LAW & ORDER {LAW AND ORDER}: CRIMINAL INTENT: CONSCIENCE (TV)
Summary
The second of two programs found on B:88561. One in this series of dramas — a spin-off of "Law & Order" — that deals with the investigation, arrest, and prosecution of criminals, but with a slight twist: each episode begins from the criminal's point of view as the actual crime is committed. In this episode, Dr. Anna Ford, known for her work studying coma patients, is found drowned in a pool, having lost consciousness after being covertly dosed with fentanyl, absorbed into her skin via DMSO, in her swimming gloves. Her research assistant Daris Macelvoy admits that he accidentally let slip about her secret "pet project," in which she dosed vegetative patients with DMSO and then tested their brainwave reaction to music, while being deposed regarding patient Laraine Farrell. Goren and Eames investigate the Farrell family, learning that Laraine's 18-year-old son Gary, who witnessed her collapse and heart failure during a hike six years earlier, likely vandalized "voodoo doctor" Ford's car prior to her death.
Gary, a paramedic-in-training with access to the drugs in question, denies committing the murder and explains that he wishes to let his mother go, while stepdad Mark does not. Eames and Goren begin to suspect that Mark purposefully engineered Laraine's heart failure by allowing her to become dangerously dehydrated, though Deakins needs more evidence. The motive seems unclear, as Gary, not Mark, is Laraine's sole legal heir, but when the detectives find that Laraine secretly embezzled millions from her old company, which in turn had swindled its employees and destroyed their pensions, they realize that Mark needs to keep his wife, who had learned of her husband's attempts to steal from her right before her collapse, technically alive but entirely helpless in order to continue receiving the monthly stipends from the secret fund.
Macelvoy explains that Ford's findings about her vegetative patients' brain activity were inconclusive at best, but Deakins convinces a judge to allow Laraine to "testify" on her own behalf, using brain monitoring and her eye movement to "yes" and "no" cards. With both Mark and Gary in the room, Macelvoy reads out the results as Goren and Eames question Laraine, and she seems to implicate Mark in causing her collapse for financial gain. The detectives give Mark a final chance to confess, and he tearfully admits to murdering Ford, having been afraid that her experiments might allow Laraine to communicate and reveal his dirty secrets. As he is hauled away, begging for his wife's forgiveness, Gary sadly observes that his mother wasn't really communicating with them at all, and the entire thing was a charade to trick Mark into confessing. Goren, however, is left wondering just how much she knows and observes. Commercials deleted.
Details
- NETWORK: NBC
- DATE: 10:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:43:58
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: 140822
- GENRE: Drama, police/detective
- SUBJECT HEADING: Drama, police/detective; Drama, legal; Murder
- SERIES RUN: NBC - TV series, 2001-2011
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Peter Jankowski … Executive Producer
- Fred Berner … Executive Producer
- Dick Wolf … Executive Producer, Created by
- René Balcer … Executive Producer, Developed by
- Arthur W. Forney … Co-Executive Producer
- Marlane Gomard Meyer … Co-Executive Producer
- Warren Leight … Co-Executive Producer, Writer
- Michael Kewley … Supervising Producer
- Gerry Conway … Supervising Producer, Writer
- John L. Roman … Producer
- Mary Rae Thewlis … Co-Producer
- Stephanie Sengupta … Co-Producer
- Tim DeLuca … Co-Producer
- Jamie Blank … Associate Producer
- Alex Chapple … Director
- Mike Post … Music by
- Vincent D'Onofrio … Cast, Detective Robert Goren
- Kathryn Erbe … Cast, Detective Alexandra "Alex" Eames
- Jamey Sheridan … Cast, Captain James Deakins
- Courtney B. Vance … Cast, A.D.A. Ron Carver
- John Savage … Cast, Mark Farrell
- John Gallagher Jr. … Cast, Gary
- Geoffrey Arend … Cast, Daris Macelvoy
- Guy Boyd … Cast, Burton Foche
- Leslie Hendrix … Cast, Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers
- Tom Bloom … Cast, Neurosurgeon
- James Murtagh … Cast, Ned Worley
- Judy Kuhn … Cast, Dr. Anna Ford
- Barbara Andres … Cast, Judith Worley
- David Manis … Cast, Charles Ergen
- Dee Pelletier … Cast, Laraine Farrell
- Phyllis Bash … Cast, Judge Gilcrest
- Jim Coope … Cast, Detective Cunningham
- Portia (see also: Tammy Morris) … Cast, Nurse
- Mike Macchio … Cast, Vic
- Heidi Landis … Cast, Nurse Morales
- Dawn Evans … Cast, Woman
- Bard Goodrich … Cast, Technician