The Wages of Love (Season 2, Episode 2)
Premise: A double murder in a Manhattan bedroom leaves detectives choosing between a hot-tempered ex-boyfriend and a wife who says she still loved her husband.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 2, Episode 2
- Detectives
- Sgt. Phil Cerreta (Paul Sorvino), Det. Mike Logan (Chris Noth)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty), ADA Paul Robinette (Richard Brooks), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Shirley Knight as Melanie Cullen, Jerry Orbach as defense attorney Frank Lehrman, Geoffrey Nauffts as Jamie Cullen, David Lansbury as Douglas Phillips
- Ripped from the headlines
- Reportedly inspired by the 1989 case of Betty Broderick, who shot her ex-husband and his new wife as they slept.
- Director
- Ed Sherin
- Writers
- Story: Robert Stuart Nathan; Teleplay: Ed Zuckerman
Summary
The Investigation
“The Wages of Love” begins when a delivery man finds real-estate developer Edward Cullen and his girlfriend, Alexandra Beckett, an auction-house specialist, shot dead in Cullen’s bed. Nothing has been taken. Cullen’s wife, Melanie, separated from him for more than a year, says she was home with their grown son, Jamie, that night. Suspicion soon shifts to Douglas Phillips, Alexandra’s former boyfriend, who once punched Cullen in a restaurant, called the apartment dozens of times and left fingerprints there. Phillips is arrested.
Cerreta isn’t convinced. A classmate from Jamie’s test-prep course places Jamie at his own apartment during the murders, which breaks the mother’s alibi. The murder weapon turns out to be a gun Cullen himself had bought off the books from a security guard years earlier, which an outsider like Phillips would have had no reason to know about. Melanie’s fingerprints turn up at the scene, the charges against Phillips are dropped, and she is arrested for murder.
The Trial
Defense attorney Frank Lehrman wants the case treated as a crime of passion by a wife who walked in on her husband with another woman. Stone sets out to prove premeditation instead. Melanie had learned of the affair and of Cullen’s hidden money weeks earlier, when a jeweler mistakenly called her about a necklace Cullen bought for Alexandra. She had also stalked Alexandra and ordered a copy of the key to Cullen’s new lock using Jamie’s key number.
Under pressure, Jamie first tells Stone that his mother admitted the killing, but on the stand he changes his story to protect her. Melanie then gives tearful testimony that she remembers almost nothing. Stone gambles, asking the judge to drop the manslaughter counts so the jury must choose between murder and acquittal.
Spoiler, the ending: While the jury deliberates, Lehrman offers a plea to two counts of first-degree manslaughter with a nine-year sentence, and Stone accepts. Afterward a juror tells him they were minutes from convicting her of murder.
Why it stands out
- Jerry Orbach makes his first appearance on the show as defense attorney Frank Lehrman; he joined the cast as Det. Lennie Briscoe partway through Season 3.
- Stone’s all-or-nothing gamble on the charges is one of the riskier courtroom moves of the early seasons.
- The son’s divided loyalty becomes the key to both sides’ cases.