Burn Card (Season 18, Episode 14)
Premise: Ed Green shoots the suspect in a referee’s murder outside an illegal gambling club, and an Internal Affairs probe exposes his old gambling habit and lands him on trial for murder.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 18, Episode 14
- Detectives
- Det. Cyrus Lupo (Jeremy Sisto), Det. Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin), Lt. Anita Van Buren (S. Epatha Merkerson)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Michael Cutter (Linus Roache), ADA Connie Rubirosa (Alana de la Garza), DA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston)
- Guest stars
- Anthony Anderson as Detective Kevin Bernard, Carmen Ejogo as April Lannen, Ruben Santiago-Hudson as defense attorney Winters, Peter Bradbury as Sergeant Gregory Cole, Armando Riesco as Ruben Alvera
- Director
- Mario Van Peebles
- Writers
- Ed Zuckerman & David Wilcox
Summary
The Investigation
“Burn Card” begins when police catch two men maneuvering a dead man into a liquor store to use his credit card. The murder victim, John Singer, a Brooklyn real estate agent who refereed college basketball on the side, was shot with a .380 in a Spanish Harlem alley. Singer had sponsored a woman in Gamblers Anonymous but quit going to meetings, and a bookie says a man who claimed Singer owed him money beat up the bookie himself; lopsided betting on Singer’s last game hints at a fix that fell through. The suspect has dyed blond hair and a cauliflower ear.
Green quits for the night, saying he must visit a friend in the hospital, and later shoots the suspect, Reginald “Bunny” Whitby, outside an illegal gambling club on 121st Street. Bunny’s gun matches the Singer killing, but as Internal Affairs Sgt. Gregory Cole and Det. Kevin Bernard press Green, it emerges that he was a regular at the club, once beat Bunny over a debt and kept all of it from Lupo. A bystander, Ruben Alvera, says Green shot Bunny in the back, until a statement Lupo passes to Rubirosa shows Alvera boasted of framing a cop. Cutter argues Green provoked the gunfight to silence Bunny, and Green is suspended and indicted for murder.
The Trial
Green tells Van Buren he started gambling again after his old partner Lennie Briscoe left, and she faults Bernard for doing half an investigation. At trial, Lupo concedes that in a dozen earlier cases he never knocked off during the first 48 hours, and the club’s bartender says Green once threatened Bunny with prison and on the fatal night asked whether anyone else was looking for him. Lupo and Bernard find Bunny’s bullet around the corner, fired away from Green, and trace a call Green made from a New Jersey gas station to April Lannen, a single mother and school board purchasing official he once gambled with.
The prosecutors threaten to charge Lannen as an accomplice. Green then offers to plead to second-degree manslaughter for six months, and Cutter refuses. Facing Green, Lannen confesses that she embezzled from her employer to cover gambling debts, that Bunny forced her into sexual favors for his friends and that Green beat him to free her. On the night of the shooting, after Green tipped her off, she went to warn Bunny of his coming arrest; he fired at her, and Green shot him.
Spoiler, the ending: The murder charge against Green is dropped. Knowing he broke department rules, he decides he is too worn out to fight for his job and leaves the 27th Precinct, thanking Van Buren on his way out.
Why it stands out
- Jesse L. Martin makes his final appearance as Det. Ed Green, a role he had played since 1999.
- Anthony Anderson debuts as Internal Affairs Det. Kevin Bernard, who becomes Lupo’s partner in the next episode.
- Green traces his relapse into gambling to the departure of his former partner Lennie Briscoe, whose death is also noted.