Law
& Order:
“Indifference”
Law & Order has been a part of the
cultural Zeitgeist for so long that one could joke that for it to be on
streaming would be superfluous. Somewhere, on some cable channel any day of the
week, there’s a Law & Order marathon going on. At this point one
does question the need NBC felt to revive it three years ago; you could argue
it never truly left.
And because it’s been
around for so long I think even critics like myself take it for granted. It’s
therefore both forgivable and understandable that we’ve forgotten how great –
and I mean great – Law & Order could be when it was at its peak.
When that peak was can very
well depend on who your favorite cast members were – rarely does a show reveal
what episode you’re watching if you see what actors are there. If you see
Benjamin Bratt working with Jerry Orbach, it’s Season 6 to Season 9. You see
Linus Roache’s prosecuting cases, you’re in Seasons 18 to 20. And because most
cast members have longer or shorter periods, even the casual fan of the series
could probably guess when it was even without the references made by the characters.
In my humble opinion
the absolute peak of the series was the first decade it was on the air. This
for the record isn’t merely my judgment but that of the Emmys: the series was
nominated for Best Drama every year from 1992 to 2002. (It received just one
Emmy nomination in all the years since.) I myself could argue about the Emmys lack
of connection to reality; so let me add that this period was also when the show
received the lion’s share of its nominations from every other major technical
group, in particular Best Casting for TV from the Casting Society) awards from
the Edgar Mystery writers for teleplay (it won four during this period) the
four nominations for Best Drama from the Golden Globes) the lion’s share of its
nominations from the WGA and the SAG awards. That may not be nearly as well as
other shows that had similarly long runs during the 1990s, such as say The
X-Files, NYPD Blue or ER did but those same series were also crowded
out almost every other contender in drama when Law and Order was at its
peak.
And while I am the last
person to argue that the Emmys has the best track record when it comes to which
shows to nominate, I’ll concede that during the 1990s and early 200s they had a
very good nose for when so many of the legendary TV dramas were past their
prime in a way that us viewers may not have been willing to indulge. The X-Files
was nominated for Best Drama every year between 1995 and 1998 and dropped
out the following year, where the most devoted fans agree it lost its edge
creatively. NYPD Blue was nominated for Best Drama the first six years
it was on the air but when David Milch ran out of energy and left the series,
the Emmys realized it wasn’t the same show and stopped nominating it for Best
Drama. ER was always a brilliant drama but by the time of Season 8 most
of the regulars who had made it sing were gone and it was clearly no longer the
creative force it had been from that point forward. And most devoted fans of Law
& Order will acknowledge that after Steven Hill departed the series in
the fall of 2000, it was no longer the same series it had been. The Emmys
nominated it for Best Drama series the next two years but none of the cast or
writers were nominated and not long after it became more formulaic.
So much for history’s
judgment. Here’s why I think Law & Order was at its best in its
earlier years – and I have to tell you that while its always watchable I find
it’s the most brilliant from its first season until the end of Season 8. Part
of the problem I think any fan of the show has is that at a certain point in the
show’s run, it essentially started doing every one of his stories from ‘RIPPED
FROM THE HEADLINES’ in its origin. To be clear, it always did this – in fact
the episode I’m going to discuss may very well be the first time the show did
it - but during its first nine or ten
years on the air, these episodes were
rarer: happening perhaps two or three times a season at most. At a certain point
– if I had to guess it was not long after 9/11 – the show basically was doing
every episode from that kind of perspective and was essentially using the episodes
that weren’t as a way to make commentary on the world around them in ways that
were always heavy handed even when they were done well. I have not seen the
series since it was revived but I have little doubt that the formula is has is
completely locked in; I all but expect the show deal with the problems Trump is
facing in some form down the road. (In the second decade, it had storylines
that are not even thinly veiled investigations that deal with Florida in 2000,
Karl Rove outing Valerie Plame, Elliot Spitzer’s sexual scandal and in the 20th
season a show where Jack McCoy indicted the Bush administration for the way
they waged on War on Terror. They’ll find a way.)
