Not to be confused with the Season 21 episode of the same title
On the way back from a birthday dinner for his stepdaughter, Jim Shepherd is shot in an attempted hit. Estelle Muller hired the would-be killer because she believes Shepherd murdered her son Rick. Rick was Shepherd's best friend, and died in a fall while on a climbing trip with him. There was no autopsy, and just a few months later, Shepherd married Rick's widow Robin. He now intends to adopt Rick's daughter, so Mrs. Muller tried to have him killed. She swears that Rick would never go climbing because he was afraid of heights; and she is prepared to go to jail to prove Shepherd killed him.
An examination of the body shows that Rick was beaten to death with a baseball bat. Shepherd is arrested. At trial, one of the key witnesses (Shepherd's friend) instantly recants his testimony, forcing McCoy and Ross to dig deeper. They discover that Shepherd was obsessed with Robin, even before Rick died. When she traveled out of state for her high school reunion, Shepherd booked a hotel room at the venue and pretended he was there on a business trip. He asked her to go for dinner with him, but she already had plans.
In court McCoy shows paperwork from Shepherd's company to prove that he wasn't at the hotel on business. He set the whole thing up as an excuse to spend time with Robin, hoping to start an affair with her. She testifies that Shepherd tried to kiss her shortly before Rick's death; she turned him down and said maybe they could have fallen in love, if she weren't married to Rick. The jury convicts and Robin instantly files for divorce from Shepherd.
Related Tropes:
- Comforting the Widow: Jim Shepherd "consoled" his so-called best friend's widow Robin after his death and they ended up married a short time later.
- Death by Falling Over: Robin's first husband and Darlene's father, Rick, supposedly died of this while rock climbing in Central Park. His mother insisted that he was afraid of heights and it turned out she was right; he was instead hit with a baseball bat then thrown off the rocks.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Hit man Howard Phillips is a ruthless professional killer with a wife and young daughter he loves. He's also attentive to the family dog, even insisting that the detectives return him home after he's arrested out of fear of upsetting said daughter.
- Fourth-Date Marriage: Shepherd and Robin got together almost immediately after Rick died, and married just a few months later.
- Halfway Plot Switch: The first half of the episode is about trying to find out who shot Jim Shepherd. The second is about investigating Shepherd's role in Rick Muller's death.
- Made of Iron: Jim Shepherd, oddly enough. In spite of being shot in the head by an apparent professional hitman, he survives relatively unscathed with little lasting effects.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Rick Muller's death was designed to look like an accidental fall.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: Why Rick Muller had to die in Jim's eyes; so he could be with Robin.
- Oblivious to Love: Played for horror; Robin notices almost none of Jim's advances towards her and brushes off the few she does, because she only sees Jim as a friend and genuinely loves her own husband. As a result, Jim eventually comes to the conclusion that he needs to make Robin notice him.
- Obnoxious In-Laws: Estelle Muller is a sympathetic and justified example, having spent years watching the man she correctly suspected of killing her son basically take over his life, all while under the threat of never seeing her only grandchild again if she kept bringing it up.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Estelle plays a significant role in this episode, 5 years after her son's death.
- Parents Know Their Children: Estelle was suspicious of her son's death from day one because she knew that he was terrified of heights and probably wouldn't have easily agreed to go rock climbing.
- Properly Paranoid: Let's say Estelle Muller's suspicions of Jim end up being very well-founded.
- Revisiting the Cold Case: Estelle convinces McCoy to look into the murder of her son.
- Seduction-Proof Marriage: After engineering dozens of moments meant to subtly seduce his married friend, Robin, Jim realized she was too deeply in love with her husband to even notice his intentions, causing him to Murder the Hypotenuse for the sake of Comforting the Widow.
- Stalker with a Crush: Jim towards Robin. He even followed her to a class reunion on the excuse that he had "accidentally" bumped into her whilst traveling for work.
- Unwitting Pawn: Robin, ultimately. She had fallen for Jim after Rick's death and remarried him, but she wasn't involved in the murder and hadn't even known that he was obsessed with her and had killed Rick to be with her. Upon learning this, she was horrified and divorces Jim.
