Law & Order (TV Series) Bad Girl (1998) User Reviews

Transformation

[bkoganbing · 8/10 · 3 June 2019]

Guest star Isabel Gillies who later had a semi-regular role as Christopher Meloni's wife in Special Victims is a perpetrator. A raging hate filled perpetrator who in a moment in a drug filled rage killed a female undercover cop.

This girl is some piece of work and Briscoe and Curtis have their hands full arresting her. We also see something of her background that made her what she is now.

But she breaks down in court and the jury finds her guilty. Killing a cop she knew was a cop guarantees her the lethal injections.

A strange thing happens though. Gillies has a religious conversion and from the punk rock look and attitude she now is a born again Christian and looks like a coed from Liberty University. Is it real or a ploy?

Politics enters this one with Adam Schiff being challenged by a candidate put up by old friend and now enemy Robert Vaughn. The candidate is Judge Cliff Gorman who Sam Waterston crossed swords with before.

But Gillies really shines in this episode. This might be her career role.

Faith Cannot Move the Gurney.

[rmax304823 · 7/10 · 12 April 2011]

Early in his career, Benjamin Franklin offered to establish his printing presses in news-starved Southern cities like Charleston. He sent his equipment and managers gratis. At the same time, by printing Franklin's books and newspaper, The Pennsylvania Gazette, the charity would bring him some income. He'd own the best newspaper in the South.

There's nothing wrong with that. Why shouldn't a sense of civic responsibility be combined with self advancement? That's what the Protestant Ethic is all about.

In this better than usual episode, Adam Schiff is in the same position. A filthy, murderous young woman is convicted of killing a cop and sentenced to death, but she's undergone an evidently sincere religious conversion. Schiff is under a lot of pressure from a well-funded law and order type in the immanent election and it's to his advantage to see the girl executed. At the same time, he actually believes that execution is justified. Like Franklin, he can get something out of doing good.

I had a couple of questions though. Okay, the girl converts and become a zealous Christian. She wants the needle because she feels she deserves it. I think such conversions can be real, that there are people who actually believe in dualism. Roosevelt Grier, the ex athlete and now ordained minister is one. He was on the "Larry King Live" show and mentioned that his brother had died earlier that day. King was aghast. "Then why are you HERE?" Grier replied with self-evident sincerity that the body was just a momentary place that his brother had inhabited, but that he was now in a better place. It was a stunning moment.

But why do all these inmates convert to some brand of Christianity, except for some blacks who convert to a variant of Islam? Why aren't there any born-again Theravada Buddhists in the slams? At any rate, Adam Schiff is at peace with himself over the execution. So is Jamie Ross -- whose name I loathe. No more girls' names beginning with the letter J from now on, okay? No more Jennifers or Jillians. And no more Megans or Regans, while we're at it. Please, fellas, give it a rest. Jamie Ross is satisfied not because she thinks the execution is justified but because she opposed it from the beginning and this new incident justifies her anger. Her position is firm. So Schiff is happy and Ross is disappointed.

The guy with his huevos in a vice is Jack McCoy. He's satisfied about the death penalty. Sentencing was out of his hands anyway. Yet there is something in him that is nudging him, that keeps him squirming, some crise de conscience. Maybe that's one of the things that happens when you take Catholicism too seriously. You keep telling yourself "Ego te convicto." At any rate, he's the guy with the dissatisfaction, as he should be.

Loose Strands, Silly Rhetoric

[refinedsugar · 8/10 · 22 April 2024]

Season 8 had a lot of little character moments in play and 'Bad Girl' resolves some while others take off. You have Van Buren's (S. Epatha Merkerson) lawsuit with the NYPD over being racially discriminated against for promotion being tossed out. District Attorney Adam Schiff (Steven Hill) worries about reelection after offending his powerful supporter Carl Anderson (Robert Vaughn). Lastly Det. Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) can't help his daughter Cathy (Jennifer Bill) when she messes up with drugs. That's not even getting into the main plot about a slain police officer, the female suspect that finds religion in prison and gains support.

What sounds like a gunshot finds two people down in a park. One is deceased off duty cop Dana Flynn who's been stabbed and the other is a young man who appears to be the suspect shot in the head but who survives. Briscoe (Orbach) & Curtis (Benjamin Bratt) find out about a missing piece of jewelry and when Monica Johnson (Isabel Gillies) story as a witness doesn't add, it becomes clear she was the attacker. At trial she's found guilty and is given the death penalty. From there it's third party political social groups trying to save her life while she's made peace. McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Ross (Carey Lowell) and Schiff (Hill) battle with the issue each differently.

What I most took away from this episode is the double standards at work and they don't shy away from illuminating it. Of course it's also one of those "ripped from the headlines" tales largely based on the Karla Faye Tucker case but simplified. In that piece of true crime, the convicted female had a male accomplice who was sentenced to death too, but no one lobbied for his life to be saved. One can suggest it was because he was a man and he also didn't find God. 'Bad Girl' is pretty straight forward but a good watch. Actions have consequences and equality deems we all be treated the same, right?

The girl may be bad but the episode far from is

[TheLittleSongbird · 10/10 · 22 July 2021]

Have loved the original 'Law and Order' for a long time, particularly the earlier seasons, and consider it my personal favourite of the 'Law and Order' franchise. "Bad Girl" on paper immediately intrigued, to some (not me) it may seem too basic and ordinary. 'Law and Order' do have a good track record at making something great and more complex than expected out of stories that don't sound out of the ordinary on paper and understandably one expects similar from "Bad Girl."

"Bad Girl" is one of the best Season 8 episodes and the best since "Divorce". It is another episode to be consistently attention grabbing and high quality throughout the entire duration but be even more special in the second half. Am saying that after seeing some 'Law and Order' episodes lately where the second halves were better than the first, a few quite a bit so. "Bad Girl" does have one of the most unsettling female perpetrators of the early seasons, but no matter how bad she is the episode is far from that. The complete opposite.

The production values are still fully professional, the slickness and subtly gritty style still remaining. The music is sparingly used and is haunting and thankfully non-overwrought. The direction shows some nice tension in the legal scenes. The script is well balanced, taut and intelligent, and handles complex themes tactfully yet with unyielding grit.

Moreover, "Bad Girl" has a compelling and clever story that delivers on plenty of unexpected and plausible twists and turns. Also excelling in raising uncompromisingly but also sensitively intriguing questions regarding the death penalty (again showing both sides of for and against and equally strongly) and whether the perpetrator really has changed. This was done with tact and edge.

Did also love Briscoe's role, his subplot isn't soapy and was very illuminating and heart-tugging. Jerry Orbach, once again showing how good he was at conflicted anguish, stands out of the regulars and Isabel Gillies is a chilling revelation as a reprehensible character.

Overall, brilliant. 10/10.