Law & Order: Season 7
Season 7 Lore Primer
Key plot threads, lore context, and character stakes you need to remember before diving into this season.
- Directly follows the overarching narrative developments of Law & Order Season 6.
- Faction dynamics and core character alliances shift under escalating external stakes.
- Crucial mysteries introduced previously reach key turning points and narrative reckonings.
- Sets up serialized story arcs that build directly toward the climactic season finale.
Episode Guide
Season 7 Progress Shield
Causa Mortis
Sep 18, 1996 · 47 min
McCoy's new second chair, ADA Jamie Ross, is determined to prosecute as harshly as possible a carjacker who took the life of a teacher as she pleaded for her life on an audio tape
I.D.
Sep 25, 1996 · 47 min
The cops tackle identifying a corpse left in an elevator, and McCoy finds his prosecution of the suspect later hampered by a vindictive judge who resents Ross's in-court rebuke for
Good Girl
Oct 2, 1996 · 47 min
Briscoe and Curtis have to break the mutual alibi of two girlfriends as they try to find the killer of a young black man, whose angry parents pressure McCoy to indict a young woman
Survivor
Oct 23, 1996 · 47 min
Briscoe and Curtis's investigation of the murder of a rare coin dealer nets them a millionaire as a suspect, but Ross has to play detective too as the DA's office tries to establis
Corruption
Oct 30, 1996 · 47 min
Curtis, angered by the attitude of an old colleague of Briscoe's, looks beyond the findings of an IAB investigation and turns up evidence of police corruption that puts the DA's of
Double Blind
Nov 6, 1996 · 47 min
The murder of a janitor in a university laboratory building leads back to a student employee whose participation in a drug study may have prompted the crime.
Deadbeat
Nov 13, 1996 · 47 min
The murder of a deadbeat father whose son is dying of leukemia presents McCoy and Ross with a sympathetic suspect and a moral dilemma.
Family Business
Nov 20, 1996 · 46 min
The murder of Richard Speigel, chief financial officer for an exclusive, family-owned department store goes from the sitting room to the bedroom and into the board room as suspicio
Entrapment
Jan 8, 1997 · 47 min
The case against Huey Tate, a young man accused of shooting the well-known leader of the African-American Congress comes undone when the New York authorities learn that their chief
Legacy
Jan 15, 1997 · 47 min
The sidewalk shooting of a young husband uncovers the fact that his wife's first husband died in a inadequately investigated accident, and that they may have been having an affair
Menace
Feb 5, 1997 · 47 min
The detectives face a difficult struggle getting witnesses to a girl's apparent suicide to come forward while Ross tries to prove that a known bully is the one really responsible f
Barter
Feb 12, 1997 · 47 min
An unpromising case of murder suddenly develops new leads when the cops explore the possibility that the victim was mistaken for someone else. McCoy walks a thin line in the matter
Matrimony
Feb 19, 1997 · 47 min
The discovery of a would-be thief refocuses a murder investigation, leaving the prosecutors the task of making a conspiracy case against the deceased's attorney and the pretty youn
Working Mom
Feb 26, 1997 · 47 min
The murder of an ex-cop with a penchant for blackmail and illicit sex brings feminist lawyer Lanie Stieglitz into court against McCoy to defend a suburban wife and mother.
D-Girl
Mar 13, 1997 · 45 min
A headless corpse fished out of the river sends Briscoe and Curtis out to Los Angeles to obtain a blood sample from their chief suspect while McCoy and Ross back in New York try to
Turnaround
Mar 20, 1997 · 45 min
Back in New York with their suspect, Briscoe and Curtis try to pin down his schedule on the night of the murder, but find instead that another man was in the area at the right time
Showtime
Mar 27, 1997 · 47 min
The trial of Eddie Newman begins but the prosecution's chances of conviction are hampered by a "dream team" of defense attorneys, Gorton's personal pressures on Ross, the public qu
Mad Dog
Apr 2, 1997 · 48 min
McCoy becomes obsessed with nailing a serial rapist recently released on parole and pushes the cops perilously close to harassment as he attempts to connect the man with a new rape
Double Down
Apr 16, 1997 · 47 min
The cops' best hope of finding a kidnapped hired car driver alive is one of the armed robbers who grabbed him after a job, but the immunity deal he demands in return would effectiv
We Like Mike
Apr 30, 1997 · 47 min
A young man who claims to have helped a murdered young man change a flat tire is first the cops' primary suspect, then the prosecutors' chief witness.
Passion
May 7, 1997 · 47 min
Briscoe and Curtis investigate the death of a pretty young book editor who was reputedly having an affair with one of her authors, and find themselves focusing on the author's long
Past Imperfect
May 14, 1997 · 47 min
The cops have a definite clue when a bloodstain that's not the same as the victim reveals that the killer was a blood relative, and the prosecutors stumble when their chief suspect
Terminal
May 21, 1997 · 47 min
The cops uncover a man with a secret second life as they try to learn who opened fire on a group of people disembarking from a party cruise, but his guilt or innocence becomes almo