Law & Order Addresses Dixon’s Departure in Season 24 Premiere — Read Recap, Then Grade the Ep!
The case of What Happened to Law & Order‘s Lt. Kate Dixon? has been solved.
Though we’ve known for months that Camryn Manheim wasn’t returning to the NBC procedural, the Season 23 finale — her last episode — didn’t deal with the fact that Manheim’s character wouldn’t be around in the future.
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And even Thursday’s Season 24 premiere didn’t give up Dixon’s whereabouts right away. Read on to meet her replacement, go through a harrowing domestic-abuse case that leaves Maroun shaken and sobbing and — yeah — learn what became of Shaw and Riley’s boss.
VICTORY! | Baxter is being interviewed on a news-talk show, which is how we learn that he won the election and is now Manhattan’s District Attorney. She asks him about the Brooklyn D.A.’s going after a conservative politician, but Baxter won’t comment. “I intend to protect the reputation and integrity of the Manhattan D.A.’s office with every fiber of my being, focusing on the law and ignoring the divisive political rhetoric that’s so rampant in our society.” He also promises to prosecute those who engage in lawless violence… which just so happens to be unfolding as he speaks!
Shaw and Riley arrive at the scene of a strangulation and realize they have an uninvited guest: Their new lieutenant, Jessica Brady (played by The Affair’s Maura Tierney), whom they haven’t yet met. “What happened to Dixon?” Shaw wonders. “I don’t know,” Brady says matter-of-factly.
OFF TO A GREAT START | Turns out, the woman who was killed was named Macy, and she was a prosecutor in the Brooklyn D.A.’s office, aka “one of us,” Brady points out. Her distraught fiancé (who’s also the heir to a clothing-line fortune) tells the cops that their security cameras were smashed a few days before; he was out at dinner with the owner of a right-wing news website when the crime happened.
Brady presses Riley and Shaw to work more quickly, given that the mayor and various other bigwigs are demanding updates. And when he chafes at her blunt directives, she immediately takes him aside. “Look, I know you were close to Dixon, I know it’s hard to start all over again with someone new and all of that stuff,” she says. “But really, that’s your problem, not mine. I don’t need you to like me. I don’t need you to agree with me. I need you to listen to me.” What’s left for him to say, except “Copy that”?
Kenneth Lane, the owner of the right-wing site (which is eyerollingly named Kurrent/See), tells Shaw and Riley he was with her fiancé, Dylan, for dinner the night of the murder. Then they learn that she’d lied to Dylan, about where she was the week before the attack: She’d actually been staying at a shelter for abused women, where she told others that Dylan had been physically harming her. Plus, the medical examiner found his DNA under her fingernails, which earns him an arrest right there on his patio.
GO TO THE TAPE | Price and Maroun realize that Dylan had been paying Lane to bury Diddy-reminiscent hotel surveillance footage of Dylan beating Macy in the hallways. Sam is visibly upset by the admittedly very troubling footage and has to leave the room as she and Nolan present the evidence to Baxter. Even more troubling: There are six other videos, involving two other women, and Lane got rid of them all.
Nolan argues successfully to have the videos played during the trial. Soon after, Dylan hangs himself in the atrium of his grand home. But Sam — for reasons we aren’t privy to — is determined to place Lane at the scene, too. And when they track down the car-share driver who ferried the men to the house that night, they think they’ve got all the ammo they need.
But Lane gets to the driver, paying him off so he won’t testify, and the case crumbles like a stale Nilla wafer. Baxter says they have to drop it, which makes Sam incensed, but he won’t budge. “This office has to be above reproach, above emotion, above the political fray,” he says. After Ramoun stalks out of the office, Baxter tells Price that she needs to control her emotions; Price explains that Sam’s sister was beaten to death, and the police never arrested the killer.
When he can’t find Sam later, Nolan hops in a car and manages to intercept her before she talks to the driver herself — a big no-no, now that he’s got a lawyer. “I know how much you loved her,” he says, bringing her to angry tears. “Please don’t throw away your career. This is not what she would have wanted.” She then seems to realize exactly how far out of bounds she is and starts to sob, collapsing against Price as she cries.
DIXON’S IRISH EXIT | Let’s end on a slightly more uplifting note, hmm? At one point, Riley gets a text from Dixon that lets us know why she’s gone. “Patrick got a great job at a school in Miami. Mom is tagging along,” he reads to Shaw. “Didn’t want to make a big to-do about it, tears and all that. Come visit.”
Now it’s your turn! Grade the premiere via the poll below, then hit the comments with your thoughts!
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