Fear and Loathing (Season 22, Episode 15)
Premise: A Black heart surgeon is killed by a man frightened by false crime-app alerts, and Price shifts his sights to the man who posted them, while Shaw presses a complaint against two officers who held him at gunpoint.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 22, Episode 15
- Detectives
- Det. Frank Cosgrove (Jeffrey Donovan), Det. Jalen Shaw (Mehcad Brooks)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Nolan Price (Hugh Dancy), ADA Samantha Maroun (Odelya Halevi), DA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston)
- Guest stars
- Derek Cecil as Brian Burke, David Aaron Baker as Daniel DeLuca, Zabryna Guevara as defense attorney Amanda Stanley, Jorge Luna as Dr. Ian Hopkins, Darius Wallace as Sgt. Frank Matthews
- Director
- Yangzom Brauen
- Writers
- Story: Ajani Jackson; Story & teleplay: Pamela Wechsler
Summary
The Investigation
“Fear and Loathing” opens with two patrol officers holding Shaw at gunpoint as he heads to a murder scene and wrestling him down despite his protests that he is a detective, until Cosgrove intervenes. The victim, heart surgeon Darian Marshall, has been struck on the head with a wine bottle in the Meatpacking District, his watch, phone and wallet left behind. One of the officers later asks Shaw not to file a complaint because he is up for detective. Marshall’s colleague Dr. Ian Hopkins, seen on video shoving him, faced misconduct charges over needless bypass surgeries, but was at Othello with his wife. Marshall had dined with his ex-wife and daughter; her jealous boyfriend, Greg Donnelly, sells security systems by posting crime-app reports, and he has an alibi.
The apps show three robberies reported nearby, and one victim, Brian Burke, says he was hit with something like a bottle. Dixon warns Shaw that a complaint against fellow officers could wreck his career, but he goes ahead, and Internal Affairs Sgt. Frank Matthews arrives to say the officers have filed a complaint against him for refusing to get on the ground. Video then shows Burke trembling near the scene at 10:04 p.m., soon after buying wine. With his lawyer, he says a stranger approached from behind and seemed to hold a gun, so he swung the bottle and ran. It was Marshall, asking directions with a phone in his hand.
The Trial
Shaw argues that Burke acted on Marshall’s race, and despite calls from donors on behalf of Burke, a prominent foundation chairman, Price decides to charge murder. Burke then reveals he saw a safety-app alert with Marshall’s photo warning of an armed Black man. The posts trace to Daniel DeLuca, a real estate man whose earlier false posts led to an assault and two wrongful arrests. Cosgrove and Shaw arrest DeLuca for manslaughter without consulting Price, who objects to being bypassed.
Burke pleads guilty to manslaughter for seven years and testifies that he believed DeLuca’s posts. Defense attorney Amanda Stanley casts DeLuca as a concerned citizen and uses Shaw’s pending Internal Affairs complaint to suggest he is settling scores with white men; Price is angry he was not told. Spotting a pattern in DeLuca’s posts, the team links them to his property deals, and Price shows four purchases, each made weeks after false crime posts on that street pushed prices down.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury convicts DeLuca of first-degree manslaughter. Shaw then learns that Internal Affairs found his allegations unsubstantiated while the officers’ complaint against him stuck, and he is suspended for a week without pay.
Why it stands out
- Shaw’s own profiling becomes part of the trial, when the defense uses the pending Internal Affairs complaint against him to attack his testimony.
- The killer pleads guilty and testifies for the prosecution, while the man convicted of manslaughter is the one who posted the false alerts.
- The episode ends with Shaw, not the officers who drew on him, disciplined by the department.