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This guide contains an alphabetical listing of all Law & Order episode titles, followed by the season-episode number and the text from the final ("denouement") scene of that episode. This concluding scene often sums up the lessons learned during the episode and is often quoted and referred to by followers of the series. Hence, the creation of this webpage. Note: This list includes the CBS pilot which was aired by NBC as episode 1-006.
Claire: "To tell you the truth, I didn't think you'd pull that
one
off."
Jack: "What can I say, Freud's out, the devil's in.
Claire: "Admit it, Jack, you were a little tough on that priest."
Jack: "When you're raised by the Jesuits you end up obedient or
impertinent.
[A waiter comes and puts a drink on the table in front of Jack]
Jack: "I didn't order this."
Waiter: "It's on the gentleman at the bar."
[Jack turns to see the defense attorney at the bar, raising a glass to him]
Jack: "Take it back."
[The waiter picks up the drink and leaves]
Claire: "You can't forgive anyone, huh?"
Jack: "No, I can't. Besides, that was bourbon. I'm drinking scotch."
[Jack takes a sip and looks sideways at Claire...FADE OUT]
Paul: "Susan Boyd's going for a record. This is her sixteenth
motion.
I doubt we ever get to trial."
Ben: "She uses an out-of-date prison library and her work is better
than anything I've ever seen from a Wall Street law firm."
Adam: " 'The truth is ugly, so we put our prophets in prison.' "
Ben: "Oscar Wilde?"
Adam: "Charles Manson."
[Close-up of Ben's face as he contemplates the irony...FADE OUT]
Skolar: "I'm thinking...man two?"
Stone: "I'm thinking murder two, he does 25 to life."
Skolar: "I'll appeal, we'll start over."
Stone: "I'll be here."
Skolar: "Manslaughter one."
Stone: "All right, but Mr. Polesky does the max."
Skolar: "My client won't be very happy, but at least he'll have
a roof over his head for the next 25 years."
Stone: "So does Lemonhead -- a rubber cell at Bellevue. And then
there's Nathan Robbins -- he's got six feet of dirt over his head. So
what
does happy got to do with it?"
[Mr. Skolar nods acceptingly in agreement as they shake hands. He watches as Ben leaves and crosses the street]
Anita: "I hear Zack Rowland cut a deal."
Jack: "Lieutenant, It's 9 o'clock, I'm in a bar, I've got a glass
of 8-year-old scotch in front of me, I don't talk business."
Anita: "Tell me something, counselor, were you born a wise-ass,
or did it just come with the job?"
Jack: "I'm a pussy cat. You should have seen my old man...."
Anita: "Your old man...."
Jack: "He was a cop -- you knew that. If it had been him who was
unlucky enough to be in front of that ATM instead of you, there
probably
would have been TWO dead kids lying on the sidewalk."
Anita: "And you would have dragged him in front of the grand jury."
Jack: "Damn right. I would have gotten an indictment too."
[Jack grins at Anita. She grins back and softly laughs...FADE OUT]
[Assistant District Attorneys Jamie Ross and Jack McCoy join District Attorney Adam Schiff outside courthouse]
Jamie: "The jury was back in 10 minutes."
Jack: "She's going away despite Judge Marks."
Adam: [pained] "That's good."
[Adam turns and walks away]
Jack: "What's the matter? Your leg acting up?"
[Adam stops and turns back]
Adam: "When Nathan Marks became a judge most of his colleagues
cared
only about getting re-elected and getting Fridays off. Marks made
himself
a royal pain. He cared mostly about justice."
Jack: "It went to his head, Adam. He brought himself down."
Adam: [pained] "Yeah -- pardon me if I don't
celebrate."
[Adam turns and continues to walk away. Jack soon follows in the opposite direction. Jamie is left standing alone on the courthouse steps...FADEOUT]
Paul: "Feel good?"
Ben: "Well, it's just preventative detention. Loomis destroyed every
life he ever touched. We didn't change that one iota."
[Paul turns in his seat to look at victim's parents.]
Paul: "At least we gave them justice."
[Ben turns in his seat to look at victim's parents and watches them hug. Close-up of Ben's face.]
Ben: "Justice doesn't give you grandchildren."
[Close-up remains on Ben's face...FADE OUT]
Jamie: "Almost a record. They convicted him in an hour and a
half."
Adam: "How's the wife doing?"
