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Recap / Law And Order S 20 E 12 Blackmail

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Megan Kerik, a gossip columnist, interviews a woman named Sarah who has had an affair with her boss. Later, Megan is found strangled to death. Sarah tells the detectives that Megan planned to publish an exposé about the talk show host Vanessa Carville. Vanessa is known for sleeping with her female employees including Sarah and possibly Megan herself, who used to work for Vanessa.

Vanessa has gone to McCoy to report she is being blackmailed. Someone is demanding $3 million dollars in exchange for not publishing a dossier containing proof of her affairs with Megan and many other employees. Vanessa arranges to meet the blackmailer, and the detectives tail her. They arrest Megan's editor and boyfriend, Dennis De Palma (Raúl Esparza).

Rubirosa finds out that Dennis went to the Cayman Islands with Megan to open a secret offshore account to deposit the blackmail money into. Dennis has Sarah's stolen computer with compromising material on it, but the theft took place while he was abroad - so someone else is involved. Vanessa announces she is withdrawing her complaint against Dennis. There is no evidence to charge him for Megan's murder so he is released.

McCoy questions why Dennis would risk jail for blackmail, when he could publish his story about Vanessa legally and make a lot of money. It turns out Dennis himself is being blackmailed by his sub-editor Derek Fanning. The police receive an anonymous video apparently of Dennis killing Megan, but a reflection shows there is someone else in the background. Cutter and Rubirosa confront Dennis to get the truth.

Dennis says Fanning forced him to stage a video of him pretending to strangle Megan. Fanning killed her, and then pushed Dennis to go ahead with blackmailing Vanessa, or Fanning would send the video to the police and frame him for Megan's murder. But Dennis refuses to testify and the prosecutors still cannot pin the murder on him.

Instead, McCoy threatens Vanessa with a drugs charge unless she testifies against Dennis for blackmail. Rather than go to jail, he takes a plea in exchange for his testimony against Fanning. Rubirosa is doubtful if the DAs did the right thing. She asks rhetorically if it would be right to kill someone in order to catch a murderer. Cutter jokes that he'd be open to it.


  • Blackmail: What drives the plot of the episode.
  • Chain of Deals: The prosecutors have to do this in order to get Fanning for the murder.
  • Depraved Bisexual: Vanessa is a bisexual woman who manipulates, seduces, and generally takes advantage of her employees.
  • Frame-Up: Fanning threatened to frame Dennis for Megan's murder if he didn't play ball.
  • Karma Houdini: Technically speaking, the worst thing that happens to Vanessa is she is forced to press charges against her boyfriend so that he, in turn, will testify against the person who actually murdered Megan. Other than that, she faces little to no consequences for taking advantage of several of her female employees sexually.
  • Really Gets Around: Vanessa has had affairs with a large number of women working for her.
  • She Knows Too Much: Fanning thought Megan knew too much so he killed her.

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