Zero (Season 19, Episode 7)
Premise: 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.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 19, Episode 7
- Detectives
- Det. Cyrus Lupo (Jeremy Sisto), Det. Kevin Bernard (Anthony Anderson)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Michael Cutter (Linus Roache), ADA Connie Rubirosa (Alana de la Garza), DA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston)
- Guest stars
- Ned Beatty as Judge Malcolm Reynolds, Sherry Stringfield as law clerk Carly, Ian Kahn as Chris Mason, Deanna Dunagan as defense attorney Estelle Adams, Derek Cecil as Joe Hartwig
- Director
- Marisol Torres
- Writers
- Ed Zuckerman & Luke Schelhaas
Summary
The Investigation
“Zero” begins with the murder of Nancy Hartwig, a freelance designer struck with a shovel by a community garden’s compost pile. Her husband, Joe, blogs about the family’s attempt at a zero carbon footprint: no elevator, power only from a solar panel, food grown nearby and not even toilet paper. Martini olives in her stomach lead the detectives to a hotel bar where she sometimes met a man, and her sister reveals she had driven the family car, another broken rule.
The green Corolla is gone from its lot, and its tracking service finds it ditched in the New Jersey woods, holding half a kilo of cocaine and the body of dealer Wayne Jankins, who shot Officer Dale McCloskey at a traffic stop and was killed in return while the driver fled. A former colleague at a collapsed investment bank says Chris Mason, now a substitute teacher, planned to sell cocaine with Jankins, and Mason’s bar tab links him to Nancy, an old college friend.
Mason’s young daughter recalls that he drove a green car on his visitation Saturday, and the girls’ prints match those in the back seat. Judge Malcolm Reynolds signs a search warrant, and a seed from a rare tomato grown in the garden turns up in Mason’s shoe tread. New Jersey wants him, but Cutter keeps the case, pointing out that the state’s felony-murder law does not cover a drug deal. Mason rejects twenty to life.
The Trial
Public defender Estelle Adams faces Reynolds, whose clerk, Carly, is sweet on Cutter. Reynolds first excludes the fingerprints because Bernard got them from a ball the children left in the street, then reverses himself the next day using Carly’s exact words. Cutter finds a scripted ruling and a seating chart on the judge’s desk, and while Rubirosa keeps Carly busy at lunch, he discovers Reynolds cannot recall his name, the defendant or the charge.
McCoy is reluctant to act against a celebrated former defense lawyer who keeps ruling for the People. Carly, who needs the job, threatens Cutter, and another judge rejects his emergency petition and warns him off as rumors spread that Cutter colluded with his clerk girlfriend. Reynolds, a widower, tells Cutter he has no wish to retire. Cutter then joins forces with Adams, who demands a hearing on whether a witness notice was sent; Carly takes the stand, and without her messages Reynolds is lost.
Spoiler, the ending: Reynolds goes on medical leave, Carly is fired and investigated by the attorney general, and the defense will likely win a new trial; no verdict is shown. Reynolds visits McCoy’s office and remembers Adam Schiff keeping tuna sandwiches in a small refrigerator beside his chair.
Why it stands out
- Ned Beatty guest-stars as Judge Malcolm Reynolds, whose failing memory leaves his law clerk effectively deciding the case from his computer screen.
- Reynolds recalls former District Attorney Adam Schiff keeping tuna sandwiches, topped with sliced olives by his wife, in a little refrigerator for late nights.
- Cutter declines to hand the suspect over to New Jersey after noting that the state’s felony-murder statute does not reach a death during a drug deal.