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Law & Order: LA (2010-2011), originally titled Law & Order: Los Angeles, is a Law & Order spinoff set in Los Angeles. It was intended to replace the original series, which ended its successful 20-season run in 2010. However, it suffered low ratings, despite attempts to move it around in the schedule and a mid-season Retool that killed off one character, moved another from the DA's office to the LAPD, and introduced a transplant from the original series. It was canceled in May 2011, leaving several episodes from before the retool to be aired Out of Order.


This show provides examples of:

  • Action Mom: Teri Polo's character, who quit the force after becoming a mother. She might be a bit corrupt, or at least a little too eager to get a confession.
  • Alliterative Name: Carlton Campbell (Jesse Luken) in Harbor City.
  • Anyone Can Die: Rex Winters.
  • As Herself: Khloe Kardashian-Odom
  • Asshole Victim/Sympathetic Murderer: Exaggerated in "Echo Park". The murder victim is a recently released mass murderer. The killer spent six years in prison wrongfully convicted for murdering her children, and spent three of those years being raped and tortured by the victim. The DA even lampshades how horrible of a case to prosecute it it. The woman herself is actually willing to go back to prison, she just wants to the DA's office to openly state that she was innocent of killing her children.
  • Broken Aesop: Sylmar Don't cheat or god will kill your kids.
  • Bus Crash: Skeet Ulrich left mid-season. Alfred Molina's character was reassigned from DA to Homicide Detective while Ulrich's was killed off in Zuma Canyon.
  • Call-Back: At the start of "Benedict Canyon", Jaruszalski calls Morales 'counselor', a call back to when he was a DA.
  • Captain Ersatz: The Echo Park Family is a stand-in for the infamous "Manson Family".
  • Crossover: With Law & Order: Special Victims Unit when Terrence Howard's DA goes to defends his cousin and with Law & Order when Rubirosa moves to LA.
    • Prior to that, Olivia Benson came to LA on a case she was working on and worked with Det. Winters. That episode of SVU actually aired right before the Pilot of this show.
  • Double Standard: Rape, Female on Female: Averted, see Asshole Victim above. The rapist is already dead, but everyone is even more disgusted with her once they learn this.
  • Downer Ending: See Wham Episode.
  • Expy: The Lieutenant looks like an American version of the Detective Inspector, right down to the sweaters although the UK chief isn't gay, or at least hasn't been revealed as such.
  • Hello, Attorney!: Rubirosa. Also Dekker's original second chair.
  • Hide Your Lesbians: Technically, since these episodes take place before Winters' death but aired afterwards: The Hispanic Lieutenant gets in trouble after video of her recalling a time when she did racial profiling on a black man appears during the trial of a black man who shot up his all-Hispanic office because he thought they were all racists. It turned out that she was addressing a roomful of gay police officers (the same look of fear on her victims' face was the same as a lesbian who was beaten in NYC and she felt very ashamed) and didn't want to hurt the cops who hadn't come out of the closet or her young son. In the episodes after Winters' death but before this episode aired she and Morales seem to share a few unusually long looks (maybe she's actually bi, or they have some secret that would've been revealed next season?).
  • Horrible Hollywood: The series is pointedly hostile toward leftist celebrities, reflecting Dick Wolf's politics. This is in contrast to the original L&O which was often accused of being too liberal — a charge countered by McCoy (on a witness stand, no less!) in its final season.
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: All the episodes are named for their Los Angeles locales.
  • Important Haircut: Jaruszalski has an epic copstache. Which he shaves after Winter's death.
  • Ironic Death / Dramatic Irony: The golfer's son, who hates his father for being a serial philanderer, kills the one woman who is most definitely not sleeping with him due her to being in love with another woman. She was also ready to start a Humiliation Conga on her "romantic rival" (in her head; the girlfriend was essentially gay for pay) after he mocked her, something the son would've gladly gotten behind.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: The tagline for an episode dealing with a philandering golfer and his justifiably angry wife was "Oh yeah — we're going there".
  • Off on a Technicality: The serial killer (who appears to be based on the Grim Sleeper) from "Ballona Creek". He isn't free for long, though.
  • Oh, Crap!: The look on Moralez's face when Jaruszalski is trying to hold very still after potentially triggering a bomb. However, Moralez gets bonus points for willing choosing to stay despite the risk.
  • Pass the Popcorn: The main detectives, as they observe the killer from "Ballona Creek" being arrested by cops from another jurisdiction.
    Winters: "It's like watching a cop movie."
  • Prison Rape: Winds up being the motivation behind the murder in Echo Park.
  • Refuge in Audacity: Morales getting the obstructionist father declared a member of a street gang in Harbor City
  • Retool: Sensing trouble, NBC dropped Skeet Ulrich and bumped Alfred Molina to top billing. This was explained by Morales losing faith in the legal system, returning to his old career as a cop. His old spot was filled by ADA Rubirosa, aka that ridiculously attractive lawyer from the original Law & Order.
  • Ripped from the Headlines: The franchise has its own page.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: (most of) The Moon Bay Crew; undoubtedly many others.
  • Shout-Out: I want to believe a computer-game obsessed guy named Sheppard searching for someone named Freeman is this...
  • Socialite: It's set in Los Angeles, so the cops and attorneys sometimes have to deal with very rich, very privileged suspects and witnesses.
  • Tonight, Someone Dies: Det. Winters, we hardly knew ye.
  • Trailers Always Spoil: Previews for "Zuma Canyon" spoil pretty much everything, that Winters dies and that his killer gets away.
  • Verbal Tic: Luis "Bunnyman" Valdez got his nickname from the band Echo and the Bunnymen, because he has an odd habit of repeating what people say to him - like an echo. It's even described as "a verbal tic."
  • Western Terrorists: A white American Islamic fundamentalist terrorist cell is behind the deaths of two boys in Sylmar.
  • Wham Episode: Zuma Canyon ends with Rex Winters dead, the guy who ordered the hit (on top of a hit on a real estate agent which included collateral casualties in the form of some of his family and four kids... since it was said agent's daughter's quincinera (think Sweet 15) party) gets away when the witness, an 11-year old boy, is killed (on orders from said guy) and Morales quits being a deputy district attorney and returns to the LAPD as a detective, after being frustrated with the justice system and prosecutorial politics, becoming Jaruszalski's new partner.

Alternative Title(s): Law And Order Los Angeles

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