Open Wounds (Season 22, Episode 22)
Premise: A teacher who survived a classroom massacre assassinates a senator who voted against gun control, and McCoy’s daughter defends him on a plea of insanity from post-traumatic stress.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 22, Episode 22
- 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
- Dennis Flanagan as Derek Quinn, Elisabeth Waterston as defense attorney Rebecca McCoy, Ellyn Jameson as Nicole Chandler, Suehyla El-Attar Young as Dr. Michelle Gold, Brian Haley as Senator Alan Chandler
- Director
- Alex Hall
- Writers
- Story: Gia Gordon & Ajani Jackson; Teleplay: Rick Eid & Pamela Wechsler
Summary
The Investigation
“Open Wounds” begins at the wedding of Nicole Chandler, whose father, U.S. Senator Alan Chandler, is shot twice in the chest on the dance floor by a gunman in a white COVID mask who escapes into the surrounding park despite a large security team. With the police commissioner on hand, Cosgrove and Shaw are put in charge. A K-9 search turns up the discarded mask and a man sleeping in the woods, Jim Bronson, who points the way, but the trail goes cold at the train tracks. The senator’s widow mentions a quarrel with a waiter, and wedding video shows the shooter in a waiter’s uniform, yet the fired waiter, who had a grudge over an unpaid bill, was drinking at a bar at the time.
The one car left overnight in the caterers’ lot belongs to Derek Quinn, whose wife, Elena, has reported him missing and says he drove off to New Hampshire. Phone and card records lead detectives to a boardwalk, where they chase him through an amusement park and talk him into lowering a gun after he declares that Chandler deserved to die for switching his vote on gun control.
The Trial
McCoy announces state murder charges at a press conference and pleads for gun-control laws. His daughter, Rebecca, then tells him she represents Quinn; they catch up over coffee, but McCoy refuses to discuss the case. At arraignment Rebecca pleads insanity: Quinn, a history teacher, was shot tackling a gunman who killed 16 students in his classroom in 2019 and now has severe post-traumatic stress. Quinn is remanded, and McCoy holds to first-degree murder, calling the killing a planned political assassination.
Nicole describes a calm, deliberate gunman and identifies her bloodstained wedding dress. Quinn recounts the classroom attack and says he felt betrayed when Chandler, the swing vote, killed a gun bill. When Price confronts him with the weapon, Price asks for a recess, and Maroun reminds him of the subway shooting he lived through a year earlier; he insists he is fine. A psychiatrist, Dr. Michelle Gold, says Quinn could not appreciate that his act was wrong. Rebecca accuses Price of hiding his sympathy and berates her father for sheltering behind rules. Price then urges McCoy to allow a plea, but Rebecca rejects manslaughter with 15 years.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury convicts Quinn of first-degree murder. Afterward McCoy offers Rebecca a ride and dinner; she curses him, declines, and leaves him with one piece of family news: Linc has been accepted to Columbia Law School.
Why it stands out
- The season finale is Jeffrey Donovan’s final appearance as Det. Frank Cosgrove.
- McCoy’s daughter, Rebecca, is played by Sam Waterston’s real-life daughter, Elisabeth Waterston.
- The episode is the 400th with Sam Waterston.