Directed by David Platt
Written by Eric Ellis Overmyer
A woman found beaten to death in a park turns out to be Deborah Landon, the admissions director of a prestigious private prep school. She had been in conflict with the headmaster, Wyatt Scofield, who overruled her decision to admit a student named Cassie Waters. Scofield says that Cassie wasn't up to the school's academic standards, but Landon had felt he was deliberately prejudiced against a working class black student. Her emails show that she was planning to appeal Cassie's rejection with the board of governors. Scofield is arrested.
However, McCoy cannot prove a motive. Southerlyn investigates to see if Scofield took a bribe; she finds out Cassie's place at the school went to the son of Harvey Anchin, a multimillionaire porn director. The owner of Scofield's apartment complex renovated the building using cheap cement from a company whose CEO invests in Anchin's movies. This allowed the owner to recoup the cost of Scofield's apartment and offer it to him for free. If Landon had publicly appealed Cassie's rejection, questions would have been asked and Scofield's deal with Anchin would be at risk.
At trial, Anchin and the building owner openly admit that they offered Scofield his apartment in exchange for a place at the school. Scofield says that even a million-dollar apartment is small currency to his students' parents, and that anyone who thinks the world doesn't run on favors and connections is naive. McCoy lures him into admitting how poorly paid he is and that he received basically nothing in return for providing the country's wealthiest children with the best education. He had felt he was finally owed something, and Deborah Landon threatened to ruin it. The jury finds him guilty of second-degree murder.
This episode contains examples of:
- Chain of Deals: What led to Landon's murder.
- Bittersweet Ending: Scofield is convicted, but Landon is dead, Anchin's son stays at Knowles, and Cassie, who genuinely earned a place there, will now have to go to an underfunded inner-city school in a violent area.
- Evil Brit: Wyatt Scofield.
- Game-Breaking Injury: Landon became admissions officer because she could no longer teach after breaking her hip in a road accident.
- Hypocrite: Scofield derides Marvin Waters for supposedly thinking that his daughter was entitled to a place at the school because she's poor and black; yet Scofield himself thinks he is entitled to the same living standard as the wealthy parents of his students.
- "Not Illegal" Justification: The testimony about the Chain of Deals: "Maybe it's not right, maybe it's not fair, but there's nothing illegal about it".
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Anchin barely restrains himself from using a racial slur on the stand, and Scofield's disdain for Cassie Waters is clear.
- Privilege Makes You Evil
- Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Deborah Landon declined a bribe from Harvey Anchin and had a strict policy of not allowing parents to influence the admissions process.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money! / Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: The case at the Knowles School, although its official policy is to deny this.
- Smug Snake: Scofield
- Take That!: The CSU investigators miss evidence on the victim's body so Briscoe can get in a jab at the expense of CSI.
