S24.E11 The Hardest Thing

[Xeliou66]

Episode description 

When a wealthy man is executed in his home, Shaw and Riley aim to determine who was greedy enough to want him dead; Price must try a difficult case amidst his father’s failing health.

[dubbel zout]

This case felt a bit dated.

Ugh, I don't care about Nolan's dying father. If the dad is old and his body is shutting down, what's the problem with hospice? The dad is going to die no matter what. Make his final days comfortable. It's a tough decision, yes, but Nolan needs to think about what his father needs, not what Nolan needs.

The young second wife just vanished after she talked to Price and Shaw. I'd think she might have some idea of what was happening with her husband's illness.

And they totally wasted Zeljko Ivanek.

[Xeliou66]

This could’ve been a great episode if not for the personal Price melodrama detracting from it - and frankly Nolan came off as unsympathetic until the end, he was being selfish trying to keep his dad alive even though he was in pain and had no quality of life. And it seemed to be affecting his judgment on the case, to the point where I thought that if he didn’t agree to a deal, Baxter should have him removed as lead prosecutor. Fortunately he came to his senses at the end and it was 100% right to offer a manslaughter plea - the daughter deserved a lighter sentence as it was clear her story was the truth and it wasn’t a cold blooded murder but what she thought was an act of mercy - a plea was the right thing and I don’t think any jury would’ve convicted. I liked the scene where Price told Baxter he wanted to make a deal, Baxter knew Price had a lot of emotions but he didn’t pry and the scene didn’t become melodramatic. But the Price personal melodrama detracted from the episode and it’s another example of L&O adding in too much personal soapiness which has been the main weakness of the season.

I agree it was odd that the new wife wasn’t talked about or called to testify (that we saw) I know they hadn’t been married long and she was out of town a lot but she would likely have known about her husband’s condition - unless he somehow kept it hidden from her and she wasn’t around enough to notice. That part was overlooked.

The investigation was great and I enjoyed Shaw/Riley as usual, it had a lot of twists and I wasn’t sure where it was going, very compelling investigation, and Brady has grown on me. A couple of real good lines - Brady telling the son that if he knew who killed his dad he should’ve run towards the police not away, and Riley’s line about the bar owner cosplaying Goodfellas.

Baxter’s scenes were good as well, I like him as DA and how he approaches cases.

Nice to see the guy playing the defense attorney even if he didn’t get a large role - I’ll always know him as Baltimore prosecutor Danvers on Homicide, and as Ben Stone’s nemesis in season 4’s American Dream, this is his second appearance on the revival as that defense attorney, Mr Banks the judge called him, hope we see him some more.

So this was overall a compelling case, lots of good twists in it, and if it hadn’t been for the Price melodrama getting in the way of things it would’ve been really good, they still could’ve done the assisted suicide angle without Nolan’s personal drama, but the personal drama detracted from the episode as it frequently does when they include it. Still I enjoyed the episode overall.

[Madding crowd]

I think it was too on the nose in tying together Nolan’s personal issues with the case. I also wondered why the man’s wife wasn’t questioned regarding his state of mind. This one didn’t quite make sense to me. The man was apparently thinking well enough to plan all this with the goal of getting life insurance for his son, yet he was risking the very real fact that his daughter could and was arrested for murder. Since the guy’s wife and daughter were filthy rich, he could have arranged for them to give money to the son and he could take pills to end his life. No risk to the daughter. 

[jcbrown]

I liked this episode but I did not like Nolan. Hospice is one of the best choices you can make for a dying loved one and he was a stubborn selfish jerk to delay it.

This one hit home for me more than it deserved to. My mom (in a nursing home with dementia, less than ten years older than I am now, under hospice care because they are angels) developed dysphasia and we had to decide as a family whether to put in a feeding tube. Thanks to her expressed wishes, we opted against and then I flew across the country and my sister, dad, husband, and I kept vigil with her 24/7 for nearly a week before she died. So I judged Nolan pretty hard in this episode.

[dubbel zout]

12 hours ago, Madding crowd said:

Since the guy’s wife and daughter were filthy rich, he could have arranged for them to give money to the son and he could take pills to end his life. No risk to the daughter. 

Did the daughter's husband have all the money in their relationship? Because if he didn't, I don't understand why the son had to have help to fund his business idea, unless the son was just so terrible with money that he'd blown through it already. And if that's true, it seems like the dad was throwing good money after bad by giving him even more money via the insurance settlement.

And speaking of the insurance settlement, I wonder how the company feels about the daughter not being charged with fraud. I suppose her plea deal had some sort of accommodation for that, even if we didn't hear about it.

