping her boss and lover Waterston. This was all before Waterston took the place of Michael Moriarty as a regular on Law And Order.

That story is the main thrust of this particular episode Trophy. But for me acting honors go to Isaiah Whitlock, Jr. as the security guard who did the deeds. He has a religious bent to his psychosis and his matter of fact confession to Orbach, Benjamin Bratt, and S. Eptha Merkkerson is one of the most chilling moments in the entire lengthy history of Law And Order. This is also Mr. Whitlock's career moment and role as an actor. Not to be missed.

Prosecutorial Misconduct.

[rmax304823 · 7/10 · 22 December 2012]

A couple of black kids of varying character are found dead with threatening notes left at the scenes. The notes are identical to those left by a man convicted of killing black kids some years ago, when McCoy was ADA and his assistant, with whom he was sleeping, was Laila Robins.

Brisco and Curtis catch the real killer, a delusional black rent-a-cop whose motives are religious. This generates a problem, however, because, after all, an innocent guy has just spent three years in the slams learning how to make a shiv out of a plastic toothbrush. He brings suit against the city.

A bit of investigation reveals that he was convicted because a crucial piece of paperwork that should have reached McCoy's hand disappeared between the time the cops gave it to Robins and the time McCoy won the conviction.

Things look a little gloomy for McCoy. Did he stash the revealing document somewhere in order to advance his career? His current assistant, Claire Kinkaid, interviews Robins, who is now in a lucrative private practice. The two babes bristle as Robins brings up the now extinct love affair between her and McCoy. He took Robins on a trip to Ireland. Kinkaid keeps her cool, but one imagines all of her internal organs swimming in a sea of adrenalin.

The story is a little unusual in the extent to which it deals with McCoy's personal life -- usually limited to some snotty remark about his father or a compliment like, "That's a nice bike." And Kinkaid doesn't deny that she and McCoy are getting it on together. Lucky McCoy. Jill Hennessy's acting talents may be modest but she's a genuine piece of elegant pulchritude. Any sane man would want to caress that sleek cygnet neck.

It's also interesting to see how a perfectly attractive, intelligent-looking, and otherwise normally endowed woman like Leila Robins can be turned into a villainess by an ability to act and a bit of make up. Her eyes have been turned into slits that ought to have vertical pupils, like a cat or a viper. And her face is turned pale and her lipstick (or whatever it's now called) is a bit too garish, so that she looks as if, should you shake her family tree, a vampire bat might fall out.

Interesting episode, straying a little from the usual format.

Nothing but the truth

[TheLittleSongbird · 9/10 · 11 February 2021]

Jack McCoy was a very interesting and commanding character once he fully settled and his personality appealed more, was a bit mixed on him in some of the first half of Season 5 but since then it is not hard to see why he went to be one of the 'Law and Order' franchise's most longest serving characters. It is always nice to have a change of pace once in a while, and "Trophy" provides that with a case that centres heavily around McCoy's personal life and past.

Something that was handled extremely well, in for me an episode that is among the best of the first half of Season 6. While there were even better episodes before and since in the season, "Trophy" is infinitely better than the previous three episodes, which were three disappointments in a row. Is "Trophy" a perfect episode? Not quite. Is it great? Oh yes. For me it is the best 'Law and Order' episode since "Angel" and is possibly even better than that.

Will start off with mentioning the one problem had with the episode, regarding some logic issue. Realistically considering that her relationship with McCoy is here professional and personal, Kincaid would not have been allowed to prosecute due to bias.

"Trophy" is never less than great everywhere else. There is great acting from Sam Waterston and Jill Hennessy, unsurprisingly so. Waterston was always reliable, even in the early period of Season 5 when McCoy was not so easy to warm to, and Hennessy is one of the actors that should have lasted longer on the show as Kincaid was a good character (she was professional and intelligent with great chemistry with McCoy and when she opposed something it was easy to see her point of view, such as her stance on the death penalty in "Savages"). Laila Robbins is both alluring and calculating, but the acting honours indeed go to a truly chilling Isiah Whitlock Jr.

Moreover the case keeps one guessing from the get go and is twisty enough without being confusing or over-loaded. Despite the situation being very bleak, it was very easy for me to root for McCoy and for him to get out of a seemingly hopeless situation. "Trophy" is tautly and intelligently scripted, especially later on. It was very fascinating to see more of McCoy's personal life revealed and for it to play a major and crucial role in the case, in a nice change from the "ripped from the headlines" stories in the previous episodes.

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 is accomodating yet with momentum.

Altogether, absolutely excellent. 9/10

Claire and Jack, sittin' in a tree...

[newsjunkie356-1 · 8/10 · 27 February 2008]

This episode exposed, or, rather, confirmed, a romantic relationship between Kincaid and McCoy--only a song-and-dance number could have made it more plain.

Claire confronts Jack's former assistant (Diana Hawthorne) and the latter says, "You are sleeping with him, aren't you?" And Claire not only doesn't deny it, but doesn't even BLINK.

With none of his subsequent assistants has their been a hint of romance. It's hard to imagine the Jamie Ross (Carrie Lowell) or Abby Carmichael (my personal fav amongst Jack's assistants, Angie Harmon) characters in an office liaison; especially Jamie who's terrible marriage (and terribly underused actor who played her ex) began as just such a romance. Serena (Elizabeth Rohm) was a lesbian (either I missed an episode or her revelation to her Arthur came completely out of nowhere!). Can't see it with Rubirosa. It's one thing for two ADAs to have a relationship, but the sitting DA and an ADA. Lawsuit on a platter. Besides, the age gap between Jack and the ADAs (all of whom seem to what the French call "un femme de trente ans") is getting a little wide (tho' fortunately for Sam Waterston, he isn't).

