Big Brother (Season 24, Episode 3)
Premise: The murder of a star college basketball coach leads to a bar owner with mob ties, and the case depends on whether Riley’s brother, facing his own gun charge, will testify against his friend.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 24, Episode 3
- 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
- Ryan Eggold as Matt Riley, Chris Bauer as Jack Costa, Katee Sackhoff as defense attorney Vanessa Gallo, Alana O’Brien as Allison Walsh, Christian Vaughn as Jordan Crawford
- Ripped from the headlines
- Walsh’s situation appears to draw on Dan Hurley, who coached UConn to back-to-back national titles in 2023 and 2024 and turned down an offer from Kentucky that spring.
- Director
- Alex Hall
- Writers
- Rick Eid
Summary
The Investigation
“Big Brother” begins with the murder of Nick Walsh, coach of Hudson University’s back-to-back college basketball champions, who has a $100 million offer from Kentucky. He is found shot twice in an empty Lower East Side lot, his Rolex missing. Meanwhile, Det. Ray Wallace tells Riley he has arrested Riley’s brother Matt for selling two guns, and they discuss letting Matt work it off as an informant.
An FBI agent seen arguing with Walsh says the coach had reported threats from a wealthy booster, who admits them but has an alibi. A player Walsh cut, Malik Miller, says the coach visited and left around 4:00. Walsh then stopped at Clancy’s bar and walked out at 4:34 with Matt Riley.
Matt says Walsh took a call and walked off while bar owner Jack “Jackie” Costa watched. Costa’s friends swear he never left the bar, but video puts him near the lot minutes after the 911 call. Matt wears a wire to see Costa, who says a former Walsh player owed him $75,000, and then the feed cuts out; Matt claims the button fell off but refuses to inform on a friend. The player, Jordan Crawford, says Walsh offered to clear his gambling debt if he got treatment. A search finds a blue-faced Rolex in Costa’s desk, and a gun a teenager pulled from a dumpster near Costa’s route matches the bullets.
The Trial
Defense attorney Vanessa Gallo stresses that Costa had no motive and, noting that the watch carried none of his DNA, gets Walsh’s widow, Allison, to concede she cannot prove it was his. Riley leans hard on Matt, who finally says Costa planned to demand $150,000, double Crawford’s debt, and that when Walsh threatened him, Costa did what he felt he had to; Matt swears to it in an affidavit.
On the stand, Matt backs away. Price has him declared hostile and impeaches him with the affidavit, and Matt says keeping quiet matters more to him than seeing a killer punished.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury finds Costa guilty. Afterward, Riley turns up at his brother’s apartment and drives him to the precinct to be charged in the gun case, refusing Matt’s pleas for one more chance.
Why it stands out
- Ryan Eggold plays Riley’s brother, Matt, whose gun arrest and loyalty to a neighborhood friend set Riley’s family against his job.
- To get the motive before the jury, Price has to impeach his own witness with a sworn statement.