Law & Order Season 1 Episode Guide
Plot summaries for every episode of the first season of Law & Order, which aired on NBC from September 1990 to June 1991, featuring Sgt. Max Greevey, Det. Mike Logan, Capt. Donald Cragen, Executive ADA Ben Stone, ADA Paul Robinette and DA Adam Schiff.
- 1
Prescription for Death
When a teenage girl dies hours after an emergency-room visit, her father demands a homicide investigation into the hospital that treated her.
- 2
Subterranean Homeboy Blues
A young white woman opens fire on two Black teenagers on a packed subway train, and the city argues over whether she is a victim or a vigilante.
- 3
The Reaper's Helper
A shooting that looks like a robbery leads detectives to a man who says he has been helping men with AIDS end their lives.
- 4
Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die
The death of a young Upper East Side woman leads detectives through her dating life to a polished ex-boyfriend with a history of violence.
- 5
Happily Ever After
A well-off couple is ambushed in a garage near their home, and the surviving wife’s account starts to look too tidy.
- 6
Everybody's Favorite Bagman
A city councilman’s death looks like a street mugging until the detectives learn he once carried bribes for powerful people.
- 7
By Hooker, by Crook
An unconscious man in Central Park turns out to have spent his last evening with a high-priced escort, not with a mugger.
- 8
Poison Ivy
A police shooting during a drug arrest is ruled self-defense almost immediately, but Greevey doubts the gun found on the dead man was ever his.
- 9
Indifference
A little girl who can’t be woken at school becomes the center of a case about a family where drugs and violence went unchecked for years.
- 10
Prisoner of Love
An artist’s death looks like an accident during a sex game, until photographs show someone was watching.
- 11
Out of the Half-Light
A teenager’s accusation against police officers becomes a political battle before anyone can establish what happened.
- 12
Life Choice
A clinic bombing kills a young woman whom police first take for one of the bombers.
- 13
A Death in the Family
When a cop is killed during a rooftop chase, the whole city wants the fleeing suspect, but the evidence points somewhere else.
- 14
The Violence of Summer
Prosecutors drop a rape case they fear they will lose, and the detectives go back to the scene to rebuild it.
- 15
The Torrents of Greed: Part 1
An assault on a small shopkeeper leads Stone to a chance at the head of the Masucci crime family.
- 16
The Torrents of Greed: Part 2
Barred from retrying the mob boss for murder, the prosecutors look for another way to reach him.
- 17
Mushrooms
Gunfire through an apartment door kills a baby, and the investigation leads from a teenage shooter to the man who sent him.
- 18
The Secret Sharers
A dealer is gunned down in front of a crowd, and no one in the community is willing to say who did it.
- 19
The Serpent's Tooth
When a businessman and his wife are murdered in their home, everything points to the sons who stand to inherit.
- 20
The Troubles
When one of three shackled federal prisoners is found dead, the NYPD has to fight federal agencies to solve the murder.
- 21
Sonata for Solo Organ
An apparent mugging victim turns out to be missing a kidney, removed by someone with surgical skill.
- 22
The Blue Wall
When evidence is altered in police custody, suspicion falls on the detectives’ own captain.