Law and Order – Season 23 Episode 2 Recap & Review

Human Innovation

Law & Order Season 23 Episode 2 begins with a rich man called Evan Marks, the CEO of VenZip, which deals with cryptocurrency. At 2 am one night, Marks withdraws $2000 in cash from an ATM across the street of VenZip’s headquarters. Everyone assumes he’s died in a robbery/homicide. 

The team finds a suspect in less than 24 hours despite being woken up in the early hours to investigate. His name is Blake Hughes. His fingerprints are on Evan’s wallet, and they find the $2000 on him when he is arrested. 

However, he is a drug dealer who saw an opportunity and isn’t the actual killer. He got a call from Evan that he wanted drugs delivered. He arrived and saw Evan arguing with a man before he was killed. He took the money after Evan died.

Evan’s partner in the business, James Sawyer, soon comes under scrutiny as it’s revealed they were fighting over a woman. They look into Evan’s background and find flirty messages he has exchanged with a woman called Lacy Stevens. Her husband is interviewed and it’s revealed he and Lacy were partying with Evan the night he died. Turns out, the couple has an open marriage. They are involved in an underground party scene for rich people called Lifestyle. Evan was hosting the party that night at his offices. He left to get more drugs but never returned.

There is a discovery about something called EVA, a software program for artificial intelligence, when they tracked down Sawyer before he tried to flee out of the country. Sawyer tells the police EVA was Evan’s baby, and he’d fired 200 engineers who were working on it once it started to get successful. 

The A.I. software can do their jobs faster and it doesn’t cost anything. However, the problem with EVA was how quickly it was evolving making the possibility of it being dangerous in the future.

The cops look into the firing of the engineers. They discover a man called Ben Stafford, whose ID card showed he gained access to VenZip during the party. The cops get a warrant for Stafford and search his apartment and find a gun in the trash. The gun is confirmed to be the murder weapon, and they arrest Stafford. He confesses to the crime during the interrogation. But when his lawyer shows up, the confession is thrown out. 

Stafford’s lawyer points the finger at Sawyer being the killer after finding emails between Sawyer and Evan fighting over the direction of the company. Sawyer was named the new CEO after Evan’s death. 

Sawyer turns up with the video of Stafford shooting Evan, but this didn’t feel right to Executive ADA Nolan Price. He knows Stafford is left-handed after he viewed him taking notes, but Stafford in the video is right-handed. Price gets the video authenticated before he considers using it as evidence. 

The authenticity of the video isn’t confirmed, and Price chose to use the video on the orders of his boss. They get the guilty verdict against Stafford. Price gets a glimpse of Sawyer’s face after the verdict is read out and he looks very happy with himself. So maybe he did plant the fake video!

The Episode Review

Law and Order continues to keep up to date with what is going on in the news, with episode 2 focusing on a company that deals in cryptocurrency and has a keen interest in artificial intelligence.

It’s an entertaining watch and a very fun whodunit, but there have been better episodes of Law and Order. However, for a show in its 23rd season, it still manages to be fresh and entertaining nevertheless.