As much as I can understand Jerry Orbach wanting to retire (he’s had a hell of a good run as Lenny,) who in the HELL are they going to get that has a quarter of his charm, panache, and mordant cop humor? Don’t get me wrong, I like S. Epatha Merkerson (as Lt. Van Buren.) I like Jesse Martin and Fred Thompson (I hate Elizabeth Rohm…except that she extraordinarily hot.)
But damn. Lenny was like this damaged refugee from the original Dragnet. Old school, curmudgeonly, but still an effective cop because he was intelligent and an incurable cynic. In a show that relies on a constantly rotating cast of ciphers playing criminals, witnesses, judges, defense lawyers, etc., Lenny and Sam Waterston are the cornerstones of the show.
God help the franchise if ol’ Sam decides he’s had enough.
On a thematically unrelated note, I dropped by a brand new Mexican grocery today and picked up a bottle of Valentina hot sauce (not very hot, but extremely tasty) and a bag of Chile/Limon Cronchies. Ever had these things? Fried puffy corn snacks swimming in tart lemon and chile pepper seasoning? My God, they’re addictive.
Well, Jerry Orbach’s moving on to his own L&O show, Law & Order: Trial By Jury, all about jury duty, which sounds like it could be amazingly dull, frankly, but we’ll see.
Yeah, that sounds like it could be awful. Gotta be a step down from the original. Still, Jer’s starting to show his age more and more. He’s 70-something, isn’t he?
You didn’t miss much. Other than the sadness of Lenny leaving it was one of the slowest, silliest and lamest L&O’s I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen quite a few of them.
While the divers were using underwater metal detectors while dragging the Hudson near Riverside park for a .38, Lenny went nostalgic about the old days-- when all you had was your eyes, your ears, and your notebook, and gave the perfect look of incomprehension when Jesse was all excited about the squad getting blackberries next year. That’s when he mentioned he was retiring.
At the end of the show, Jesse handed him a caricature of Lenny playing pool that several people had signed.
Of all the goodbyes this season, this was the only one that really mattered to me. I loved how quiet and understated it was.
My favorite moment was when he told Ed. Ed mentioned that the detectives would be getting Blackberries (PDA’s) next year, and Lennie told him that he had put in his papers. Ed looked like he was about to fall over, then he just said, “What?”
The last scene was perfect. Lennie packed up his boxes, got handed his caricature (clearly something that really had been signed by the cast and crew), said his goodbyes, and walked out. No tears, no hugs. The last shot was of Lennie’s nameplate sitting on his desk.
Dennis Farina will be replacing the irreplaceable. Here’s a short article. The new Law & Order show in which Briscoe is supposed to be an investigator for the D.A. is not on CBS’s fall schedule, but may be a midseason replacement.
I thought I read an article somewhere, where during the first day of shooting, Jerry Orbach and S. Epatha Markenson looked at each other and agreed, “They’ll have to take me out of here in a pine box.”
Logan’s second partner was Phil. He got shot by a semi-crazy gunrunner at the end of a season. Phil survived, but was seriously injured.
Lenny was introduced as a temporary replacement for Phil, and Logan didn’t want him - saw him as intruding into Phil’s space, wouldn’t let him unpack his cardboard box of stuff on Phil’s desk, and so on. He also was suspicious that Lenny was on the take. For example, they ate at a diner and walked out without paying, and Lenny thanked the guy behind the counter. Logan criticised him for not paying and asked if he was on the take. Lenny says no, the guy behind the counter is one of his snitches, who trusts Lenny because he thinks Lenny’s crooked, so Lenny has to make him think that. It’s the kind of ambiguity that Lenny was great at.
Logan kept talking about when Phil would be back. But then he vistis Phil in the hospital and Phil tells Logan that he’s not coming back. He’ll never be 100% again, and he’s been offered a desk job in another precinct. He’s decided to take it, in part because he doesn’t want to jeopardise any of the other cops by not being completely physically fit in a crisis.
At the end of that episode, Logan rags on Lenny for leaving his box o’stuff on the floor where people can trip on it - isn’t he ever going to put it away?
Lenny gives the camera a classic Lenny look, about his new partner who can only welcome him by ragging on him.
And, when Lenny left the other night, it looked like much the same cardboard box …
And then there was that episode with Briscoe and Curtis where Briscoe keeps telling Curtis to order “the special” – the owner of this particular diner would occasionally give him free food in gratitude for catching a bad guy years earlier. In a few more years, Briscoe would NEVER have to buy his own food!
[QUOTE=Guinastasia]
What exactly happened to Mike Logan and Claire Kinkaid. From what I gather, the latter supposedly died in a car accident?
QUOTE]IIRC, Logan got busted down in rank for slugging, in full view of the public, a gay-baiting assemblyman accused of killing a political rival.
So, is this Lenny of “Lenny and Karl” or Lenny of “Lenny and Squiggy” that you guys are talking about?