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For this week's script, the Law & Order writers apparently pasted together clippings from their "snatched from the headlines" file. The result was a jumble of ideas, none strong enough to carry the show. This atrocious episode required more effort to suspend disbelief than I was willing to make.

As even D.A. Adam Schiff recognizes by the end, the plot is barely worthy of a dime-store novel. A best-selling mystery writer with a British accent, P.K. Todd (P.D. James?) and her tax advisor, James Haas, are shot on the street after leaving a restaurant. He dies. She lives--to have her eleventh and latest (and weakest) book become a bestseller. For fifteen minutes of air time, the detectives try to figure out whether Todd or Haas was the target and consider a variety of possible motives, working with the "obsessed fan" theory, the "snobby and disgruntled tax client" theory, and the "author shoots herself for publicity" theory.

These theories all turn out to be wrong, but the equally trite "jealous spouse" theory applies (for a while). In a flash of brilliance (if only sarcasm had its own typeface!), Detectives Briscoe and Palmer check the acknowledgment page in Todd's latest book and come to learn that she has become friends with two married FBI agents, Dean and Carolyn Tyler. The detectives suspect that Todd was having an affair with Dean Tyler. His wife found out and shot her, they figure, killing Haas with a stray bullet.

Twist number one: femme fatale P.K. Todd was not having an affair with Dean, but rather with his wife Carolyn. (In one of the rare humorous moments of the episode, D.A. Schiff notes that "J. Edgar Hoover would be proud.") This dispenses with the Patricia Cornwell clippings from the Law & Order writers' file. In February 1997, former FBI agent Eugene Bennett was convicted of the attempted murder of his wife Marguerite, also an FBI agent. Mr. Bennett pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, claiming that he had multiple personality disorder brought on by undercover work and by the fear that his daughters would be raised by a lesbian. Mrs. Bennett testified that she had two intimate encounters with crime fiction writer Patricia Cornwell. [Wash. Post, April 7, 1999; Bennett v. Commonwealth, 511 S.E.2d 439. (Va. App. 1999).]

Suspicion turns to Dean, who is arrested and put on trial for murder. In a flash of brilliance (again, sarcasm), Dean's lawyer decides to employ the "gay panic defense." We most certainly owe this one to clippings about a recent case from Laramie, Wyoming. To the show's minor credit, though, the script accurately summarizes the judge's eventual rejection of the panic defense.

Twist number two: just before the trial is about to end, a cop comes forward and gives Dean an alibi. (The convolutions of why this did not come out earlier are both unbelievable and not worth repeating.) Apparently there is no drawing room or study in the D.A.'s office, so McCoy has to resort to gathering all the suspects (Agatha Christie-style) in a conference room to expose the "true" murderer: Dean's and Carolyn's daughter Courtney. She apparently learned that her mom was having an affair with the femme fatale, took Mom's gun from the safe in the living room, sneaked away from her babysitting job, and committed the murder.

Daddy Dean, however, will not let young Courtney go to jail, so he decides to plead guilty to second-degree murder himself. This puts McCoy in a bind: he doesn't want the wrong person to go to jail, but he doesn't want to dismiss the charges against Dean because he can't be certain Dean is innocent. Dean pleads guilty and is carted off to prison.

Certain events in this episode are only mildly unbelievable. When initially confronted with the "your husband is having an affair theory," Carolyn Tyler, a trained FBI agent, willingly agrees to accompany the detectives down to the station house for questioning. "I have nothing to hide," she reasons. Ludicrous. First, if she's a good FBI agent, she knows that people say stupid things when they are being interrogated, regardless of whether there's anything to hide. Second, Carloyn does have something to hide: she's having an affair with the mystery writer. If this minor detail comes out, she must realize, things will get complicated.

The FBI's reaction to the whole situation is even more far-fetched. When Carolyn's supervisor finds out that Carolyn has been arrested, he goes to McCoy and asks to cut a deal quickly. Carolyn will plead to second-degree manslaughter, the FBI promises, on the theory that she committed the murder while under extreme emotional distress. Now we're in the land of the X-Files. Television loves to bash the FBI for its hubris, but it's a stretch to suggest that the FBI can get an agent to plead to a murder--one the agent says she didn't commit--just to avoid a scandal. Fortunately, Carolyn clears this up quickly by flatly refusing to plead guilty.

In the "unbelievable but lawyers have actually tried it" category is the "gay panic defense." Even Dean Tyler's lawyer has little more to say about it than the fact that no one took the Twinkie defense seriously, either--until it worked. In perhaps the only entertaining legal exchange of the hour, Dean calls a so-called "expert" to testify that Mr. Tyler's "sudden realization of his wife's homosexuality caused a meltdown." On cross-examination, McCoy skillfully undermines the defense, demonstrating that Dean's alleged actions were careful and that he is a former Marine and decorated FBI agent with rock solid FBI psychological evaluations. Put a fork in the expert, he's done. There was no panic. (See, for the defense to be relevant, there has to be both "gay" and "panic.")

The judge kicks this defense out, as he should. (Legal practice tip: when the judge rules against Tyler's lawyer on the panic defense, the lawyer makes sure he says "exception noted." This indicates that he objects to the ruling, preserving the issue for appeal. Appellate courts love to dismiss cases when lawyers have not properly made objections at trial, so Tyler's lawyer is right to play it safe.) All of this turns out to be irrelevant when the show reveals the "true" murderer with only four minutes left before the 11 o'clock news.

Aside from the fact that it makes no sense that the daughter committed the murder, the rushed ending leaves a lot unexplained. How did Courtney get into the safe where her mom kept her gun? Did Dean Tyler know that it was his daughter all along? Was the whole "gay panic defense" just a ruse?

Finally, there's the wholly unbelievable ending: the judge's decision to accept Dean Tyler's guilty plea. The judge says that Dean has a right to plead guilty and insists that he will sanction the plea if McCoy doesn't drop the charges. Well, it's a free country, as the saying goes, but before accepting a guilty plea a judge has the duty to ensure that the plea is knowing, voluntary, and supported by evidence that the defendant in fact committed the crime charged. Ooops. Dean has an alibi for the murder, and the judge knows it. The rest is a legal fiction.

Schiff tries to make it look like the plot is poorly tied together for a reason: "We'll have to wait for P.K. Todd's next novel to get the real story." I don't believe him. The show painted itself into a corner, and all semblance of credibility is thrown out to engineer a pulp fiction ending. It's a transparent ploy to make sure we stay tuned until the end of the episode. Maybe NBC got its schedule mixed up and thought the last ten minutes of Law and Order would be competing with Fox's latest "people will do anything on TV" spectacle, a live and legally binding wedding. I'd rather watch reruns of the wedding. At least there the judge got the law right.

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