There have been hints before, but never this openly. And none since. Not that I disapprove. After all, to go much beyond the surface of the characters' personal lives would push "Law & Order" more in the direction of "Hills Street Blues" + "LA Law" (=soap opera). Wolf has wisely kept the nature of the Law & Order "franchise" right on formula: police procedural+courtroom drama. While the different shows have measured out the formula with different emphases, they all maintain the core mantra. Not all have been blockbusters (as "SVU" is and "Prime" was for so many yrs); but all have been solid in the ratings. And each has its own core of devotees.

You need to keep your love life and professional life separate...

[AlsExGal · 8/10 · 27 November 2020]

...and there is actually a cruder maxim I could use, but it probably could not get printed here.

Two boys are found murdered in a fashion identical to several boys who were killed five years before, but the person convicted of those crimes, Andrew Dillard, has been in prison for all of these years, so it could be a copy cat.

Detectives Briscoe and Curtis investigate and discover who the killer is. Once arrested, this person confesses to the murders for which Dillard was convicted. Dillard is released, and immediately files a fifty million dollar lawsuit against the D.A's office for not releasing exculpatory evidence to his defense team at the time of his trial. An internal investigation doesn't look good for Jack, and then it is discovered that it was actually his ADA at the time, Diana - who was also his lover - that is responsible for hiding evidence that might have cleared Dillard, or at least cast reasonable doubt on his guilt.

Diana will lose her law license, and Jack is in the clear, but that is not good enough for McCoy. He wants her prosecuted. Diana just claims that she was doing what her boss/lover wanted her to do at the time. How does this all work out? Watch and find out.

In retrospect it is odd that Jack chose Claire Kincaid to prosecute this case, since it is revealed in a later season that Claire was Jack's lover while she was his ADA! Honestly Jack! You need to leave the office on time more often! This is one of the rare times on L&O that the personal life of one of the characters becomes part of the plot. In Jack McCoy's case, over several seasons, a picture is painted of Jack as a guy with a history of troubled relationships with women including two failed marriages. His romantic outlook is revealed somewhat when L&O wades into the issue of gay marriage several years later when McCoy muses- "Let them marry. Let them suffer along with the rest of us."

I like how L&O sometimes makes you think they are wading into one "ripped from the headlines" case when in fact they are not. At first, it looks like this episode is paralleling the aftermath of the Atlanta child murder cases of the late 70s and early 80s and the doubt cast on the guilt of the man ultimately convicted of those crimes. Then, the script makes a right turn and ends up being about something else completely.

Recommended.

In a Sense Jack Gets His Just Desserts

[ShelbyTMItchell · 8/10 · 10 October 2015]

I am not the biggest Jack fan as really the guy at times. Needed to get his just desserts over for being overzealous and really caring about winning then he does the law.

As really he and a former assistant now a defense attorney in a lucrative practice. Could go to jail. But Adam who has had a love- hate relationship with the EADA, will do anything and everything to clear Jack's name.

Of course Jack will get clear or else another actor would had been getting him replaced. Sam Waterston shows a rare emotion thing.

In a few years he would mellow out a bit. While he may be a great lawyer, as a human being he stinks. But it would take a few years for him to really mellow out and clean up a bit.

The Jack fire still was there post 2000, but not as bad as it used to be when he first came on.

The Whole McCoy Sleeping with All the Women was Bollocks

[bkkaz · 5/10 · 9 December 2021]

Law and Order was a good show, and Claire Kincaid was one of the best ADAs they ever had. She was smart, sensitive, upstanding, and, yes, beautiful. The idea that she fell under McCoy's lascivious spell -- which these days would clearly be sexual harassment and quite possibly quid pro quo assault depending on the DA's policy -- was not necessary and just cheapened the integrity of the series. This is one of the episodes where it's hinted she has a romantic relationship with the guy who looks like Sam, the Eagle, on The Muppets.

The rest of the episode is interesting in this context because the concept is something from McCoy's past has come to bit him hard -- itself born of a sexual relationship with someone who reports to him. The irony seems lost on the writers because ultimately it isn't about Jack having to reconcile if he has a problem with boundaries (or Claire) but what trick he will pull to get out of it. Lucky for him his adversary is coming unhinged.

Writers preferred drama to legal reality

[tommytin3 · 17 January 2010]

Spoiler: they end up prosecuting a former prosecutor, one of Jack's previously off-screen lover/assistants. What did she do? She knowingly allowed false testimony in a criminal case she and Jack prosecuted. What's her obvious defense? Prosecutorial immunity under Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 US 409 (1976). What's wrong with mentioning Imbler on-screen? 1) A full analysis of Imbler includes yawn-inducing complexities; 2) A simplified approach to Imbler invites disbelief.

For recent, thorough (i.e. BORING), analyses of the issue of prosecutorial immunity, see Milstein v. Stephen L Cooley. 257 F.3d 1004 (9th Cir. 2001)(this case is on-going, and the 9th Circuit has added another opinion on top of this one), or McGhee v. Pottawattamie County, 547 F.3d 922 (8th Cir. 2008) (this case settled during appeal).