AboutKitt Montague Expertise Fan since 1995; have seen every show from the start to the end; co-edit a Law & Order `zine, apocrypha; freelance entertainment writer. My interest propels my knowledge, so I`m pretty well versed in all things Law & Order!
Question I have a hard time catching all the episodes in order, and am living a schizophrenic life watching new episodes when I can and the re-runs whenever I can. But I have tried and tried to find out *how* Claire Kincaid dies -- that episode NEVER comes on! All I know is what I have read from an episode description: In an episode called Aftershock, all four main characters react profoundly, and a "rudderless Claire” is killed ironically in a car crash. What do they mean by rudderless (I understand the connotation, but what was her dilemma?)? What was the deal with the executed man? NONE of the episode guides (I've been searching and reading different ones for over two hours now) give any details about the case, or Claire's actions leading to her death. Was she driving? Driving drunk? Was anyone else hit? What caused the accident? Did we see her die?
Please, please, this has been driving me nuts. Also, is there any way to find out when that episode might be aired as a repeat so I can be sure to catch it?
Thank you.
Answer Margarita,
Hello there! You've come across a subject (and an episode) which causes much controversy amongst fans, some of whom think it's the worst thing L&O ever did, some of whom think it is the best, and many who fall in the middle. To be honest, I thought it was an interesting idea, with interesting sections, clumsily executed (so to speak)and overall, not very good. Law & Order doesn't do personal information/stories very well; the writers are used to being very simple and almost entirely story-driven, so when they suddenly have to give these characters outside lives and separate personalities, they stumble.
"Aftershock," which was Claire's last episode, was a deviation from the norm when it came to L&O episodes. I'm assuming you won't mind spoilers, since you're asking, but if you do mind, skip this following graf:
"Aftershock" opens with an execution of an unrepentant monster who essentially clubbed a woman to death on the highway after she rear-ended him, in broad daylight, etc. [My comment: So much for presenting a villain with any ambiguities. There is no explanation for why Rey (new to this precinct and homicide) and Claire (only there a matter of years) would be there, since any executions take *years* to go through the courts, to say nothing of the (as this was billed) "first NY State execution" since Pataki signed the death penalty into law. The law was new then, as Pataki was relatively new; there's no way Rey and Lennie caught this guy and Claire and Jack prosecuted him in the short time since the death penalty was instituted and certainly not since Rey's been on the team. But, again, no explanation.] After the execution, credits roll and the band of four go to work. [Again, never mind that later on Adam is on TV saying how the criminal died at midnight; there's no temporal sense of time elapsed between the execution and when we next see characters, so clearly they've driven the hour or so distance from Ossining back to NYC and ended up in major traffic at 3am, even though it's broad daylight. But I digress.] Claire's profoundly disturbed by what she's seen and ends up taking the day off after a spat with an "I'm a man I can take it" McCoy. Lennie also takes the day and goes to hang out with his daughter and then old friends; Rey has a spaz at the precinct and is *sent* home; he promptly heads record-shopping and runs into the Alias girl (pre-Alias) and they have a one nighter after dancing to Cowboy Junkies. Jack decides to also take the day off and heads -- where else -- to a bar where he hangs with some other guys who have nothing better to do but drink in a bar all afternoon. He gets toasted, talks a LOT about his abusive father (which is the best part of the episode) and intermittely tries calling Claire, who has roamed everywhere in search of meaning for her (now seemingly meaningless) career. She goes to visit her stepfather Mac (a law professor) who gives her rough-hewn advice; she sees Anita at the precinct and they have Chinese food. Claire gets beeped by Jack and blows him off. Eventually, however, she realizes she's going to have to pick him up (we assume this; we're not shown exactly how she knows where he is, unless I've forgotten some scene). Lennie shows up at the *exact same bar* as Jack (because there are only 2 bars in NYC, of course) and *he* falls off the wagon. Jack finally gets sick of waiting for his ride home, says "The hell with her," and leaves. Claire shows up, takes a (now-toasted) Lennie home, and en route, is broadsided by a car. Lennie stumbles out, leans in her side car window, sees her dead, shouts to the skies "Why, Lord!" (Kidding about that.) He just sees her dead, looks vaguely ruined by it, and we go to credits.
The next time we visit the L&O offices it is a new season and the most we get out of it is that Jack and Lennie mumble words of generalized regret (and turn each other down for a drink after work) about the incident in the last few minutes of the episode. Behind the scenes, I think Wolf et al were hoping Jill H would reprise the role, and he mentioned in some interview that she could just be in a coma somewhere, but in the end, it was pretty clear that she was dead. For one thing, she never got mentioned, for another, in "Under The Influence" Jack went ballistic and over the edge over a drunk driver; for another when Jack was interrogated by a Kenneth Starr-esque prosecutor in one of the crossovers, the prosecutor says something to the effect that Jack had an assistant who was his lover and who died in a car crash. Then, in interviews, producers stated that yes, Claire was dead. But it took a lot because, as I say, L&O is not big on personal details -- and they're usually clumsy about it.
One more personal note (I have to vent when talking about this ep, so apologies), I would have found the episode much, much stronger if it hadn't been so "black hat/white hat." I mean, at least *one* of the four could have been believably drawn as someone who insists that what was done was the right thing, and they're sticking to it. (Rey, for instance.) Instead, they all fall apart, which is unrealistic and weak storytelling -- it turns the ep into a one-note anti-death-penalty rant. Which is fine, but you need more than one note to create a tune.
As for watching it, you can try TVGuide.com and TV Now.com to search for episodes; apocrypha (www.podengo.com/apocrypha) also has a mailing list where, if you sign up for just Special Announcements you'll get a weekly listing of L&O shows and other related programming. So that's another way.
Good luck. I hope this helps! If it does, can you leave me nice feedback with All Experts?
