Law and Order: "Appraisal" (Dick Wolf Entertainment, Universal Television, NBC-TV, aired May 10, 2023)

by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2023 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved

Last night (Thursday, May 11) I watched the usual three consecutive episodes of Dick Wolf’s Law and Order franchise shows, including the flagship Law and Order and then a “crossover event” of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and Law and Order: Organized Crime that will go over the next week as well, marking the season finales of both shows. The Law and Order episode, “Appraisal,” was a fascinating and chilling tale that begins at the opening of a major exhibit at a fancy upper-end art gallery. The gallery owner is Madison Platt (Christina Brucato) and the featured artist is Sarah Baker (Morgan McGhee), a young African-American who creates mixed-media pieces and is considered a major up-and-comer until she gets murdered by person or persons unknown shortly after the opening reception shuts down. The lead detectives, Frank Cosgrove (Jeffrey Donovan) and Jalen Shaw (Mehcad Brooks), gather up surveillance footage from the area around the gallery after the gallery’s own cameras turn out to have been hacked so they stopped recording after 10:09 p.m. Eventually the footage they do have shows an unidentifiable man driving a black SUV and moving a wooden crate out of the gallery after the opening, and they are able to find the crate containing Sarah’s body. With Madison also missing, prosecutors Nolan Price (Hugh Dancy) and Samantha Maroun (Odelya Halevi) ultimately indict Matthew Nelson (Nicholas Podany in a hauntingly effective portrayal of amoral evil), a young hotshot with big investments in cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens (NFT’s).

He had briefly had an affair with Sarah until breaking up with her over an NFT she sold him that collapsed in value rather than going up, and the night before her opening he knocked on her apartment and yelled something at her – though given that the surveillance footage on which this was preserved is silent, the cops don’t know what. The prosecutors ultimately indict Matthew Nelson for murdering both Sarah Baker and Madison Platt, which becomes an embarrassment when Madison turns out to be very much alive, hiding in a storage space from Matthew. Matthew’s motive turns out to be that the New York state government was investigating him for fraud in connection with his dealings in crypto and NFT’s, and Sarah was the principal witness against him until he silenced her permanently. Madison agrees to turn state’s evidence against Matthew in his murder trial, only to lose it completely on the witness stand after she sees Matthew pantomiming pointing a gun at her and shooting her. With his case in ruins, Nolan Price hears the offer of Matthew’s attorney, Susan Koslow (Vivia Font), for first-degree manslaughter and a sentence of no more than 10 years, in exchange for which he will reveal the whereabouts of all the money he stole from city workers’ pension funds. District attorney Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) urges Price to take the deal, but Price is appalled at the idea that Matthew will be able effectively to buy his way out of a murder charge and turns down the offer. Later Frank Cosgrove offers to testify that he overheard Madison blame Matthew for the shooting even though Cosgrove himself was wounded by Matthew with his untraceable “ghost gun.” Matthew is duly found guilty, though given how many even less likely villains the Law and Order writers have brought back over the years I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see him return – and indeed I hope to: he’s far too fascinating a villain to lose after just one episode!