Jack: "Shaky, but she served him with divorce papers on his way
out of the courtroom."
Adam: "Got to be tough finding out you're married to a stalker."
[Adam turns out the light and the three of them walk down the hallway...FADE OUT]
Claire: "She comes from Russia, ends up in a cell at Bedford for
three years."
Ben: "Nunoz wanted to save her, he ends up killing a guy, and goes
away for fifteen."
Claire: "I think she might wait for him."
Ben: "She came for the American dream, waited all her life for it
-- maybe she'll wait for him."
[Claire and Ben continue walking...FADE OUT]
Nora: "By this time tomorrow night he'll be on his way to Tel
Aviv."
Abbie: "The U. S. Marshall Service asked if we had any objection
to him being accompanied by a rabbi on the flight."
Nora: "Did you?"
Jack: "No, we didn't."
Nora: "Do you still think he's getting away with it?"
Jack: "I think we treated him differently because of political
pressure
under the guise of religious devotion. Do I think he got away with it?
I think for the first time in his life he didn't."
[Nora grins, extending her hand upward in approval, turns, and walks away...FADE OUT]
Ben: "At retrial we exclude their expert testimony and the jury
only
hears our witnesses."
Adam: "There's not going to be a retrial."
[Incredulous look from Ben as he leans forward]
Ben: "Isaac Roberts killed an innocent man. You're going to let
him
walk?"
Adam: "If I thought we could impanel a jury that would give us a
chance at convicting, I'd try the case myself..."
[Ben stands up, still incredulous, and leans forward on Adam's desk]
Adam: "...Now, you'd think twenty years in this office, you'd
have
a sense of reality...."
Ben: "Reality? The 'reality' is that no one is willing to stand
up and draw a line in the sand. Nobody is willing to say that the law
is
the law and if you break it you will be prosecuted: win,lose or draw."
Adam: "Nobody except you, of course."
Ben: "Adam, better to light a match than to curse the darkness."
Adam: "Even if it lights a fuse that could blow up this city?"
Ben: "What do you want? Peace without justice?"
Adam: "I'm willing to straddle the fence so this city can heal.
Can you understand that?"
Ben: [pauses] "Yup...I understand it -- and that cure [pause]
is worse than the disease."
[Ben stands, walks backwards towards door, and opens it still looking at Adam]
Ben: "And it is a solution that I just can't be part of."
[Ben leaves and closes the door. Parting shot of Adam at his desk, contemplating Ben's last words...FADE OUT]
Paul: "Leon went a long way trying to win his father's love."
Adam: "From the sound of it, it wasn't worth winning."
Ben: "They say a boy doesn't become a man until his father passes
away."
[They enter elevator and turn to face the door]
Ben: "Leon took care of it in one fell swoop."
[Elevator door closes...FADE OUT]
Nora: "People v. Bennett?"
Jack: "All packed up and headed for central files."
Nora: "File it under jury nullification -- Texas law in Manhattan."
Abbie: "They tried the victim..."
Jack: "And made the badge a license to kill."
[Close-up of filled carton as Jack lifts it from the desk...FADE OUT]
Shambala: "Naturally, my client is gratified that justice has
been
served. We look upon this not only as a personal vindication, but also
a victory for every woman, and man, that rides the subway or walks the
streets of New York."
Laura: "And I want to thank the district attorneys for having the
courage of their conviction."
[Assistant District Attorneys Ben Stone and Paul Robinette are walking away from courthouse]
Paul: "It's not a perfect world, but at least we can walk away
from
this one feeling like we did the right thing."
Ben: "Really? It feels to me like all we did was make two wrongs
seem like a right."
[They continue to walk away...FADE OUT]
Claire: "I took her plea: facilitation in the fourth degree. She
does six months and gives up her license."
Adam: [to Jack] "You have habeas motions on my desk from
every defendant that ever came here."
Jack: "I'll go through them."
Adam: "You bet you will."
[Adam walks off]
Jack: "You didn't have to take the deal, Claire. You could have
won
the case."
Claire: "I know...but, 'I thought that's what you wanted.' "
[Claire chuckles at her Diana Hawthorne quote and nudges Jack. They smile and walk off together...FADE OUT]
Dick Wolf quoted by Bill Carter, "Stars Come and Go, but Law & Order Just Gets Stronger," New York Times, February 19, 1997.
