This particular Law & Order Criminal Intent episode is the second outing of this season which marks the return of Mike Logan-centric storytelling to the Law & Order franchise.
Chris Noth's memorable police detective was banished to the Staten Island beat, breaking up bar fights, for attacking a politician a decade prior. He is brought back by Capt. Deakins (Jamey Sheridan) after Logan shoves his way onto a Season 4 investigation of the death of a prison guard being investigated by Goren and Eames.
In this episode, Logan is teamed with a new partner Carolyn Barek(Annabella Sciorra) to investigate the shocking execution of a cop's son, involving police corruption.
For fans and devotees of the Law & Order franchise, the constant attraction to the show is rooted in the evident commitment to quality and consistency in the crafting and telling of the stories of crime and punishment. So many series suffer fatal problems in the narrative over time when producers change, and writers change. Law & Order serves as a shining exception to the conventional wisdom.
In this series, this episode sets the tone for the 30-odd Logan stories to follow; Noth and Sciorra ease into the rhythm that would mark their time together with her as the first of Logan's partners. L & O is a consistently great series across all its franchises, but I always detect a special crispness, a special kind of synergy between actors and writers in the telling of the Mike Logan stories.
If you have a chance via Netflix or some other provider to focus in on the Logan stories, try a few. This first full Logan episode serves as both a typically great story, and a portent of great things to come.