Law & Order (TV Series) Mayhem (1994) User Reviews

"What scares me is that the day's not over yet"

[TheLittleSongbird · 9/10 · 15 October 2020]

"Mayhem", as has been said already, is somewhat different from the usual 'Law and Order' structure. It has a very heavy emphasis on the detective and investigative work, meaning lots of chemistry between Briscoe and Logan (who can complain about that), and has very little of the legal stuff. Not that that bothered me, it was nice to have more of the detectives after so many memorable legal scenes in the previous Season 4 episodes. On first watch, apart from one thing that bothered me, it was a standout episode of a mostly very well done Season 4.

On re-watches, that is an opinion still held. My feelings on "Mayhem" are exactly the same, the detectives are spot-lighted brilliantly and the case is very diverting and full of atmosphere. There was still one thing that bothered me which will be come to later on in the review, but that was outweighed by the numerous fantastic things that "Mayhem" is full of. It may not be an episode for everybody, some may feel that there is too much of a three episodes in one feel but that's not how it has ever felt to me personally.

The production values are slick and have a subtle grit, with an intimacy to the photography without being too claustrophobic. The music isn't used too much and doesn't get too melodramatic. The direction has enough taut urgency when needed while giving the case breathing space. The script is beautifully balanced tonally and is taut and intelligent as one always expects from 'Law and Order'. Briscoe's one-liners are gold here in both a droll and tense way and his chemistry with Logan is on fire.

Really loved the case. Actually thought it was quite intricate and clever with a good deal of gritty tension and one particularly tragic murder that still has the shock factor. The characterisation is near-spot on, one can see why Briscoe was and still is one of the franchise's most popular characters, and the chemistry pitch-perfect, Briscoe and Logan for me was one of the show's best and most interesting pairings (as well as one of the most entertaining). Van Buren, one of the show's and franchise's longest-serving characters, has settled so well and have always preferred her over Cragen. The acting all round is great.

For all those fantastic things, here is the episode's Achilles heel and it seems to be a problem for others as well. To me, the detectives' reactions to the last murder came over as too unrealistically indifferent especially for such a personal case.

Concluding, a great episode apart from that. 9/10

Departs from the two part formula of Law and Order

[AlsExGal · 9/10 · 27 March 2017]

"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.

A full day for Briscoe and Logan

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 8 May 2019]

The emphasis in this episode is on our detectives in this story. Both Jerry Orbach and Chris Noth have a full day's work ahead of them when the day starts. Three different homicides for them to work. Two of them are taken from the Son of Sam serial cases and the Lorena Bobbitt case.

The one they are assigned to is that of a couple who were shot to death in a deserted area as have a few others. A man played by Tom Riis Farrell is looking mighty good for it especially since he will not provide an alibi as to time and place.

The second is that of Katherine Narducci's husband whom she does in by slicing off his love muscle. He's been spreading use of it all over the immediate world and she's had enough. But unlike John Wayne Bobbitt this man goes into cardiac arrest. Narducci's momentary impulse causes her lots to regret and makes her a difficult client for feminist attorney Joyce Reehling.

Lastly a Korean grocer is murdered by a known neighborhood junkie who is then in turn murdered by another for what the first guy scored. Victor Colicchio who is caught with the drugs and the murder weapon is one real low life specimen of humanity.

As for Farrell a little more honesty and frankness would have been helpful. But some find what he's keeping secret difficult to deal with.

Nice ensemble guest cast here.

Unsettling episode

[george-841 · 8/10 · 23 June 2013]

This episode is very atypical for several reasons.

First, Logan and Briscoe deal with several unrelated homicides while a clock is ticking down to the start of an evening basketball game for which Briscoe has been fortunate enough to acquire two tickets.

Second, there is really no "Order" part, since no case is ever brought to trial. The ADA's appear briefly in the course of debating whether they have enough evidence against the portly eyeglass-wearing chubby mama's boy who is an unlikely suspect in some serial killings, mainly because he resists disclosing his alibi, a homosexual tryst.

The "mama's boy" is ultimately cleared when his mother discloses this to Logan & Briscoe. The pair of detectives run down to Riker's with a release order for the man, only to discover that he was shanked to death in the prison by another inmate who evidently wanted his sandwich.

Briscoe shows a momentary "spasm" of anger at this injustice but shortly afterward joins Logan in shrugging it off as yet another part of a bad day which dragged on so long that they missed their ballgame.