You never got that
feeling in the early seasons of the show, particularly during the seasons in
which Michael Moriarty played Ben Stone as the prosecutor. It might seem heresy
for be to argue against Sam Waterston’s iconic character and I’m not going to
say that his work as Jack McCoy wasn’t’ as good as Moriarty’s during their
runs. Indeed both men received a good amount of recognition during their runs
and I do believe Waterston should have gotten more than the three Emmy
nominations he did when the series was on the air. (All of them were between
1997 and 2000, which includes his best work for the series.) Moriarty, however,
remains the actor who received the most nominations from the Emmys, being
nominated for Best Actor in a Drama every year from 1991 to 1994 (when he
resigned from the show for reasons I won’t go into here.) Indeed Moriarty’s
work was so good that the first two men who played the elder statesmen on the
show - George Dzundza in Season 1 and Paul Sorvino in Season 2 – would both
resign after their one season out of frustration because (and they both used
the same metaphor) “Michael (Moriarty) gets to kill the bull.”
And there are valid
reasons to prefer Moriarty’s work to Waterston’s. As I once wrote in a series
on Law & Order when the nation was reassessing policing of all the
prosecutors in the series two decade history, Ben Stone was the only one who
might have gotten a reputation of being ‘soft on crime’. There’s was always
something gentle about how Moriarty played Ben as if he had compassion not just
for the dead but sometimes for the killers themselves. During his tenure Ben
Stone did things you can’t imagine Jack McCoy doing at any point in his tenure.
He was opposed to the death penalty and refused to extradite so a serial killer
he knew was guilty might face it. He felt regret about how he had to send
stalker who was clearly deluded but didn’t meet the definition of criminal
insanity to prison instead of an institution. When a zealous defense attorney
seemed unwilling to help a clearly deluded client, he staged a competency
hearing for her, something usually done by the defense. And once when a client
confessed to killing her daughter in his office, he was very reluctant to file
an indictment. Ben Stone was compassionate in a way I’ve rarely seen prosecuting
attorneys in all my years of watching TV.
That didn’t mean he
wasn’t as ruthless as Jack McCoy when the subject called for it or in fact was
capable of twisting the law in order to try and get a man he knew was guilty.
But he generally had more respect for the statutes than McCoy did – he just
showed it far differently. One of the quirks of the show – perhaps one of
Moriarty’s – was that when he was talking to someone he didn’t respect, whether
it be a defendant or a man who was not aiding the prosecution – he would use
either ‘Sir’ or ‘Ma’am’ when referring to them. That is technically a term of
respect and Stone would be calm when he uttered it, but you could tell given
his delivery and posture that he meant the opposite.
I mention all of this
not just because Moriarty is front and center in this particular episode but
because Ben Stone was the calm one in every case in prosecuted. In ‘Indifference’
a Season 1 episode of Law & Order and an episode I still consider one
of the greatest in television history, that is not the case. And when you
consider the nature of the crime and the criminals, you can hardly blame him.
‘Indifference’ begins
with an elementary school class getting up from naptime and a seven year old
girl we will learn is Didi Lowenstein that she’s tired. The ambulance wheels
her away and Max Greevey (Dzundza) and Mike Logan (Chris Noth) are called in.
Didi has since slipped into a coma and its clear she’s been beaten and abused –
and her teacher tells the principal that she knew this would happen.
I’m pretty sure that in
1991 when the episode first aired very few series were even willing to go as
far as to chose a child who had been abused this badly on network television. Part
of the reason I believe Law & Order was at its creative peak was
because it was willing to not only shatter walls that had existed to that point
but keep going back to them in ways that never lost their power. The series
would do so several times in its first decade with incredible dramatic
resonance but they rarely did something as frightening as they do in
Indifference.
When Greevey and Logan
get to the Lowenstein apartment they meet Carla Lowenstein, played by Marcia Jean
Kurtz in what is arguably the first brilliant guest acting role in the show’s
history. Carla doesn’t seem capable of processing what’s going on when the
detectives inform her and she makes no effort to come with them to the
hospital. Greevey and Logan notice that she’s nursing a shiner but that doesn’t
explain Carla’s attitude.
They learn quickly not
only is abuse happening to both Didi and her brother Ezra, but child protective
services has been there. One of the most horrifying scenes I’ve ever scene in
the show’s history follows when Logan begins to interrogate the case worker.
When she tells him that they filed a report ‘as required by law’ for the second
time, he sneers: “Sounds like just following orders.” A lesser show would end
there. Logan asks: “How many other cases do you have active?”
The case worker doesn’t
answer verbally. She walks over to the computer, opens a file and the screens
starts scrolling down. And scrolling. And scrolling. “This is just the city,
detective,” she says matter-of-factly. “Last I checked there were a hundred
thousand cases in the state of New York. We kind of have are hands full.” Logan
is thrown by this and he and Greevey walk to the door. In a far quieter voice
he weakly says: “Sorry.”
