‘Chicago Justice’ Is the New ‘Law & Order’
Having first created the Law & Order franchise and letting them all run their courses until only special victims remain to be defended, producer Dick Wolf then turned his God-like gaze to the Windy City and created a second franchise, of Chicagos Fire, P.D., Med, and now, Chicago Justice. This new Chi-Town show, however, does something different: It completes a circle, bringing us back to Wolf’s original concept. Chicago Justice is just Law & Order in a windbreaker.
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The show stars Philip Winchester, trading in his camouflage fatigues from Cinemax’s Strike Back for a natty suit and tie, playing prosecutor Peter Stone. The show adheres to the Law & Order template. Stone has a female colleague — Monica Barbaro’s Assistant State’s Attorney Anna Valdez — and the duo has a crusty boss who, since Fred Thompson is no longer with us, is played by Carl Weathers. Over on the “order” side of the equation, there are a pair of contrasting cops, Justified’s Joelle Carter as Investigator Laura Nagel and Jon Seda (imported from Chicago P.D.) as Chief Investigator Antonio Dawson.
The case in Sunday night’s time-period premiere on NBC is ripped-from-headlines stuff about a suspect who dies in police custody. Everyone hustles around gathering evidence and drafting motions, and my heart sank a little as the realization set in that Carter, so good, smart, lively, and funny as Ava Crowder on Justified, is fated to play a muted second fiddle for seasons to come on this show, much as the talented, sparky Kathryn Erbe used to get sidelined by Vincent D’Onofrio’s cavalcade of tics, mannerisms, and showboating on Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
The plot of this episode, however, never gets in the way of the story the hour really wants to tell, which is that Peter Stone is actually the son of Ben Stone, the OG DA on Law & Order from 1990 to 1994. To dramatize this, Dick Wolf has invited Stone’s old partner, Paul Robinette, played by Richard Brooks, to make a guest appearance. Brooks, looking sleek and sly-foxy, is a welcome contrast to Winchester’s Peter Stone, a stiff-backed, pious type. The reason for that is the subtext of the episode that becomes its true text: Robinette’s nostalgic talk of Peter’s daddy immediately reveals long-simmering issues between father and son. Peter does not share Robinette’s fond feelings for Ben. While the source of the animosity is unclear, it is clear that the pair haven’t talked in quite a while, and Peter has pushed himself to become a man unlike his father as much as possible.
Whether this father-son dynamic will continue to be a strong subplot on Justice remains to be seen, but for now it hamstrings Winchester, whose character is such a model of rectitude, he’s a stiff. By the end of the hour, I was wishing Jerry Orbach was still alive to come loping into Chicago with his New York City slouch, to offer some choice bit of sarcasm. In the meantime, I’m starting a petition to liberate Joelle Carter; let me know if you want to sign it.
Chicago Justice airs Sundays at 10 p.m. on NBC.
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