Law and Order: "Inconvenient Truth" (Dick Wolf Entertainment, Universal Television, NBC-TV, aired April 18, 2024)

by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2024 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved

Last night (Thursday, April 18) I watched the usual trifecta of Law and Order shows on NBC – though they’re doing yet another hiatus next Thursday and won’t be back until May 2. The flagship Law and Order episode, “Inconvenient Truth” (though it had nothing to do with climate change or Al Gore!) was O.K. It featured Jordan Bryant (Apollo Levine), an African-American who 12 years earlier was convicted of raping a white woman, and while he was in prison he defended himself as best he could. He also worked in the prison kitchen and determined to have an above-board legal career as a chef when he got out, which he did thanks to the efforts of attorney Keith Palmer (Paul Schultze). Keith Palmer also filed a lawsuit against the city on Jordan’s behalf and won a settlement of $10 million, but Palmer not only took 55 percent of the settlement as his fee (the standard is one-third) but billed Jordan for all his expenses in researching the case, including his paralegals, deposition expenses and the like. Jordan determined to open his own restaurant with the $1 million he had left (less $100,000 he gave to his estranged daughter, with which she was able to pay off her student loans) but got into arguments with his (white) business partner over money.

Then Jordan is knifed to death outside the restaurant after briefly having an argument with someone inside, and the police and prosecutors come to the conclusion that Keith Palmer deliberately murdered Jordan because Palmer was in line for a judicial appointment and the suit Jordan was threatening to file against Palmer could have derailed it. Prosecutors Nolan Price (Hugh Dancy) and Samantha Maroun (Odelya Halevi) actually take Jordan to trial, but in the middle of the trial he whips out a document that gives him an unshakable alibi: he was in his car receiving an automated traffic ticket at the time of the murder, and he was photographed in the act. Ultimately it turns out that Jordan was actually killed by Palmer’s wife Amanda (Jodi Stevens), who resented him for potentially destroying her husband’s career and his opportunity for a judgeship. There’s a potentially fascinating sequel to this one in which Keith Palmer represents his wife in court and manages to get her acquitted by savaging the prosecution and arguing, “A few weeks ago you were equally certain I committed this crime!” But as things stand, despite the attempt of writers Gia Gordon and Pamela Wechsler to make some social comments about the unreliability of eyewitness testimony (their whole case against Keith rested on a rather twitchy waiter who more or less placed him at the scene of the crime), ultimately it was one of the less satisfying recent Law and Orders and the wife ex machina gimmick really bothered me.