Frances Sternhagen was the guest star in an unusual Law And Order episode where she plays a mother who hires a hit man to kill the second husband of her daughter-in-law. She's got good reason she feels to want him dead, she thinks he actually killed her son although the incident was desultorily investigated and listed as an accident. A fresh look opens the investigation there and her daughter Jenny Robertson's second husband Bradley White is arrested.
Two things about this episode were interesting. Although the DA's office make an arrest, Sam Waterston and Carey Lowell can't quite make the motive out, they can't prove any kind of affair while Robertson was married to husband number one. This episode proves the mantra that legal system has for itself, that a trial is a search for the truth. In most instances it's a question of proving a known truth, here the trial is well in process before the truth comes out for Waterston, Lowell, and the audience.
Secondly there is one droll performance by Tom Riis Farrell who plays a most ordinary looking hit man. He's the kind of a guy you wouldn't look twice at, in fact he's one of the coolest acting hit men I've ever seen on the big and small screen. He walks around on his job with his dog and keeps the weapon in the bag he says is keep the poop he's scooped. He answers questions quite calmly at the scene and is visibly holding the poop bag while Jerry Orbach and Benjamin Bratt question him. What a pair this one has.
This episode takes a few unexpected twists in it, try not to miss it when broadcast.
