Law & Order Season 21 Episode Guide
Plot summaries for the twenty-first season of Law & Order, the first after the show’s 2022 revival, which aired on NBC from February to May 2022, featuring Det. Kevin Bernard, Det. Frank Cosgrove, Lt. Kate Dixon, Executive ADA Nolan Price, ADA Samantha Maroun and DA Jack McCoy.
Season 21 recap
More than a decade after NBC canceled it in May 2010, Law & Order returns with “The Right Thing” on February 24, 2022, for ten episodes ending in May. Two regulars come back: Det. Kevin Bernard (Anthony Anderson), now paired with Det. Frank Cosgrove (Jeffrey Donovan) under Lt. Kate Dixon (Camryn Manheim), and DA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), whose trial team is Exec. ADA Nolan Price (Hugh Dancy) and ADA Samantha Maroun (Odelya Halevi). In the opener, which appears to draw on Bill Cosby’s case, a singer freed when his rape conviction is overturned is shot, and his first accuser goes on trial; the prosecutors win a murder verdict after Maroun tells the jury her own sister was raped and killed.
Recent news shapes most plots. In “Impossible Dream,” drawn from the Elizabeth Holmes trial, a testing-company founder (Rachelle Lefevre) claims her murdered fiancé abused her, until a riding coach traces her broken arm to a polo fall. “Filtered Life,” which appears to draw on Gabby Petito’s death, ends in a murder conviction without a body, Price having refused a plea that would have located it. In “Fault Lines,” inspired by Britney Spears’s conservatorship, a tennis star defies her father, also her court-appointed guardian, and pleads guilty to manslaughter.
Price also tests new theories. A media figure whose fabricated smears drove a follower to kill is convicted of murder in “Free Speech,” where Dylan Baker reprises defense attorney Sanford Rems. “Wicked Game,” reportedly based on Ed Buck, adds a hate-crime count for a political fundraiser who picked victims by race, and “Legacy” convicts a father as his son’s accomplice for giving him the gun. In “Severance” Price rejects a plea McCoy urged him to consider and loses to an insanity defense built on Havana syndrome. In “The Great Pretender” he convicts an opioid maker of manslaughter despite a mistrial bid over his brother’s overdose death.
Bernard’s last case, “Black and Blue,” follows the killing of an off-duty detective whose shooter, Kendra Daniels, says he aimed his gun at her and used racial slurs. Mariska Hargitay plays SVU’s Capt. Olivia Benson. Price charges manslaughter, Cosgrove accuses him of going easy on a Black defendant, and Bernard confronts his partner. The jury acquits on the top count but convicts on second-degree aggravated manslaughter. The finale is Anthony Anderson’s last episode as Bernard, a squad member since Season 18.
Episodes
- 1
The Right Thing
A celebrity singer released from prison after an appeals court throws out his rape conviction is shot outside his home, and the woman who first accused him stands trial for his murder.
- 2
Impossible Dream
When the chief operating officer of a cancer-screening start-up is shot in Central Park, the trail leads to his fiancée, the company’s billionaire founder, who answers the murder charge by accusing him of abuse.
- 3
Filtered Life
A van-life influencer vanishes from her blood-smeared van in Manhattan, and Price must try the man accused of abducting her for murder without a body while the internet insists she is alive.
- 4
Fault Lines
A family court judge is beaten to death in his garage, and the evidence points to a tennis star whose life, money and marriage plans he had placed under her father’s control.
- 5
Free Speech
A would-be congressional candidate is shoved in front of a bus by a conspiracy believer, and Price charges the right-wing media mogul whose fabricated smears drove the killer.
- 6
Wicked Game
The meth death of a young gay Black man leads to a wealthy political fundraiser who pays vulnerable men to let him inject them, and Price goes after him for murder with a hate-crime count.
- 7
Legacy
The head of an elite Manhattan school is shot in a classroom, the 17-year-old shooter claims it was an accident, and Price tries the father who gave him the gun as an accomplice.
- 8
Severance
The strangling of an electric car company’s finance chief points to a business deal gone wrong, and the consultant accused of killing her claims a brain injury from his diplomatic posting in Havana left him unable to control himself.
- 9
The Great Pretender
A socialite’s death exposes her as a con artist, and her killer, the heir to an opioid fortune, trades a plea for testimony that lets Price try his uncle for an overdose death.
- 10
Black and Blue
A decorated off-duty detective is killed after stepping into an armed confrontation, and the shooter says he used racial slurs and pointed his gun at her, forcing Price to weigh what charge he can prove.