Time Will Tell (Season 24, Episode 6)
Premise: When the dean of an elite Manhattan prep school is beaten to death, a scholarship student who was refused extra time on her exams confesses, and then her mother takes the stand to claim the killing as her own.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 24, Episode 6
- 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
- Carmen Flood as Emily Dumont, Cara Buono as Lisa Dumont, Maureen Sebastian as defense attorney Vanessa Keller, Jeremy Shamos as Dr. Carlton Kelly, Steve M. Robertson as Ryan Brady
- Ripped from the headlines
- The extra-time racket appears to draw on the college admissions scandal that federal prosecutors made public in March 2019, in which consultant William “Rick” Singer helped wealthy families obtain false learning-disability certifications so their children could take entrance exams with extra time.
- Director
- Milena Govich
- Writers
- Rick Eid & Scott Gold
Summary
The Investigation
“Time Will Tell” opens at Ellsworth Academy, an elite Manhattan prep school, where Dean of Students Meredith West congratulates seniors on early admissions. That evening she is beaten to death near her home, and a neighbor glimpses a slight figure in a green hoodie hurrying off. A parent, Glenn Donovan, was filmed shouting at her over his son’s failed essay for AP English, but his office cameras clear him.
West’s calendar lists a meeting with Amelia Mann, a head of school who died in 1987. The address leads to Bronwyn Stover, a former teacher kept quiet about a relationship with an 18-year-old student by a payout and a school apartment. She explains that West ruled on learning accommodations such as extra test time, which rich families pursue with bogus diagnoses. Dr. Carlton Kelly, a school official and friend of DA Baxter, an alumnus on the board, says nearly a third of this year’s requests were refused.
One refused parent, Lisa Dumont, had warned West by email that the fight was not over. Video near the Dumonts’ apartment shows the hooded figure carrying an Ellsworth backpack marked 14, the field hockey number of her daughter, Emily, a scholarship student who just turned 18. Questioned by Brady, who promises she can go home once she explains, Emily says West refused her extra time for anxiety and threatened to expel her, so she hit the dean with her stick. Meanwhile, Brady turns down her son Ryan’s plea to see his brother Leo, two months sober, perform.
The Trial
Maroun raises manslaughter, but the blows from behind as West walked away lead to a murder charge. Defense attorney Vanessa Keller gets the confession suppressed: given Emily’s age and anxiety, the judge rules, Brady’s promises went too far. Price insists on calling Kelly despite Baxter’s board seat. Kelly admits that 46 percent of Ellsworth juniors and seniors got extra time on standardized tests and that affluent parents game the system. Brady reads out Emily’s messages saying she wanted to kill West.
Keller then calls Lisa Dumont, who testifies that she killed West herself, striking her with the stick from Emily’s backpack while wearing a green sweatshirt and dumping it in an empty lot. The judge will not bar the surprise testimony. The stick is found where Lisa said, with both women’s prints, and nothing proves or disproves her story.
Spoiler, the ending: Unable to call Lisa a liar, the prosecutors offer her second-degree murder with 20 years, and Emily goes free. In court Emily cries out that she is the killer and is led away, while her mother swears she killed West, and the plea is accepted. Later, Brady leaves Leo a voicemail asking to get together.
Why it stands out
- Director Milena Govich played Det. Nina Cassady, Ed Green’s partner, in the show’s seventeenth season (2006–07).
- DA Baxter has a conflict of interest: he is an Ellsworth graduate and sits on the school’s board, yet his office must expose its extra-time problem at trial.
- Brady’s family enters the story: her son Ryan pleads for another chance for his brother Leo, who is newly sober, and the episode closes on her phone message to Leo.