All My Children

Decided a while back (three years ago) to review all the episodes of the original 'Law and Order', 'Special Victims Unit' and 'Criminal Intent', being someone who really likes all three shows in their prime/early years. Really loved a lot of the early seasons episodes of all three shows, while also finding all three less consistent later on (with the original not feeling the same post-Briscoe and even began to lose consistency in Season 11 and all the seasons after).

"All My Children" is another episode that executes a sensitive subject very well, in a way that hits hard for anyone who is troubled or who has difficult relationships with parents. It's another episode that is not one of the very best of Season 11, but is in the better half. Season 11's second half was generally better than its first, the first was very up and down and seldom exceptional whereas almost all the best episodes were in the middle and second half. "All My Children" is a good representation, if not one of the best, as to why that is.

Once again, "All My Children" starts off slightly routinely.

It also would have benefitted from everything that happens in the last 5 minutes or so to happen a little earlier so that it had more time to develop.

However, the production values are slick and are simple without being simplistic. The music is haunting and not too over-emphasised when used. The direction is sympathetic while having momentum and personality. The script is tight and thoughtful, raising some interesting points about the complications that come with prosecuting.

The story once it gets going is very compelling and has shock value (without being exploitative) and emotional power. It is a very hard hitting and heart-breakingly tragic case, handled uncompromisingly but also sensitively enough. Especially in the second half, which does not end in the way that is expected. It is hardly surprising too that the victim hated his father so much, and personally found myself hating him too. The acting from all the regulars is reliably on point and Julianne Nicholson is indeed terrific, hard to believe that her career had only started a few years before.

Concluding, very good. 8/10.

Julianne Nicholson, who would go on to play Det. Megan Wheeler in 24 episodes of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, turns in a terrific performance in this early role. She had only been acting for a few years. The biggest kick for me was seeing Mike Logan's cherished former partner, Lennie Briscoe interrogate his future partner. I'd been chasing this one for a while and just finally got to see it tonight. It did not disappoint.

A man was walking his kid to school. In the schoolyard, the kid was bouncing a basketball, when the ball slipped from his hand heading to a dumpster. Among the bins, a dead body was lying on the ground with a couple of bullets in his head. He had no documents with him, but thanks to a key placed in his necklace detectives manage to find out who are the parents of the victim. He's a son of a real estate magnate, but his father has lost contact with him for two years: the victim is actually a junkie, doing a part-time job in a bike shop and he was really angry with his father (as usually happened when brats don't manage to keep up with successful parents). But when a stepsister turns up, he's ready to set his revenge: anyway she's not so foolish as he was and something could have gone wrong.

Great performance for the later detective in Law & Order: Criminal Intent (Jessie Nicholson) who plays the "likely" daughter. I don't understand why this trust fund guys get used to hating their fathers so much after getting everything they wanted in their infancy and boyhood.

A street junkie is found shot to death on the grounds of an Upper East Side private school and it turns out to be the son of a multi- millionaire Henry Woronicz. It turns out this kid had some bad substance abuse problems and was thrown out of his plush existence years ago by his father and told to clean up his act.

This kid truly hated his father and that's the key to this whole episode which involves him helping a young girl prove that she is his half sister as a result of an indiscretion by Woronicz years ago. It all ends quite tragically for the principal players in this story.

But I have to single out a performance by Kelly Cole as a junkie and a confidential informant for narcotics detective Fernando Lopez. Lopez comes into the picture when Briscoe and Green get his pager number off a cellphone they retrieve from the deceased's affects and Lopez in turn identifies a possible witness to what might have happened.

The scene with Jerry Orbach, Jesse L. Martin, Fernando Lopez and Kelly Cole in a restaurant is absolutely priceless.