Endurance (Season 11, Episode 1)
Premise: A 12-year-old boy with a severe developmental disorder dies after someone sets a fire in his family’s building, and the case against his devoted, worn-out mother tests how hard McCoy is willing to push.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 11, Episode 1
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Abbie Carmichael (Angie Harmon), DA Nora Lewin (Dianne Wiest)
- Guest stars
- Megan Follows as Megan Parnell, John Costelloe as Colin Parnell, Nick Chinlund as defense attorney Barry Peck, J. K. Simmons as Dr. Emil Skoda, Rudy Giuliani as himself
- Director
- Constantine Makris
- Writers
- Matt Witten
Summary
The Investigation
“Endurance” opens with an arson fire in a Manhattan walk-up that kills Ian Parnell, a severely disabled 12-year-old, by carbon monoxide poisoning. Fire marshal Harris finds that paint thinner was poured on the back stairs. Briscoe and Green first look at Richie Zwick, whose ground-floor shop has a record of suspicious insurance claims, and then at Ian’s father, Colin, who visited the building that day and has paint thinner at his girlfriend’s apartment. Colin’s alibi holds, and he describes a son far more impaired than his ex-wife, Megan, has let on.
The girlfriend says Ian liked to start fires, and Megan, the building’s super, admits the supply closet key was kept above the door. A doctor from Ian’s former school says his motor skills had declined too far for him to reach it. At the apartment of Megan’s friend Eleanor, Briscoe takes Megan’s nightgown, and the lab finds paint thinner on it. Megan’s claim that she woke to the fire falls apart when investigators show that her bed was never slept in and her son’s door was open.
The Trial
Nora Lewin starts her first day as interim DA, escorted by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Defense lawyer Barry Peck loses bids to exclude the nightgown and an emergency room doctor’s testimony, and Dr. Balikrishan recalls Megan saying her son would be better off dead than institutionalized. When Megan turns down a manslaughter plea that McCoy offers with Lewin’s approval, Peck switches to an insanity defense built on a radio personality’s unrecognized stress syndrome, which McCoy takes apart. Dr. Skoda tells the prosecutors that Megan was exhausted but not insane.
On cross-examination Megan reveals that Ian was having a seizure and she chose not to give him his injection. Believing him dead, she swallowed his pills, set the fire and lay down beside him, then fled when she thought of her daughter. The medical examiner says the boy may only have been comatose. Carmichael argues the facts still support manslaughter, but McCoy declines to ask for lesser charges and lets the case go to the jury on murder only.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury acquits Megan Parnell of murder on the insanity plea, and the judge sends her to the Kirby forensic hospital for evaluation. Lewin tells Carmichael she would have pushed for a conviction, which is why she is glad McCoy tried the case.
Why it stands out
- Dianne Wiest makes her first appearance as Nora Lewin, who replaces Adam Schiff as District Attorney.
- Rudolph Giuliani, then the Mayor of New York City, appears as himself to introduce Lewin to McCoy and Carmichael.
- McCoy deliberately forgoes a manslaughter charge, leaving the jury an all-or-nothing choice on murder.