Look the Other Way (Season 24, Episode 22)
Premise: DNA from a 19-year-old model’s body links her killer to the unsolved murder of Maroun’s sister, but a ruling against genealogy searches guts the case and Maroun’s zeal compromises its last witness.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 24, Episode 22
- Detectives
- Det. Vincent Riley (Reid Scott), Det. Jalen Shaw (Mehcad Brooks)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Nolan Price (Hugh Dancy), ADA Samantha Maroun (Odelya Halevi), DA Nicholas Baxter (Tony Goldwyn)
- Guest stars
- Jordan Cox as Carter Mills, Anna Wood as defense attorney Nicole Potter, Hazel Graye as Georgia Kent, Kyle S. More as Peter Dagnello, Matthew Lawler as Randall Pike
- Director
- Alex Hall
- Writers
- Rick Eid
Summary
The Investigation
“Look the Other Way” opens with Georgia Kent leaving a club; she is later found beaten to death, her phone and wallet untouched. A fake license names her Georgia Keller, 22, but she is a 19-year-old model from Iowa City. Her roommate, Perry, heard her shouting at someone to stop stalking her, and video leads to Randall Pike, who loitered outside her building for hours and tries to leap over a railing when detectives approach. He admits paying her for nonsexual companionship and yelling at her after seeing her with a young man at a gallery; his wife alibis him. The medical examiner finds another person’s DNA under Georgia’s nails.
The young man, Carter Mills, says they met once and he has a girlfriend. Georgia’s texts suggest a sexual assault, and the DNA also matches an unsolved killing from 12 years earlier. A familial hit from a private genealogy database leads through an aunt, Vanessa Burke, to Mills. Video shows him taking Georgia into his condo; arrested, he claims consensual sex and asks for a lawyer when rape is raised. A friend confirms that Mills raped Georgia three nights before her death, and traces of blood are found on his shoe.
The Trial
The earlier victim was Maroun’s sister, Christina, killed in Queens, and Price keeps Maroun off the trial team. Judge Erica Foster refuses to join the cases, rules that a relative’s upload cannot waive Mills’s privacy in his DNA, and suppresses it and the bloody shoe, likely ending Christina’s case too. Maroun finds doorman Peter Dagnello on video meeting Mills a block from the scene shortly before the 911 call, and he picks Mills out of a lineup.
Mills, out on bail, approaches Maroun at the courthouse, and Price asks her to stay away until the verdict after she screams at him. While preparing to testify, Dagnello says a woman prosecutor told him the prosecution knew for a fact that Mills was the killer and that he looked like a model. Maroun admits calling Mills a handsome monster and urges Price to think of her family. Price tells Baxter the tainted identification must be disclosed, likely sinking the case; Baxter agrees in theory but recalls ignoring an anonymous confession note during a child-murder trial years earlier and suggests looking away. Unwilling to hide the problem, Price does not call Dagnello.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury finds Mills not guilty of second-degree murder. Price tells Baxter he tried to look away and could not, and that he found no news coverage of Baxter’s old case; Baxter wishes him good night. Mills is then found shot dead, and Price asks Maroun to tell him she had nothing to do with it.
Why it stands out
- The Season 24 finale is Mehcad Brooks’s final episode as Det. Jalen Shaw; he left after three seasons in what was called a mutual decision between the actor and the producers.
- The season ends on a cliffhanger, with the man acquitted of Georgia’s murder, and tied by DNA to the killing of Maroun’s sister, found shot and Price openly asking whether she was involved.