This episode is troubling because even though law enforcement officials like Logan, Briscoe and Stone are depicted as "somewhat" concerned about prosecuting the wrong person, this doesn't prey on their minds all that much, especially considering that their errors led to this man being slaughtered while ostensibly in the "protection" of a holding cell while awaiting indictment. As much as I greatly enjoy L&O it does bother me that the show regularly depicts the detectives and the prosecutors as very willing to ignore or minimize clearly exculpatory evidence in their all-encompassing drive to complete an arrest and conviction. I'm not naïve enough to believe that law enforcement officials are purely dedicated to serving justice (as opposed to being focused on their rate of "case closure") but I would LIKE to think that having been directly responsible for the violent murder of an entirely innocent suspect, the detectives would be bit more upset about THAT than about missing a basketball game.

But L&O is about nothing if not "real life" so I suppose we should be afraid, very afraid, that this is often what "justice" is all about.

/brrrrrrr

It's All About the Detectives

[Better_TV · 8/10 · 2 May 2018]

L&O tried something a little different with this one, and I think they pulled it off well. In fact, I think they should've had the stones to not have ANY scenes with the DA's office at all - Stone and Schiff's scenes come across as especially unnecessary given how brief they are. Though, I have to say, the back-to-back arraignment hearings after all the craziness "Mayhem" puts its characters through were quite entertaining.

The thrust of this one is that cases keep piling up throughout the day, one after another. Each case is interesting and gritty, painting a portrait of a city teeming with filth and broken individuals lashing out at their fellow man. There's a Son of Sam-like serial killer on the loose, a John/Lorena Bobbitt-like case, and a horrible murder at a Korean grocer. It never lets up, and at the end, the only remaining case that hasn't yet been tied up gets the most tragic ending of them all - one that will definitely weigh on Logan and Briscoe's souls even after the end credits.

Kudos to the L&O writers/producers for trying something new, at least as far as this show's format usually goes.

1 of the best

[jimabecker · 10/10 · 15 January 2018]

This is IMHO one of the best shows that they made. Not sure what show it is where they eventually solve the case that they kept trying to get to all day. I think that they did 2 or 3 of these a day in the life of a NYC detective. The other one that I know for sure was with Green and Lenny. The burrito scene was also funny as hell. Zelda in this episode is also funny she is Sally in another one.

Unjust ending to a Dog Day Afternoon

[safenoe · 6/10 · 13 November 2023]

Tom Riis Farrell as murder suspect Scott Hexter should have won an Emmy in this Law and Order: Dog Day Afternoon special edition. Mayhem kind of reminded me of Robert Altman's Short Cuts or The Simpsons' 22 Short Films About Springfield, but we didn't really quite get the intersecting storylines in Mayhem that I thought would have been worthy of an extra two stars or so in my review.

The ending was incredibly unjust, with the cold and vicious death of murder suspect Scott Hexter in prison, when he was innocent all along. Really, I think Scott's mom would have grounds for a multi-million lawsuit against the NYPD.

Numerous pop culture references in Mayhem: Madonna, The Other Guy, and others.

Multiple Focuses.

[rmax304823 · 5/10 · 24 November 2010]

This episode has three narrative threads, each of them up to the usual standards of the series' early years -- which is to say, pretty good. It's unclear why the writers decided not to go with the usual formula, which begins with a murder and leads the police into the internal milieu of some business or social organization.

As it stands, it looks as if there were three ideas and none of them, by themselves, could fill the entire time slot. I guess the A story has to do with some serial killer wielding a magnum and killing strangers. The detectives turn up some pale, chubby, slug-like mother's boy who works in a flower shop. The DA's office charges him and jails him, despite his protestations of innocence. He turns out to be not guilty. The reason he couldn't account for his whereabouts at the time of the murders was that he was staying with his boyfriend but was reluctant to admit it. Before he can be released, he's stabbed to death by another prisoner with a sharpened tooth brush. When Brisco and Logan are told about it, they look unhappily at each other, shrug, and walk away.

A viewer looking for sentiment won't find it here, and there's little enough of it in any other episode. A wife has an argument with her husband, cuts off his genitals, beans Logan with a frying pan, the man dies on the way to the hospital, and the entire incident is treated rather as a joke. The wife, Narducci, gives a spot-on performance of an outraged working-class Italian wife.

I prefer the more focused and intricate episodes that take us into the bowels of some obscure business or the intrigues of ethnic communities. "Columbo" investigates misdeeds among the high-end, "Dragnet" rarely got out of the arid middle class except for some forays into the Hippie subculture, but the characters of "Law and Order" are drawn from all social strata and usually pinned like butterflies. And the heavies are not always rich white people.