I was more pissed off that they cut to black as the verdict was read. Obviously it's based on Mangione but seriously?

Were they not allowed to provide a verdict because Mangione hasn't even gone to trial yet and it could taint the jury pool? I mean, it's still a fictionalized story. But after watching the back half courtroom side I certainly expected a payoff to see whether the ADA would still somehow win or at the very least file a complaint against the obviously biased judge.

There is no such restriction on a fictionalized story based on a real crime. They did that because the real case is so high profile and has divided opinions on what Mangione did. They don't provide a jury verdict so that the viewer has to consider what they think about the crime.

Yeah I left the word "justifiable" but edited my post to fix it. When I mentioned bias I meant more on the creatives behind the scenes not wanting to upset sponsors while still showing that the public seemed to support what the shooter did. That kind of fence sitting lead to the abrupt ending.

I found the end to be a cop-out. If you want to be so damn close to the real story, tell us what you think with a verdict. If you don't want to comment on a real-life headline, don't make your fictional story as close to the real thing as possible.

More of a return to form last night. Not so much "ripped from the headlines". I also like episodes that have two angles to the story, where the police case is one thing, and then the trial is another. This was one of those episodes. They found the murderer in the first half, but someone else was tried for reasons I won't spoil.

I also like episodes like that where

I had things happening on Thursday nights throughout most of April and May and have only caught up recently with the last few episodes of the season. There was a surprisingly good run down the stretch, a lot of good court drama unrelated to the police procedural side, a lot less "ripped from the headlines" BS, etc. I like the current cast, I'm glad the show is renewed. No, it's still not up there with "classic" L&O, but it's entirely watchable, after some out-of-the-gate stumbles upon the revival.

Mehcad Brooks is leaving the show.

That's too bad! He was great on the show but they probably did as much as they could with his character. He's been great ever since True Blood and really deserves to be getting better roles. Unfortunately all the roles he would be great in Michael B Jordan already has locked up.

Hope he already has something set up and this wasn't just because of a salary dispute or something.

Agreed. He was great in the role, IMO. Not his fault the writers/creators dropped a deuce with Donovan's character originally.

Maybe he's content living off the Jax/MK checks.

Perhaps his part in Mortal Kombat II is so good that he gambles on better offers, without being locked under a year long contract. I first saw him in Desperate Housewives and didn't like him at all, he grew on me in True Blood and Mortal Kombat and last week I started with the L&O crossover and season 22 and I think he does really well in a more marture part.

They should bring back Jesse Martin now that his new show has been cancelled by NBC.

Have they not announced the new detective yet? I just saw a promo picture for the season premiere, and it only had Riley and the Lt.

And they officially announced the new series regular detective today.

British actor David Ajala from Star Trek Discovery

X - Formerly Twitter

The new season premieres tomorrow.

After 25 years shouldn't they have prosecuted every man, woman and child living in NYC?

Anyone else watching this?

I thought they did a nice job continuing the storyline from last seasons finale. I almost wish Maroun had killed the guy and then Price would be forced to confront his moral compass about whether or not she was justified and not win prosecuting her. But the way they ended up showing this same argument was just as effective. Price has been annoying since this reboot came back with his constant BS about 'the law is sacred and must always be followed to the letter'. Glad to see he finally recognizes there are times when things are gray and you have to rely on doing 'what you think is right' versus precedent and established law.

As usual Tony Goldwyn and Maura Tierney are basically wasted with about 3 minutes of screen time per episode. Such great actors left doing this? I guess they must see it as a cushy gig.

And although it was already announced and known, really sad to see Mechad Brooks gone. Thought he did a great job. And he gets written off with a one sentence explanation at the beginning of the episode.

In the 10 year hiatus a lot of offenders got away and a lot of murderers are back on the streets after 35 years. So they prosecute repeat offenders from the 90s.

I had forgotten how the last season even ended.

I know they have to do it for dramatic license, but I can't believe the DA would allow Price and Maroun to try that case. I don't think the city of New York only has two prosecutors on staff.

I just finished season 15, which leaves me with S16, S4 and S5 unwatched on the restart I'm at 22x08. I started watching L&O on a regular basis when S17 started, when ist ended 15 years ago I started to watch older season, although I don't remember why I didn't watch seasons 4 and 5.

The older seasons are definitely better than the episodes of seasons 21 and 22, but I think it has a lot to do with Sam Waterston and Jerry Orbach.

Do we know which episode Book will show up in as the 2nd detective?

Was season 5 the best cast because it was the only season with Chris Noth on the cop team and Sam Waterson on the lawyer team?

After that, I would go season 10.

North, Orbach, Waterston, Hennessy, Merkerson and Hill was probably the best setup, since there was really no weak link the cast. I was never the biggest fan of Jesse L. Martin. He was perfectly fine, but unlike Noth he was never an equal to Jerry Orbach and when he partnered up with Dennis Farina he was the 2nd fiddle again and I actually prefered the couple of episodes he was replaced with Michael Imperioli.

My vote for the 2nd best cast goes to season 19 with Jeremy Sisto, Anthony Anderson, Linus Roache, Alana de la Garza, S. Epatha Merkerson and Sam Waterston. McCoy's promotion was a logical step, but it was kind of said to see him for 2 minutes per episode instead of the 20 minutes he got before.

well he showed up 2 weeks ago and right off I'm thinking miscast. It's like they just wanted to plug in random black actor in his mid 30s. I know its only been a few episodes so far but the writers are making him out to be another 'angry black cop who secretly works against the systemic racism and shows his white partner how hard it is for him'. We just saw all that with Mechad Brooks (who was way more charismatic).

Not a fan of this show constantly plugging in 2 different race partners. Like how often does that happen in NYC? I'm guessing not often. Personally I was enjoying watching Maura Tierney as his partner. She's more interesting to watch than either one of the current guys.

Episodes this season so far have been very weak storyline wise. Writers need to step it up and stop churning out such mediocre stuff.

Based on how close to the start of the new season that the news is Mechad Brooks wasn't coming back, I'd bet that these episodes were written before he quit the show and just quickly reworked for the new character.

Yeah, no way they had time to re-write episodes for the new character. The main story points are the same as they would have been with the previous actor. Just altered where needed to make it fit for someone different.

They need to stop trying to make "SVU Crossover event" a thing.

Last night was a convoluted mess of a story with Ukrainians, embryos, and white supremacy communities.