In a new episode which aired Thursday night, NBC's Law & Order attempted to evoke sympathy for a murderer modeled after Luigi Mangione, the real-life assassin who shot and killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in cold blood in 2024.
Thursday's episode, entitled "Folk Hero," began with fictional healthcare CEO Logan Andrews, the head of a company called OptiShield, walking down the street and talking on his cell phone about "healthy margins, healthy profit, healthy stock price." A man wearing a mask and hoodie similar to the one worn by Mangione then shoots him in cold blood on the sidewalk.
With breakneck speed, the killer, named Ethan Weller (Ty Molbak), becomes a hero in the city. Young people cheer him and wear his jacket in solidarity. Weller is tracked down and caught moments before he is about to kill a second healthcare CEO.
During Weller's trial, his defense attorney, Megan Stratton (Laila Robins), argues that Weller's actions were legal because he "was trying to save lives" by killing Andrews.
Stratton: There is no question Ethan Weller shot and killed Logan Andrews. But there's a reason he did it, a legal reason. He was trying to save lives. Logan Andrews caused the death of thousands of innocent people. By denying their legitimate insurance claims. Thousands more were about to die, are about to die, because of Mr. Andrews' callous disregard for human life. So Ethan Weller killed Logan Andrews before Mr. Andrews could kill again. And his actions are completely and unequivocally legal under the laws of New York.
Assistant District Attorney Nolan Price (Hugh Dancy) protests to the judge that allowing such a defense will "make a mockery of the defense of others doctrine," a doctrine applied only when a defendant is forced to kill someone to save another human being in real time. The judge rejects Nolan's plea for sanity.
Healthcare CEOs, fearing for their lives, meet with District Attorney Nicholas Baxter (Tony Goldwyn).
CEO 1: This clown, Stratton, has claimed that Logan Andrews, a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, has killed thousands of innocent people which means, as a health insurance CEO, that I, too, have killed thousands of people, as did Mark and David.
CEO 2: We're all mass murderers. This is absurd.
Baxter: Of course it is. But the judge believes the jury should decide whether or not this defense is valid.
CEO 1: I have looked into this judge. And he has donated to seven politicians over the last five years, all of them avowed socialists.
Baxter: And he's entitled to do that. But you're not wrong. I know Judge Moscatello. He is quite progressive.
CEO 3: So now we're all on trial for this?
CEO 1: Yeah, and for what? Because we had the audacity to make money for our shareholders? This judge and this defense lawyer are basically telling the world that it is okay to just hunt us down like--like we're a bunch of pheasants.
Baxter: Look, I understand what you guys are saying, but it's not that simple.
Actually, it is that simple. Arguing that someone should be assassinated if people do not like a company's policies places targets on innocent people's backs.
Law & Order episodes usually end with a jury pronouncing "guilty" and the killer being taken away in handcuffs. Not so this time. In this episode, before the verdict is rendered, the prosecution gets nervous that the jury has been deeply moved by the defense's arguments. The show then ends without revealing what the jury decided, leaving the answer of "guilty" or "not guilty" a mystery for the audience.
In an interview with TV Insider, "Folk Hero" guest star Jesse Metcalfe praised the decision to have no clear verdict.
“I feel like this open-ended episode played incredibly well,” Metcalfe said. “It really works for this episode. We don’t really take a stand on what the verdict should be. We allow the audience to have their own opinion. I think a lot of times when a storyline isn’t resolved, it can cause the audience a little bit of frustration. I think in this particular episode, I think it’s still incredibly satisfying, which is important.”
A case about a premeditated murder publicly carried out in broad daylight against an innocent man is not an episode whose verdict should be a mystery. With "Folk Hero," Law & Order totally lost the plot.
