Patient Zero

Two girls were taking a stroll when they heard two gunshot coming from a SUV. A man threw a woman out of a car and ran away. The case was easy to be solved: it was a carjacking and the perp (Malcolm Goodwin), a black guy with priors, had already sold the stolen car to a car mechanic to tore it apart. A toxic waste found in the car trunk lead detectives to another case: a SARS outbreak was about to spread throughout the city and there had just been twelve infect people at the hospital; the patient zero, a reporter who had an affair with the boss of a University research lab specialized in infectious disease, could have been the target of her lover together with the stone cold wife. Defense attorney tried to claim a terrorist pattern (the victim was from Arab descent), but when a secret son came to light all became clear. But the doctor had a strong alibi....

An interesting episode, very good the trial part. It's not clear whether the victim had a relationship with the doctor as well or not. He's a real cheater and she would have just been a fragment of his collection.

When a woman is murdered in a carjacking, Briscoe and Green are assigned to the case and soon they find the SUV in a chop shop. When they open the trunk, they find a vial for medical disposal with SARS virus inside. The owner of the SUV was the laboratory technician Anna Hopkins that worked for Dr. Charles Blanchard. Briscoe and Green learn also that there is a coronavirus outbreak in New York and the patient zero is Jeanine Wilson, who has had an affair with Dr. Blanchard and a son with him. She accuses him of injecting the virus instead of B-12. When Dr. Blanchard goes to the court, the boy dies in the hospital and his only alibi is provided by his wife Elaine Blanchard that learns the list of affairs of her husband.

"Patient Zero" is an interesting episode of "Law & Order". The Machiavellian Elaine Blanchard is impressive and the conclusion absolutely unexpected. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Patient Zero"

It's a carjacking and a homicide from same that Jerry Orbach and Jesse Martin start out with. But when the car is picked up with SARS virus in tubes the case takes on a whole different light.

The victim worked for the famous Hudson University which exists in all the Law And Order shows and she works for scientist Daniel Gerroll. She was trying to dump the virus when she was carjacked and shot. It gets serious when a pair of SARS cases turn up in New York. A mother and four year old son, the mother recovers the boy dies.

What Sam Waterston now is faced with is the fact that Gerroll and the mother Phoebe Jones were having an affair and that Jones was becoming an inconvenience not to mention her kid which was their's. Still Gerroll's wife Khrystyne Haje stands by her man.

That Gerroll is evil no doubt, we don't find out how evil until the end of the show.

I was surprised when this episode was about the Corona virus and bioterrorism. 17 years ago when this episode was televised, we thought that such an epidemic was highly unlikely --- boy were we wrong.

While not an innovative subject, the subject is an interesting one that is scary in its relevance now and hits hard. Regardless of whether it's original or not, the original 'Law and Order' and the franchise in general have been known to execute them a lot less simply and with more complexity than it seems at first. Hopes were high on first watch, due to loving "Bodies" and liking very much "Bounty", which also had challenging subjects.

"Patient Zero" is not as good as those two episodes and not every aspect works, so making it an inconsistent episode. But it succeeds a lot more than it fails and when it is good (like in the legal portion) it is very good indeed. It does a good job with a scarily relevant and hard hitting subject matter and doesn't trivialise it on an atmosphere or emotional level. Although it doesn't waste the subject or story at all, far from it, there was a better and more surprising episode in there somewhere in "Patient Zero" that wasn't quite there.

The good things are many. As usual for 'Law and Order' and its spin offs, the production values are solid and the intimacy of the photography doesn't get static or too filmed play-like. The music when used is not too over-emphatic and has a melancholic edge that is quite haunting. The direction is sympathetic enough without being leaden, while never being particularly inspired.

Furthermore, the writing is thought probing and intriguing. Particularly in the second half. The story absorbs and has a lot of tension and intrigue in the second half. The subject is not easy to pull off, but it does have a harrowing edge at least and has urgency, the relevance of it is scary. The acting nearly all round is great.

Apart from cold and stiff Elisabeth Rohm.

Despite the great chemistry between Jerry Orbach and Jesse L Martin, the case starts off a bit in a standard manner to begin with but quickly becomes very engaging once things become more urgent. Do agree too that the connection between the victim and the doctor could have been made clearer, that was under-explored.

Overall, not great but good. 7/10.