Law & Order Season 19 Episode Guide
Plot summaries for the nineteenth season of Law & Order, which aired on NBC from November 2008 to June 2009, featuring Det. Cyrus Lupo, Det. Kevin Bernard, Lt. Anita Van Buren, Executive ADA Michael Cutter, ADA Connie Rubirosa and DA Jack McCoy.
- 1
Rumble
A stockbroker dies after an organized street fight in Union Square, and when his killer gets a lenient plea, a revenge brawl in a park leads McCoy to charge every fighter as a terrorist.
- 2
Challenged
The killing of an engineer in a park known for drug dealing leads to a group home, a hidden witness with an intellectual disability, and a family that gave that witness up as a toddler 44 years earlier.
- 3
Lost Boys
A teenager expelled from a fundamentalist Mormon sect is stabbed in Central Park, and the case exposes a plot by the sect’s Prophet to kidnap the young wife who fled him.
- 4
Falling
A crane collapse that kills a passerby exposes a bribed inspector, then leads to the near drowning of the dead man’s wife and a fight over a controversial procedure to keep a disabled girl small.
- 5
Knock Off
An upstate man is shot in Chinatown, and the case against the woman who accused him of rape unravels into a sheriff protecting his informant, with the governor’s office shielding a key witness.
- 6
Sweetie
The best-selling author of a memoir about a childhood in prostitution is stabbed near the piers, and the detectives learn the man was an actor hired to play a writer who may never have existed.
- 7
Zero
A woman whose family has given up electricity, cars and paper goods is killed with a shovel in a community garden, and the family car she quietly lent out ties her death to a police shooting in New Jersey.
- 8
Chattel
The murder of a married pair of divorce lawyers leads the detectives to a Haitian adoptee sent back home after a divorce, and then to a couple who brought Haitian children to New York to work as servants.
- 9
By Perjury
A plaintiff in a class action over a fatal airliner crash is shot after offering the airline a way out, and the trail leads to the families’ own lawyer, whom Cutter comes to believe has killed before to protect his payday.
- 10
Pledge
A 12-year-old and his family’s housekeeper are killed in the boy’s home, and a magazine fact-checker’s fixation on the boy’s mother turns out to stem from a college sorority party three decades earlier.
- 11
Lucky Stiff
When the owner of a struggling trucking firm is shot in the street, the trail leads to a green-energy broker who sold the same trucks again and again, and the broker’s own murder after his conviction leaves a fortune for his heirs to fight over.
- 12
Illegitimate
After a debt-ridden police sergeant dies in a hostage standoff, a body hidden in his spare apartment leads to a failed memorabilia theft and a businessman convinced that he is John F. Kennedy’s secret son.
- 13
Crimebusters
A firebomb at an Army recruiting center kills a sleeping baby, and while a band of internet crime-solvers chases the case on its own, the evidence points both to a grieving soldier’s brother and to the baby’s mother.
- 14
Rapture
The murder of the man behind a website that emails unbelievers after the rapture leads to stolen gold, a Christian charity that sends Jews to Israel, and a suspect who takes shelter in Iran’s diplomatic mission.
- 15
Bailout
The mistress of a disgraced investment-bank CEO dies while escaping a ransom kidnapping, and the evidence points to the devoted manager of a program for young offenders.
- 16
Take-Out
A freelance writer who spent six years in a Chinese prison is shot in a park, and the trail runs through the family of a man serving life for spying for China.
- 17
Anchors Away
A demoted TV reporter is killed while pursuing a tip that a celebrated hedge fund is a fraud, and the case exposes a jealous anchor, a Ponzi scheme and a devoted marriage.
- 18
Promote This!
Three Long Island high school athletes who record themselves attacking Hispanic men are tied to the beating of a Honduran day laborer and the murder of a laid-off autoworker.
- 19
All New
The torture-murders of an FDNY lieutenant and his wife lead to decades-old drug money hidden in their house, and when the hazed rookie under suspicion dies in a warehouse fire, Cutter charges a senior firefighter with his death.
- 20
Exchange
The stabbing deaths of two British graduate students lead to a city accountant with bipolar disorder who confesses, but Rubirosa suspects her brother let her illness spiral for his own gain.
- 21
Skate or Die
A triple murder at a homeless camp mimics a serial killer’s signature, and the case against the real culprits depends on a schizophrenic street skater who turns out to be the serial killer himself.
- 22
The Drowned and the Saved
The murder of a charity executive with a secret S&M habit leads to the governor’s wife and a scheme to swap a Senate appointment for a prestigious job, just as McCoy’s election nears.