By the time Greevey and
Logan get back to the office both of them are in a foul mood, particularly
Logan. He’s tracked down Jacob Lowenstein and is pissed to say he’s a shrink. They
go to his office and hear moaning and find Jacob in an amorous embrace with a
patient.
When they cut to commercial
Jacob (a brilliant David Groh) is defending his behavior as ‘Richian therapy’”
He asks few questions about his daughter and talks about his relationship with
Carla as being devoted – and laughs off the fact that he clearly hit her in a
way that stuns even these jaded detectives.
Logan and Greevey try
to talk sense into Carla and she becomes even more frightening, preening herself
and asking if Jacob asked about her. “Jacob and I, we’re very much in love.” Walking away Greevey tries to defend her and
Mike Logan says: “There are some women who ask for it.” He denounces Carla:
“You ask her what’s
wrong, she’ll yell at you. You yell back, she’ll ask for a kiss. You give her a
kiss, and I swear to God she’ll bite your lip off.”
This might sound
misogynistic and tone deaf but then we get insight into Mike in a way the show
hasn’t let us seen. “My mother,” he says.
When I was growing up
every day when my dad got home she yell and scream at him. But when my old man
couldn’t take it any more and belted her, guess who was next with the belt. She
had a look in her eye. That lady she’s got that same look in her eye.
This goes against the
idea that Law & Order had no character development; this would be
part of Mike Logan’s backstory for the rest of the show. We’d later learn his
mother was an alcoholic who would beat him with a belt in one hand and a rosary
in the other.
By this point it’s
clear that Didi Lowenstein is suffering brain injury and is going to die soon. Eventually
Logan and Greevey end up going back to the apartment where they find Jacob and
Carla arguing, and Carla holding her son as if to beat him. Earlier in the
episode we see her with a boiling pot of water, watching towards her son and
saying: “He’s got to learn,” over and over. Both of the Lowenstein’s are
subsequently arrested for abuse, assault and second degree murder.
When Paul Robinette
goes to tell Carla her daughter is dead, he is stunned by her behavior. First she asks when she can
see her husband again (she doesn’t care about her son) and seems to think now
that Didi is dead, everything is resolved. Robinette is understandably both
appalled and angry by what he has seen.
‘Indifference’ has been
brilliant to his point; when it comes to the prosecution it is magnificent. Discussing
how he wants to handle the case with the judge (played with more energy than judges
usually get by Louis Zorich) he says simply:
There has been a
complete disregard for the life of an innocent child. Of two innocent children.
One of them knows who did it and neither has been forthcoming…One of them
struck a six year old hard enough to stop her brain from functioning. And I
believe the only way to find out who did is to get one to turn on the other.
In arraignment when the
charges are read, Carla has to be restrained by the court from begging her
husband for forgiveness, something he coldly ignores. The first witness is the
teacher who reported the abuse and Ben guides her to report what he saw and she
is very clear that she knew that Carla was responsible. When the teacher leaves
the stand, she all but shouts at Carla ‘Bitch!”
Ben has a conversation
with Adam Schiff about the case and what he has to do. “What bothers you about
it?” Schiff asked. “Well, mostly my own rage,” Ben responds. “What do your
instincts tell you?”
Ben Stone, as I
mentioned, is usually the calm one and he is calm when he says what he wants to
do:
Put them on the rack,
turn the wheel and lock them in the dungeon.
Adam acquiesces that he
will allow her to make a deal with Carla if he believes the greater evil will
go to jail.
The meeting that
follows has Carla accompanied by her attorney Shambala Green (Lorraine Toussaint).
Green will be the first recurring character to play a defense attorney in the
show’s long history, usually choosing to advocate for minority or female
clients. Green admits that the teacher was a witness but Carla is willing to testify
in exchange for a plea to manslaughter. Carla tells Ben and Paul that she was
loaded at the time, that she had beaten Didi and that she was training her ‘to
serve him’. (This may be one of the earliest mentions of what we now call
grooming on television and its just as chilling in the abstract.) Stone agrees
that if she testifies to this, he will give her seven to ten and promises to go
after Jacob for murder. The act closes with Carla beating her head on the desk
in despair.
In the final act of the
episode Ben calls Carla to the stand. He gets Carla to recite what it was like
in the Lowenstein household and he closes when Carla recounts that Jacob wanted
to train Didi to be the perfect wife ‘just like her mother.” There’s a scene I’ve
never forgotten where Ben Stone silently walks closer and closer to the defense
table with a look of something close to hatred on it before turning around and
saying: “No further questions.” The cross doesn’t go well.