8 hours ago, jcbrown said:

a feeding tube

A feeding tube isn't necessarily a good thing. It can be uncomfortable, develop an infection at the site, etc. I know the show doesn't have time anymore to go into much (if any) nuance, but Nolan's brother could have raised at least one of these points. I guess I should be glad Nolan eventually got over himself and realized it was the best thing for his father to let him die with a level of comfort.

[Raja]

22 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

And speaking of the insurance settlement, I wonder how the company feels about the daughter not being charged with fraud. I suppose her plea deal had some sort of accommodation for that, even if we didn't hear about it.

I would guess that the allocution of suicide by daughter would have the insurance company trying to hold to the suicide as if he pointed an unloaded gun at law enforcement and refuse the widow and brother survivor benefits.

[dubbel zout]

The insurance payment went out only to the kids; when Shaw and Riley talked to the wife, she said, "I'm richer than both of my husbands combined." (Nitpick: I think rich people wouldn't use the word rich; they'd say, "I have more money/am wealthier than..." but that's my issue.)

[storyskip]

Maybe because I just watched this exact same scenario and sibling vs siblings debate on The Pitt, but I could understand how difficult Nolan found it to accept and let go. I found it interesting that he was on the more emotional side of the argument.

And if Nolan had been the “Let Dad go peacefully” side we’d all be here fussing about St. Nolan. So like it or hate it, at least he wasn’t given the Olivia edit. 🤷‍♀️

[paigow]

Sean Gaylord Harper... justifiable homicide....

[Sake614]

As someone whose mother just died this month, I was appalled by this episode. There is a VAST difference between shooting your father in the back of the head and easing his pain so he can pass peacefully. Absolutely no correlation between the two cases and Nolan should have pushed for murder because that’s what it was. As he said if the daughter wanted to help her father die (at his request), there were many other ways to do it. She chose murder and doesn’t regret it? Well okay then but don’t reward her with a reduced sentence. 

I was asked about a feeding tube but my mom had a DNR and DNI. I knew she wouldn’t want it, and even the GI doctor agreed with me that it could do more harm than good. In the end, her body just shut down but I’m grateful her mind was still intact. I get how hard it is to let go. I too was my mom’s proxy. I would have moved heaven and earth if I could have helped her, but I had to do what was best for her, not me. I didn’t feel sorry for Nolan but neither did I agree with the whole ‘she did it out of love and we should offer her a deal.’
 

Edited Friday at 09:47 PM by Sake614

[shapeshifter]

1 hour ago, Sake614 said:

As he said if the daughter wanted to help her father die (at his request), there were many other ways to do it. She chose murder and doesn’t regret it? Well okay then but don’t reward her with a reduced sentence. 

It didn't make any sense.
I kept expecting the distraught brother in the courtroom to jump up and admit he had done it (for the insurance money). 
Maybe that was the original plot and they thought it would be more interesting to turn the trope on its head?
But sheesh.
It made no sense that a seemingly sane, mature, well-off woman would dress up like a ninja, stage a crime scene, and shoot her father in the back of the head — especially if he asked her to do it while she knew he had dementia.

Both of my parents died because, as Nolan told Maroun, they were "old," and it was horrible. 
Another issue with the feeding tube choice is that once it's started, it can be (so I was told) very difficult to get it legally removed.

 

[Sake614]

39 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

Both of my parents died because, as Nolan told Maroun, they were "old," and it was horrible

Yeah my mom was 93. She’d been on hospice for almost two years. Admitted to hospice, removed because she improved, put back on in December 2023. Social worker told me in November that she’d likely be removed again because she didn’t meet all the Medicare criteria. Hospice doctor examined her and disagreed so she remained on hospice until her death at the beginning of January. But even if she had asked me to help her die, she sure as hell wouldn’t  have asked me to shoot her in the back of the head! This was just a stupid plot to prop Nolan’s pain and I’m not here for it. It was an insult.

[Irlandesa]

The shooting in the head thing was a confusing choice.  I get why the dad would feel a more active intervention was necessary. Physically, he wasn't anywhere close to death, so he didn't have life-giving assistance that could be removed.  Yet he also didn't want to waste away which I completely respect.  But asking your daughter to shoot you seemed very risky for her. 

And it's clear they wanted a moral dilemma since they made the daughter and her hubby independently wealthy. 

