ADA Price Throws the New Detective Under the Bus on 'Law & Order'

By Dustin Rowles | TV | February 2, 2024 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | February 2, 2024 |

In a typical episode of Law & Order, the police investigate a crime, and the district attorney prosecutes the offender. The two typically work together to collect evidence and build a case. This week’s episode, however, presented a wrinkle in the criminal trial of a serial killer named Bruce Elliot.

Correct me if I am wrong, but in old L&O episodes, the cold open always involved the detectives looking over a dead body. This season, each cold open has presented the death itself, perhaps to tell the audience that the dead are more than corpses. This particular corpse is as grisly as I’ve seen on Law & Order, strangled so violently that a certain neckbone is broken.

The investigation into Celeste Clark’s murder winds through a sex club (and a coy joking-but-maybe-not remark from Detective Yee about visiting them) and eventually to Bruce, one of its clients seen with the victim in the club the night she died. A search warrant reveals in Bruce’s apartment a piece of jewelry belonging to Celeste.

Open and shut case, right? There are a few twists. First, Celeste is white, but the murder of three Black women who all died in the same violent manner as Celeste appear to be connected, one of which was investigated several years ago by newcomer Detective Riley. There’s some slight tension between Riley and Shaw about how the Black victims do not get the attention of the white victim, but Riley’s not that guy, and Shaw lets it go.

Alas, the prosecutors do not have enough evidence to connect Bruce to the other three murders, much to the dismay of their families. They decided to prosecute Bruce only on Celeste’s slam dunk case. The slam dunk, however, gets botched, which eventually puts ADA Price in a bind: To win his case, he basically needs to throw Detective Riley under the bus and accuse him of shoddy police work in the investigation of one of the unsolved murders of the Black women.

Lieutenant Kate Dixon tries to talk Price out of it, but Price not only insists on moving ahead with the strategy but insists on finding out why Riley was suspended — a backstory that has been alluded to but not explained yet this season. Long story short: His Dad was dying, he was working so much overtime to pay the medical bills that his wife left him with the kids, and he was drinking on the job from time to time. One day, Dixon’s boss called Dixon a bitch, Riley overheard, and he walked in a threw a punch at the captain. He also happened to be a little tipsy when it happened. His heart was in the right place, bless him, but he displayed terrible judgment.

Price used it against Riley on the stand, throwing him to the wolves. Afterward, however, Riley was not only understanding — “it had to be done” — but he dug up new evidence linking Bruce to the unsolved murders. Bruce owned pieces of jewelry from each of the dead women. Game. Set. Guilty.

Only three more episodes, however, before Sam Waterston’s Jack McCoy is replaced in the DA’s office by a character played by Tony Goldwyn.