However that day Green
appears on their doorstep and asks: “Why did you ask the right question?” Which
is, Stone asks. “How Lowenstein makes his living?” She tells him he sells cocaine;
the very cocaine Carla was high on when she administered the fatal beating. Ben
tells Shambala (fondly I should say) “You could get disbarred for this.” She
tells him:
Ethically I’m snow
white. Besides you and I both know he made her like this.
After calling his
secretary as a hostile witness to get her to testify about how Lowenstein sells
cocaine Jacob Lowenstein takes the stand.
I have never been able
to forget the scene that follows and will gladly rewatch it any time. Stone
begins by asking if Jacob Lowenstein considers himself a good provider:
Lowenstein: Of course.
Stone: Food, shelter.
Lowenstein: Yes.
Stone: And cocaine?!
When his lawyer objects
the judge asks Stone where this is going:
To the heart of the
matter. It is our contention that Jacob Lowenstein is guilty of murder because
he is guilty of depraved indifference…Mrs. Lowenstein has testified on the
night of the beating, she was high on cocaine. Where did she get it?
When he repeats the
question Lowenstein says: “I treat many of my patients with cocaine.”
Stone: Is your wife a
patient?
Lowenstein: I consider
my wife to be a very sick woman!
The final moments are
etched in my memory and I could probably quote them verbatim even before I
rewatch the episode. Stone has told the court that on the night of the beating
he came home to find Didi on the floor and he just let her sleep there. He
tells the court he didn’t think it was that serious. Stone lowers his voice to
a hush but his fury is evident:
Stone: Please sir. I
invite you to look at People’s seventeen…It is a bloodstain under your daughter’s
head. It is a bloodstain…roughly the size of a small rug.
Lowenstein (weakly) It
was dark, the lights were…
Stone: When you saw
your daughter lying on the floor in blood, did you pick up the phone and dial
9-1-1…did you pick up the phone and dial a pediatrician?
Lowenstein: You’re
twisting everything I say!
Stone lowers his voice
to a vicious whisper:
Did you even pick up
Didi? Or did you leave your daughter to lie on the floor all night in a pool of
her own blood?
The final word is left
to the judge after the jury has found both Carla and Jacob guilty. The judge is
as horrified as all of us are by Lowenstein:
You sir are beneath
contempt. You have arranged the death of your daughter. You have traumatized
your wife. But you did pretty well for yourself.
Lowenstein tries to
speak up: “Your honor, I’ve lost my family.
“Yes you have,” the
judge says. In New York City, this is the show’s equivalent of saying: “May God have mercy on your soul.”
The final image is haunting
still. Carla is still asking after the man who’s destroyed her life. “Baby,
what’s going to happen to us now? Pookie can’t live without her daddy. Pookie
needs you.” The barred doors slam shut and the elevator heads down but Carla
has the last word: “Pookie needs you.”
If you are of a certain
age (at the time I first saw this episode in 1998 I wasn’t) you will know that
this episode is based very much on the case of Joel Steinberg and Hedda
Nussbaum. Indeed Robert Palm, who wrote the episode acknowledge it was to the
point NBC insisted on the disclaimer that runs at the end of the episode. Palm and
the writers had no intention of pulling their punches: Kurtz was cast as Carla
Lowenstein in large part because of her physical resemblance to Nussbaum.
Unlike many of the
episodes I’ve written about for this series before I don’t rewatch ‘Indifference’
because I enjoy it. I find it as riveting as all of the episodes I’ve
listed (and those to come) and it is a masterpiece on every level but you don’t
watch it for the same reason you’d rewatch even other episodes of Law &
Order.
No the reason I watch ‘Indifference’
is because this is the kind of story that needs to be told on TV as much as in
2024 as it was in 1990. So much has been done over the years to glamorize so
many criminals: I’ve written series about how we’ve glamorized serial killers
in the media and even made them heroes. And given the rise of the antihero as
part of television in the 21st century, we tend to view so much of
entertainment in a morally grey area.
I’m not going to pretend
that doesn’t lead to great entertainment; that would be an act of hypocrisy on
my part. But I also think we as a society need to be reminded of several
things, all of which Indifference does perfectly. The way that monsters like
Lowenstein slip through the cracks of a system too burdened to deal with them
properly. The way that abuse can take on such a form that a woman like Carla
Lowenstein can survive unnoticed. And the pure banality of evil represented by her
husband, someone who goes to prison convinced that he is still the victim. This
is the kind of story that needs telling…and sadly, as a nation we’ll have to
keep reminding ourselves of it. Over and over and over.
No comments:
Post a Comment