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From: "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: Law & Order "A Perfect Family" 4/3/2025 (spoilers)
Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2025 20:26:08 -0000 (UTC)
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Law & Order, as revived, is at another low point with a particularly bad
and offensive episode. For the second episode, Mehcad Brooks does not
appear; Shaw is still said to be sick. I assume production weeks
conflict for Brooks but I didn't find what he's doing.

Riley (Reid Scott) has a father-daughter moment with Bridget (Justine
Colan), who is being mildly bratty. Later in the episode, upset by
investigating the murder of a 12 year old girl at a prep school, Riley
calls Bridget out of class to try to bond with her; Bridget is at best
indifferent.

Emily has been tossed off a pedestrian bridge near her school. The red
herring is volleyball coach Redmond who has been transferred among
schools Riley and Lt. Brady (Maura Tierney) suspect he's a molester or
pervert and Emily had some "private lessons". but this being Law &
Order, it's just not worth investigating the possibility of other
serious crimes, nor do they even suggest anything to the principal. In
this case, the girl was upset about her family but never said anything
meaningful to the coach.

Emily's perfect family the Chapmans, parents Melinda (Allison Miller)
and Derek (Brett Zimmerman), younger daughter Amanda (Delaney Quinn),
and a newborn gets more and more off putting, especially the mother.
Yee (Connie Shi) works her magic on vast amount of video from networked
cameras, spotting the mother some place where she has no alibi for the
crime. I wasn't sure why she knew what the mother looked like but I
guess she had a driver's license photo or the actress's head shot.
Later, Yee has footage from forward-facing cameras in transit buses that
are amazing clear video and see the top of the pedestrian bridge
clearly, showing the mother after the daughter was shoved off. No
forward-facing camera in a vehicle designed to capture images of a
collision will have such footage.

The case keeps getting more and more absurd. The mother, we learn, has
been diagnosed with post-partum PSYCHOSIS, not just depression. The
oldest daughter exhibited a slight amount of jealousy toward the
newborn, very typical childish behavior. The mother overreacts and
decided that Emily was going to harm the baby and murdered her to
prevent this.

This is pretty stupid stuff. But wait. There's more.

In the L&O twist, the husband rejected the diagnosis and threw down the
antipscychotics the wife had been prescribed. So Price decides to charge
manslaughter in the second degree against the husband.

As per usual, Price isn't the least bit prepared to proceed to trial. He
tries to get the father to accept a plea but the father refuses, even
when Price tells him he'll put Amanda on the stand as she witnessed the
father preventing the mother's treatment. Price puts Amanda on the stand
but in another incredibly dramatic moment, won't question her out of
fear that she'll be psycologically harmed.

At the end, Price tells Maroun that Derek's punishment will be feeling
guilt and regret that Emily's death could have been prevented.

Whatever helps you sleep at night, man.

This was a bad episode.