A senator's ex-wife is found bludgeoned with a fire poker and a wooden spoon in her... You know where. Detectives Green and Cassidy discover that she abused both her kids. With a wooden spoon, usually. The evidence points to the daughter. They go to question the daughter, when they find that her father, the aforementioned senator (Harry Hamlin), has stabbed her to death. The father then pokes at himself with the knife so he can claim self-defense, but only Cassidy sees this.
The judge at the pretrial (Jeffrey Tambor) is overly emotional and overly sympathetic and Jack asks him to recuse himself, but no such luck. During the trial, Rodgers testifies that the senator's "defense wounds" were most likely self-inflicted, saying that he could have learned the trick from one of the crime novels in his collection, and cites an example. She later realizes she cited the wrong book, and Jack decides to cut the reference to it from his summation. Arthur takes him off the case and has Connie do the summation, where she compares the difference in wounds: his were superficial and carefully avoided all vital organs; hers were numerous and suggest that whoever stabbed her was enraged. The jury convicts.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: And how. Both parents have been abusing the children for decades, the daughter then abuses her younger brother, he develops a drug problem (yet still manages to be the most normal of the members), the father gets his daughter drunk as a preteen and lets his buddies take turns groping her, she ends up marrying an abuser...
- Broken Pedestal: Downplayed with Branch. He worked with and befriended Senator Bailey throughout the years, but was absolutely stunned to find out about the many sordid secrets he kept, even at one point saying, "Man."
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Averted: as odd as Judge Dilwynn is off the bench, he's also shown not to be very good at presiding over a murder case, which is also said to be his first ever (he was pulled from surrogates court).
- Cold Ham: Judge Dilwynn. He's as over-the-top as he can be in such an otherwise staid environment. Being played by Jeffrey Tambor helps.
- Deadpan Snarker: Rodgers, of course, as she is performing Nicole's autopsy:"The spoon was inserted only once, not in and out like in sexually-based homicides. (Beat) Which reminds me, I need to bake a cake for my nephew."
- McCoy himself, of course, has a moment during Senator Bailey's murder trial when he's on the stand and confronted with pictures of his daughter's brutal childhood injuries of abuse:
Bailey: Those are old playground injuries.
McCoy: (outraged) Playground injuries? Who was she playing with, the New York Giants?!
Judge Dilwynn: Objection, Mr. McCoy! You're out of line! - Hair-Trigger Temper: Sen. Bailey, as Cassady soon found out.
- Ironic Echo Cut: A waitress tells a coworker about the audacious manner of Nicole Bailey threatening her to move from her assigned table in the back to get a closer one to wind up in the society papers. The very next scene shows that she will be in the papers, only now as a murder victim, having been brutally beaten to death.
- Irony: Arthur Branch's last lines in the episode are saying that one day, McCoy is going to be in his seat, with the latter proclaiming he's not cut out for the politician work required. At the start of the next season, McCoy is now the one in the District Attorney chair, with a new EADA in Jack Cutter taking his old position.
- Matricide: It turns out the senator's ex-wife was murdered by her own daughter.
- Offing the Offspring: Senator Bailey is caught in the act of killing his daughter. He ultimately makes a claim of self defense.
- Paparazzi: Surprisingly, the celebrity photographer from the episode was neither a jerk nor did he impede in the investigation, even lending detectives his camera to copy some incriminating shots.
- Put on a Bus: Weaponized when Bailey sends his son to rehab, which the boy does arguably need, but which also keeps him form being able to testify about the past abuse.
- Ripped from the Headlines: Based on aspects of Anna Nicole Smith's death, particularly the judge's behaviour during the trial.
- Also has a bizarre meta-example - Elizabeth Rodgers' mistake is based on a case where a person was accused of stealing their alibi from a Law & Order episode, which was then revealed to not actually exist.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections! / Money / I Make Them: Senator Bailey has been abusing his family for years and only twenty-plus years later is he finally punished for his crimes.
- Self-Defense Ruse: Senator Bailey's basic claim is that he killed his daughter in self-defense. The prosecution is successful in convincing the jury that this isn't the case.
- Skewed Priorities: When during the family argument Trina's husband tries to attack Green and he slams him into the bookcase, knocking over the books on it, Sen. Bailey cries out "Hey! Those are my first editions!"
- Sorrowful Stutter: A possible Played for Laughs (if not
Narm) version happens when Judge Dilwynn calls out McCoy for his supposed callousness towards Bailey while in chambers: when he discusses the various tragedies in his family, he momentarily breaks down in tears before composing himself and continuing. This only earns him looks of disbelief, including from an embarrassed Bailey. - Ungrateful Bastard: After Bailey is convicted, he starts yelling at Judge Dilwynn, a friend of his who he pulled some strings to get to preside over the case, calling him a hack and threatening to have him thrown off the bench.
- Unholy Matrimony: The Baileys horrifically and happily abused their children together and seem to have been genuinely in love (despite their divorce) based on Randall's reaction to her death.
- Upper-Class Twit: In the beginning of the episode, Nicole threatens a waitress at the society party to get her a better seat where the paparazzi will be able to photograph her.
- What Did I Do Last Night?: Bailey's son-in-law was drunk the night of the murder and eventually admits that he doesn't know if he was killing his mother-in-law, beating his wife or just passed out on the floor.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Both Nina Cassidy and Arthur Branch disappear after this episode. Branch is revealed to have retired at the start of the next season, but Cassidy's departure is given no explanation at all.note
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Bailey stabbed his own daughter yo death; when caught by a police officer, he stabbed himself and subsequently claimed that she tried to kill him.
