Season 1 Episode 2: Subterranean Homeboy Blues

To kick off our possibly lifelong attempt to watch and blog every episode of L&O and its spinoffs, Tony and I cued up a double-header. Really, the whole pleasure of L&O lies in watching a mildly nauseating number of episodes in a row. But since the first DVD gave us only two, we sacrificed ourselves for our art.

Personally, I'm a late addict to L&O. When the series began (circa 1990), I was living without a TV (a years-long mistake). By the time I'd gotten my entertainment priorities back in order, I was living in New York and regularly hassled by L&O crews filming in my neighborhood. I resented the show and refused to watch.

Fast forward 12 years to Northern California. I'd moved here by accident, and I missed New York intensely. But joining Tony on the sofa one night, I realized that--lo!--nearly every episode of Law & Order features recognizable scenes of New York. Homesick, I ignored the plotlines and focused instead on the scenery. I used to live on that block! That's Abingdon Square! Wait--there's no 400 block of West 84th Street! Hudson College? What the hell is that? I became a detective myself, and I didn't care how obnoxious I was to watch with.

I also became hooked. And the part of me that likes complete sets, neatly arranged wanted to watch all of the episodes ever--Law & Order in order. And so here we are.

All-time episode 2 is notable for the starring guest role played by a baby-faced Cynthia Nixon (bringing her together onscreen with Chris Noth  years before Sex and the City!), who performs Bernard Goetz-like justice on a C train. The show dealt very directly with the cops' and prosecutors' racism and sexism, leaving a trail of grey slime behind every major character. Bold move for a show that, two episodes in, was--according to Dick Wolf's description on the DVD bonus track--massively unpopular with advertisers and TV execs, save NBC's Brandon Tartikoff.

I had expected the first season to be painfully clunky and slow-moving--like to so many other shows' inaugural years. But L&O got off to a swift start. Although it lacked female regulars at the beginning, it looked from day 1 surprisingly like day 6,843 (or wherever we are now). I'm looking forward to the next several hundred episodes.

(Btw, this isn't remotely what Cynthia Nixon looked like in the L&O episode. It's an image I ripped from a celeb photo blog, and I just like it.)

Comments

[Amy Lavine]

Can't we at least know the basics of the plot and the twist?

[Sarah]

Cynthia Nixon gets hassled big-time by a couple of kids on a C train, and she shoots them. Moral dilemmas: Will the detectives take the shooting less seriously because the kids were black? Should the DA take into account that she believed they were going to rape her? Does it matter that one of the kids had a history of rape? Vigilante justice issues galore!