Battle Lines (Season 22, Episode 2)
Premise: A Texas governor’s daughter dies in an apparent Central Park mugging, but the case turns on the abortion she secretly traveled to New York to get and the family members who tried to stop her.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 22, Episode 2
- 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
- Liza J. Bennett as Drea Clark, Jim Schubin as Blake Carter, Ric Reitz as Governor Ronald Carter, Sally Murphy as Barbara Carter, Allie Vazquez as Simone Richards
- Director
- Milena Govich
- Writers
- Art Alamo
Summary
The Investigation
“Battle Lines” opens in Central Park, where a teenage girl dies in a fall from a bridge. A 911 caller says a white man in a baseball cap grabbed the girl’s pink purse and shoved her over the railing. Cosgrove and Shaw chase down a man carrying the empty purse, but the eyewitnesses rule him out. The victim is Becca Carter, 17, the daughter of Ronald Carter, the governor of Texas, who has made a national name attacking New York’s crime rate.
At Tompkins University, where Becca was on a weeklong visit for prospective students, her host says Becca skipped events, stayed out the first night and met someone at a Midtown café. Footage shows the 911 caller, Drea Clark, who flew in from Austin with her. Caught at the bus station, Clark explains that she volunteers for Project Circe, a group that helps Texas women travel for abortions after the state ban that followed the end of Roe v. Wade, and that she took Becca to a clinic for a medication abortion and was meeting her for a follow-up when she saw the attack.
Becca’s boyfriend, Tyler Robbins, admits he knew of the pregnancy and wanted her to end it. Flight records show that her brother, Blake, did not fly in with his parents, and he matches the description. He is arrested.
The Trial
Becca’s belongings, including her abortion medication, turn up in Blake’s hotel room, and texts show that their mother, Barbara, discovered the pregnancy through Becca’s period-tracking app and sent Blake to stop her, and that he wrote he would kill his sister. Over McCoy’s caution, Price calls Barbara Carter and makes her read that message aloud. Clark then invokes the Fifth Amendment, since taking a minor across state lines without parental consent could expose her to a kidnapping charge, and the office cannot immunize her. Simone Richards identifies Blake as the man she saw fleeing and, under cross-examination, says she once had an abortion herself.
Blake testifies that Becca regretted the abortion and that the activist who pressured her pushed her during an argument he returned to find after going for water. Maroun finds Clark at a bar and tells her that if she stays silent, Blake’s account will be the only one heard, while stressing that the choice is hers. Clark takes the stand and says Blake shoved his sister over the railing after he already had the purse.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury finds Blake Carter guilty of second-degree murder. Clark says she is going home to Texas to keep helping women there. Moments later someone shouts “Murderer!” and shots ring out, and the episode ends there without showing who is hit.
Why it stands out
- Dialogue at the opening crime scene marks this as Shaw’s first official day with the 27th Precinct squad.
- The episode was directed by Milena Govich, who played Det. Nina Cassady in Season 17.
- The case is built around the Texas abortion ban that took effect 30 days after Roe v. Wade was overturned.