Law & Order Season 23 Finale: What Happened in Camryn Manheim’s Last Episode as Lt. Dixon?
Law & Order’s Season 23 finale on Thursday marked Camryn Manheim’s last episode as Lt. Kate Dixon — who won’t be returning next season — but the hour focused on Tony Goldwyn’s DA Baxter amid another high-profile murder investigation.
A famed sports star was killed, and detectives Shaw and Riley set out to find the culprit. Lt. Dixon oversaw the case on the police side, securing a warrant to arrest their main suspect, a stalker named Kyle Taggert who proved to be a valuable witness. It was his footage from that night which revealed Baxter was the intended target.
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Evidence pointed to Hector Conseco as their guy and he was apprehended in the crowd during Baxter’s campaign speech. At court, Baxter’s daughter Carrie (played by Goldwyn’s real-life daughter Tess) revealed that she saw Hector outside of the family’s home a week before the shooting.
With a key witness dead, all the prosecution had as evidence were the bullets from Hector’s apartment. Maroun suggested they consider a plea deal, which Baxter immediately — sorry — shot down.
Prosecutors hit another setback when Baxter took the stand to testify that he prosecuted Conseco’s gang associates, but the defense argued that was unrelated to the case. The judge (played by Manifest’s Daryl Edwards) pulled everyone into his chambers to hear both sides before determining that Conseco’s previous gang affiliation was not to be mentioned during the trial.
Baxter suggested Carrie take the stand and his wife was apprehensive since it would not only make her a target, but reveal a deep family secret. But Baxter was willing to take that risk — even after Price suggested they didn’t need her to win the case —because he strongly felt it was the right thing to do.
Carrie testified anyway, and upon cross examination, shared with the court that in college she struck a man with her car while driving under the influence. Even worse, Baxter called in a favor to have the charges reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor, to which she pled guilty.
The jury eventually came back with a guilty verdict for Hector and later, we learned that Baxter’s election results were too close to immediately call. And in typical Law & Order form, there was no mention of Dixon’s impending departure.
What did you think of Law & Order’s Season 23 finale?
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