Law & Order: Criminal Intent - Ten Count (Season 7)

Logan is called in to the shooting of an old friend from Staten Island, the younger brother of whom he helped control his violent impulses. When Wheeler joins him, the two start to look into the victim's life, only to discover that there were some very odd things happening, including being approached to throw the game, although this turns out to be little more than incentive for his opponent. However, when ten thousand dollars is found in the victim's room, and the knowledge that he was about to join a promoter which was known only to his younger brother's girlfriend, Wheeler suspects that an illicit affair was going on, and the detectives realise that a lot of secrets were being kept from everybody in the house. At the center of the investigation, though, is the victim's manager who is keen to use the death as an opportunity for his younger brother to go far.

There are times when stories involving detectives pasts can work quite well, and in this week's episode of Criminal Intent, we actually get a good example of this. Logan's younger self is let loose a few times in this episode as he finds his motivations questioned not only by Ross, but also by those on the street. In fact, if Goren's method of getting a person to confess is to psycholigically force it out of them, Logan seems to rile them the wrong way and get them to blunder that way. In this instance, riling up his apprentice so much he goes and beats the real villain to death. Not a masterstroke of Logan's planning, but it's in the way that you do it.

The cast is quite good, although Tony Roberts turns up as a red herring for a whole three pointless scenes. Miguel Ferrer, on the other hand, gives a very good performance, and there are a few questions left unanswered at the end that, thanks to Ferrer's performance, make you wonder; the girlfriend said that the trainer had tried to rape her, but the trainer (Ferrer) seemed pretty convincing that he didn't, and he certainly was fairly honest (stopping short of confessing) about most other things...so did the girlfriend lie? Even Logan's apprentice seems to think so.

So with good performances, an interesting murder mystery and some nice elements of Logan's past surfacing naturally and acceptably, this week Criminal Intent was a winner.

"A"