Directed by Gloria Muzio
Written by David Black & Harold Schechter
Briscoe and Curtis investigate the deaths of a couple who were active on the BDSM scene. The murders are linked to a serial killer who meets his victims through LGBT and fetish communities. An initial suspect leads the detectives to the real killer, Eddie Chandler. Just when Ross and McCoy have enough evidence to charge, Chandler gets a new lawyer: Neil Pressman, a high-profile Harvard law professor. When a witness testifies that Chandler is obsessed with violent TV and movies, Pressman claims that Chandler was driven to kill by the media he watched.
Pressman subsequently calls Maxwell, a Congressman crusading against media violence, as an expert witness. Under questioning from McCoy, Maxwell is forced to admit that nothing on network TV resembles the sadistic tortures that were inflicted on the victims. McCoy further tells the court that each person chooses how to react to the media they watch: the baby boomer generation raised on violent TV grew up to campaign for peace. Chandler is convicted. Ross later reads a published article by Pressman, submitted before the case came up, about the viability of media violence as a legal defense. She and McCoy reflect on Pressman's callousness in chomping at the bit for a defendant he could test his theories on.
This episode contains examples of:
- Affably Evil: Eddie Chandler. He's quite polite and charming, to an almost pathological extent. See The Charmer below.
- Brains and Bondage: Both the eloquent Chandler; and Gaylin, who used to be a teacher.
- Broken Bird: Chandler and an ex both profess the former to be this, although it's likely just part of his act.
- The Charmer: Chandler, to an alarming degree. Ross notes that his charm seems to be almost pathological, as Chandler begins hitting on her and Curtis while they're interrogating him.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Chandler tortures and mutilates his victims with a knife.
- Depraved Bisexual: Chandler targets both male and female victims, and is a sex-killer.
- Dominatrix: Gaylin and Steiner visited one.
- Drama Queen: Both Chandler and Pressman. Chandler sheds crocodile tears about how his victims used and abused him in an attempt to get sympathy from McCoy, while Pressman gives grandiose speeches about the harmful effects of violent media on society.
- Gold Digger: A number of Chandler's friends and exes describe him as this.
- Good Bad Girl: What Gaylin seems to have been. She was a kindhearted teacher who worked with underprivileged kids, but was also into S&M.
- I Was Quite a Looker: Chandler, an aging party boy and former male prostitute, is noted by his clients to have been very attractive as a younger man. In the present day, Chandler's beauty has faded and his former clients and sex partners have largely cast him aside, which fuels his vengeful killing spree.
- Kinky Cuffs: Among Gaylin's arsenal of sex toys.
- Moral Guardians: Maxwell, in spades. He's even willing to let Chandler, a serial killer, go free if it will help to stem what he calls "The tide of depravity" infesting society.
- New Media Are Evil: Chandler's defense rests on this and it's certainly Maxwell's view.
- Racist Grandma: A variant - Maxwell, a senior citizen and respected Congressman, is very contemptuous of Chandler's bisexuality.
- Ripped from the Headlines: Based on the case of Andrew Cunanan, the serial killer whose victims included Gianni Versace.
- Serial Killer: Eddie Chandler, a former gigolo who begins murdering his ex-lovers because they've cast him aside now that his looks have faded.
- Slippery Slope Fallacy: McCoy's questioning challenges Maxwell on this point.
- Smug Snake: Pressman. He's preening, arrogant, and doesn't even actually give a rat's ass about Chandler or the case. He's just testing a new defense he wants to try out in court.
