Remedies (Season 25, Episode 14)
Premise: A wellness influencer is executed on her way home from her book launch, and the shooter, a mother whose daughter gave up cancer treatment on the influencer’s advice, claims she killed to save her child.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 25, Episode 14
- Detectives
- Det. Theo Walker (David Ajala)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Nolan Price (Hugh Dancy), ADA Samantha Maroun (Odelya Halevi)
- Guest stars
- Matt Walsh as defense attorney Joe Sirianni, Stephanie Szostak as Carol Massey, Georgia Waehler as Lauren Massey, Mike McGowan as Roger Massey, Tess Marshall as Emily Starr
- Director
- Martha Mitchell
- Writers
- Jennifer Vanderbes
Summary
The Investigation
“Remedies” opens at the launch party for wellness influencer Emily Starr, who says she beat stomach cancer naturally and built a following and a healing center on homeopathic remedies. Walking home, she is shot in the back of the head with a .22. A rival influencer who accused her of stealing material for the book has a recorded alibi, and an ex-boyfriend portrayed in the book is cleared by bar video.
A bus dash camera leads to a dead-end alley where the gun turns up in a discarded tote bag. Ballistics match it to an old robbery by Eric Domingo, who says his girlfriend pawned it; a dealer who bought it from the pawn shop admits it changed hands under the table at a Pennsylvania gun show. Parking-lot video there shows a car rented by Roger Massey of Darien, Connecticut, and bridge records put it in Manhattan the night of the murder.
A search of the Massey home turns up a jacket in the garage trash with Emily’s blood on it, and Roger’s wife, Carol, tells him to say nothing. Roger is released, and Carol is charged with second-degree murder. Her emails show anger at their daughter, Lauren, 20, who changed her surname to Hope and paid thousands to Emily’s center.
The Trial
Defense attorney Joe Sirianni opens by claiming defense of others: Lauren has leukemia, and Emily persuaded her to give up chemotherapy. The prosecution objects to the surprise and argues that the law requires an imminent, unlawful threat, but the judge lets the defense proceed. Maroun says she follows Emily and does not dismiss alternative medicine. Sirianni shows that Lauren paid Emily more than $23,000 although doctors gave her excellent odds with chemotherapy. Carol testifies that Emily kept her dying daughter away from her parents, and admits the shooting.
Lauren testifies that her mother saved her life and begs the jury not to punish her. Price tells Maroun his mother, a lawyer, lost a year of her life after pausing chemotherapy for alternative treatment. Carol refuses a plea to first-degree manslaughter with 15 years. A member of Emily’s old cancer support group recalls that she never showed symptoms, and the medical examiner finds no sign she ever had cancer: her founding story was false. Maroun argues the finding is not exculpatory and need not be shared, and it does not come up in the prosecution’s closing.
Spoiler, the ending: The prosecution argues in closing that Emily broke no law and posed no imminent threat, and the jury convicts Carol of second-degree murder. As Lauren breaks down, Emily’s followers thank Price for getting her justice.
Why it stands out
- Riley does not appear; Walker works the case without his partner, and Reid Scott and Tony Goldwyn are both absent from the episode.
- Price shares that his mother lost a year of her life after pausing chemotherapy for alternative treatment, the reason he feels for the defendant.
- The prosecutors learn their victim never had the cancer she claimed to have cured, and debate whether that discovery must be shared.