10 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

A feeding tube isn't necessarily a good thing. It can be uncomfortable, develop an infection at the site, etc. I know the show doesn't have time anymore to go into much (if any) nuance, but Nolan's brother could have raised at least one of these points. I guess I should be glad Nolan eventually got over himself and realized it was the best thing for his father to let him die with a level of comfort.

They did have the doctor pointing out that additional interventions could lead to more negative outcomes.  The Pitt did a better job on this story. 

5 hours ago, storyskip said:

And if Nolan had been the “Let Dad go peacefully” side we’d all be here fussing about St. Nolan. So like it or hate it, at least he wasn’t given the Olivia edit.

I think the issue was less his reaction to his father and more how it colored the case.

[dubbel zout]

The dad didn't want his death to look like a suicide so that the insurance policy would be paid out. There are probably less gruesome way to accomplish this, but that's what the show decided on.

[marc20]

off next week btw...a repeat of season opener at 10:00 eastern

[Theli11]

I thought this was a pretty good episode, this season is getting to me. Obviously the situation is contrived, at the end of the day it is a drama. I'm starting to like Nolan & Sam a lot more as a pair. But it's more about their relationship and less about their prosecutorial duties and skills together. They're growing on me (I believe I've said before that Nolan & Sam are reminding me of Ben & Claire, but they've passed them and other boring partnerships imo). I don't think the daughter should've been charged with murder or anything more heinous than what she got in the deal. I do think *every episode* being personal is dragging it, but I think on rewatch it'll be better? IDK. 

[Cotypubby]

From the way the opening was shown with him purposefully wearing the headphones to not hear anything I had an immediate feeling that the murder victim was in on it and had arranged to be shot. I expected it to have something to do with the dna ancestry business though, interesting that was just a throwaway line.

[blackwing]

I thought overall this was a good episode.  I wasn't prepared for the daughter being the killer in an assisted suicide way... I thought it was going to be another one of those where the brother got immunity but then revealed on the stand that he was the actual killer.

I didn't mind the juxtaposition of Nolan's issues with his dad versus the parallels of the dad in this case.  The woman expressing that she just wanted to follow her dad's wishes and let her dad go made Nolan realise that he needed to let his own dad go and it made him agree to the plea.

On 1/31/2025 at 8:19 PM, Irlandesa said:

The shooting in the head thing was a confusing choice.  I get why the dad would feel a more active intervention was necessary. Physically, he wasn't anywhere close to death, so he didn't have life-giving assistance that could be removed.  Yet he also didn't want to waste away which I completely respect.  But asking your daughter to shoot you seemed very risky for her. 

It was purely to defraud the insurance company.  I don't think she should have gotten a plea.  She could have let her dad go in other ways, like letting him take pills that would have ended his life quickly and painlessly.  Instead, she schemed with him to deceive the police and the insurance company into thinking he was the victim of a violent robbery.

I was annoyed that nothing was mentioned about the insurance fraud.  Yes, she got five years for manslaughter, but I think there should have been additional years for the fraud.

On 1/30/2025 at 9:42 PM, Madding crowd said:

This one didn’t quite make sense to me. The man was apparently thinking well enough to plan all this with the goal of getting life insurance for his son, yet he was risking the very real fact that his daughter could and was arrested for murder. Since the guy’s wife and daughter were filthy rich, he could have arranged for them to give money to the son and he could take pills to end his life. No risk to the daughter. 

Why take pills and make it look like an obvious suicide when you can defraud the insurance company and get a free $10 million for your deadbeat son?  I'm wondering why the daughter was the one to kill him.  She didn't need the money.  She is now paying the price for a scheme that primarily benefitted her brother.

On 1/30/2025 at 8:07 PM, dubbel zout said:

The young second wife just vanished after she talked to Price and Shaw. I'd think she might have some idea of what was happening with her husband's illness.

Did she even appear in the courtroom for the trial?  If so, I didn't notice her.  I think her only role was to be a red herring, to make it look like she was a suspect.  Why the need to even make him married at all?

 

 

 

[ML89]

I don't know, the whole case, with the ongoing reveals, made me as mad as Nolan - so, really, it's this, it's that, it's insurance fraud, it's murder, it's manslaughter (it's a dessert topping...). I have a real problem, like he did. So she just casually blows her father's brains out and stages a fake break in to give her brother some money, and I'm supposed to be all sad because it was really for her father's own good? Nolan did the right thing for his own father but the case? If her brother wanted the money, then he should have been the one staging it. I didn't feel for either of them, and especially not for "I'm richer than both my husbands" wife. Wasn't fond of Nolan's brother either.

But I still remain fond of Shaw & Riley, who have some decent chemistry. Maroun was also tolerable this time.