Dream On (Season 25, Episode 10)
Premise: When a singer with a growing following is strangled, the case against her producer runs into a defense that blames her boyfriend, Lt. Brady’s son Leo, and questions how Brady handled the investigation.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 25, Episode 10
- Detectives
- Det. Vincent Riley (Reid Scott), Det. Theo Walker (David Ajala)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Nolan Price (Hugh Dancy), DA Nicholas Baxter (Tony Goldwyn)
- Guest stars
- Alex Neustaedter as Leo Brady, Ryan Broussard as Sean Chase, Lana Love as Zina Worth, Victoria Cartagena as defense attorney Yolanda Matos, Noma Dumezweni as Chief Kathryn Tynan
- Director
- Néstor Carbonell
- Writers
- Rick Eid & Tori Novie
Summary
The Investigation
“Dream On” opens with singer Zina Worth playing to a cheering club crowd. Later that night a nurse finds her body; she has been beaten and strangled. A club entry stamp leads Det. Vincent Riley and Det. Theo Walker to the venue, where she is identified. Then Lt. Jessica Brady arrives: the dead woman is her son Leo’s girlfriend.
Brady breaks the news to Leo, a musician who lives with Zina and her eight-year-old daughter, Izzy, and means to adopt the girl. A search turns up a kilo of cocaine in a closet; Leo says he has been sober for 13 months and that Zina had started using again. The squad is told there will be no special treatment, but the drugs are logged as the dead woman’s and no one is charged. An obsessive fan has an alibi, and a bandmate angry that Zina was going solo was at a party; he blames her producer for pulling her back into cocaine.
The producer, Sean Chase, says Zina told him Leo was going to kill her. Leo admits the couple fought that day and that he followed her to Chase’s townhouse, but says he spent the night at home with Izzy. Video shows Zina leaving Chase’s empty home with a duffel bag, and Chase sent her an abusive text hours before her death. He is arrested; his DNA is under her fingernails and her blood is on his clothes.
The Trial
Defense attorney Yolanda Matos names Leo as the real killer, with his mother covering for him, and wins the right to argue it. Chief Kathryn Tynan relays police headquarters’ worry about the press, but the DA’s office refuses any deal. Leo testifies that Zina went to Chase’s to collect money he owed her. Matos calls Brady, asks why Leo was never charged over the drugs and is allowed to treat her as hostile, and Chase reads out Leo’s threatening texts.
As the tabloids seize on the story, prosecutors want proof of where Leo was. His phone shows two silent hours, and Brady, who knows he cannot sleep when upset, keeps digging until Leo is faced with proof that he left Izzy alone and went to a West Village bar. Back on the stand, he admits his earlier testimony was false, and video shows him at the bar through the time of the murder.
The ending
Spoiler: The jury finds Chase guilty of second-degree murder. Afterward Leo asks his mother to testify for him in his custody fight with Zina’s sister, a teacher married to a lawyer. Brady refuses, telling him he is not ready to be a father and has always been a dreamer.
Case outcome: Chase, guilty verdict. Prosecuted by Nolan Price. Conviction rates
Why it stands out
- The defense calls Lt. Jessica Brady as a witness and is allowed to treat her as hostile, putting the squad commander’s own handling of the case before the jury.
- Brady’s closing words to Leo, calling him a lifelong dreamer, echo the episode’s title.