A Price to Pay (Season 24, Episode 14)
Premise: A movie star’s stabbing leads to the doctor and the “drug shaman” who supplied him, and the only witness who can convict her is a Marine who was once Shaw’s training officer.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 24, Episode 14
- Detectives
- Det. Vincent Riley (Reid Scott), Det. Jalen Shaw (Mehcad Brooks), Det. Violet Yee (Connie Shi)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Nolan Price (Hugh Dancy), ADA Samantha Maroun (Odelya Halevi), DA Nicholas Baxter (Tony Goldwyn)
- Guest stars
- Amanda Jaros as Diane Oliver, Demetrius A. Grosse as Darryl Moore, Gabi Carrubba as Casey Booth, Bart Shatto as Dr. Simon Neagle, Laura Shoop as defense attorney Linda Campisi
- Ripped from the headlines
- The dialogue likens the case to Matthew Perry’s, and the story reportedly draws on Perry’s October 2023 death from the acute effects of ketamine, which led in 2024 to charges against two doctors, his assistant and a dealer known as the “Ketamine Queen,” among others.
- Director
- Laura Belsey
- Writers
- Scott Gold & Will Lapp
Summary
The Investigation
“A Price to Pay” opens on a film set where director Noah Winters throws out a crew member over a ringing phone, while Shaw catches up with Darryl Moore, his former training officer and now a Marine, at a police retirement party. Actor Johnny Colvin, just nominated for a third Oscar, is then found stabbed once in the chest in his penthouse, with a chef’s knife missing and a Chuck Taylor print in the blood. His assistant, Casey Booth, found him.
Winters has an alibi. Street video shows Colvin with Brittany Weaver, a stalker under a protection order, who says he invited her up to talk and played her a voicemail in which his ex-wife, Adalina Grad, threatened his life. Adalina says Colvin earned about $100 million yet was broke from ketamine and a ketamine rehab he ran at home. Its last client, boy-band singer Stuey McIntyre, says he left at 10 p.m. with Casey still there. Caught fleeing with a plane ticket bought on Colvin’s card, Casey admits delivering his drugs but says he planned to buy from the source that night, and her alibi holds.
A Grand Central locker leads to SoHo psychiatrist Simon Neagle, arrested in a sting. In exchange for immunity he names his partner, Diane Oliver, a guide called Mother K, who was owed half of Colvin’s $250,000 debt. Oliver is arrested and asks for a lawyer.
The Trial
The evidence is thin. Shaw finds Moore on Oliver’s client list but says nothing, and Moore tells him he tried ketamine for war trauma years ago. Phone data puts Oliver at the height of Colvin’s 65th-floor home, and her shoe size fits the print. Then Price and Maroun find Neagle overdosed on ketamine, and his death appears to be suicide. Over objections from defense attorney Linda Campisi, the judge grants two days rather than two weeks.
Det. Violet Yee finds dashcam video of a man at Oliver’s door soon after the killing. Confronted, Moore admits he came for his usual dose and saw blood on her Chuck Taylors, but he will not testify, fearing a dishonorable discharge and the loss of his pension and housing. Shaw argues that Colvin’s far heavier use was tolerated because of his fame, but Baxter orders a subpoena. Shaw warns Moore it is coming, and Moore soon ships out to Camp Hansen in Okinawa.
Spoiler, the ending: Price wants the Marines to produce Moore and says his own brother died of addiction, but Baxter tells him to make a deal. Oliver pleads guilty to second-degree manslaughter with a recommended maximum of ten years. Shaw is then accused of tampering with a witness and answers that he chose to save Moore’s life.
Why it stands out
- Shaw’s past is filled in: as a rookie he left an interrogation room unlocked and a suspect walked out, and Moore took the blame because Shaw was still on probation.
- Baxter mentions a new friend named Kate who has dropped something off for him; she appears in the next episode as defense attorney Kate Norris.