"Mayhem" departed from the traditional formula on Law & Order - one crime from start to finish, with the first half being dedicated to police work and the last half the courtroom. Instead, this is a fast-paced and unusually structured episode in which Briscoe and Logan attempt to solve five consecutive murders which take place all over the city. The saddest of these murders, to me, was murder #5. Scotty, a man physically resembling Roger Ebert in his prime, is picked up and held as a suspect in a murder when he refuses to be clear about where he was that evening. It turns out the man is hiding his true sexual orientation and doesn't want to admit he was visiting a male friend. When this becomes clear to the police, Logan and Briscoe go to the jail to get him released. They are too late - Scotty was stabbed by a fellow inmate wielding a sharpened toothbrush. He's dead, and the fifth and final murder of the evening.
