While on a raid against a group of drug dealers, one of Steve's fellow officers, Doug Vogel, is shot through the neck by his commanding officer Max Jupe. While the death is ruled accidental, Jupe feels a special sort of shame for shooting one of his fellow officers.
Well, that's the image that he would like the world to see. In reality, he colluded with Vogel's wife Janine in order to be rid of an obstacle between their affection. But Mark suspects something more to this story and smells a rat, weaving through a twisted web of deceit from all sides.
"Murder by Friendly Fire" displays symptoms of the following tropes:
- Amoral Attorney: Daniel Brent. He already gives off this vibe when he initially lies to Janine about having been Doug's lawyer, and then sleeping with her soon after being hirednote . He then more thoroughly digs himself into this trench by trying to blackmail Janine into half of her settlement money.
- And Starring: Jonathan Banks gets the credit with his character's name in this episode.
- A Deadly Affair: Doug Vogel killed at the hands of the man sleeping with his wife.
- Call-Back: The remaining filler text in the article of the pageant judge's suicide talks about a fight organized by Wayne Topping.
- Driven to Suicide: When Janine was competing in a beauty pageant, she seduced one of the judges into voting for her, and then when she had won, she spun back on her heel and sued him for sexual harassment. She got a $100,000 settlement, but the judge killed himself soon after.
- Femme Fatale: Janine is one in spades, having seduced Max to bump off her husband while planning to ditch him once her money had been acquired.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Pausing on the newspaper article Amanda digs up on Janine's history as a beauty queen reveals her maiden name to be "Anderson".
- Gangsta Style: As part of his probing on Max, Mark visits him at work and asks to be taught how to fire a gun. He initially holds it in this way, saying he thinks it looks cool in the movies. He then actually fires the pistol this way, and the recoil not only sends the thing out of his hands, it doesn't hit anywhere near the target.Max: And that's why they only do it in the movies. Now it might look good, but it's a lousy way to hold a Beretta.
- Inheritance Murder: Initially, Janine would walk away from Doug's murder with not only his life insurance policy (that he recently doubled), but the $400,000 spoils of his stock portfolio. Daniel Brent manages to convince her to sue Los Angeles over the death of Doug, which bumps the earning to a whopping $10,000,000.
- Mutual Kill: Janine's plan once Max has dealt with Daniel is to shoot him with a gun she bought in a pawn shop that she "convinced" the clerk into signing onto Daniel's name to make it look like they both killed each other.
- No Name Given: The newspaper article on the pageant judge's suicide doesn't actually list his name.
- Special Guest: Kim Johnston Ulrich gets the credit in this episode.
