All episodes Season 16 S16E15 2006-03-01 60 min 1990s NBC

Law & Order

Choice of Evils

TV Flash files “Choice of Evils” as hour 364 of 545 in the TV Flash guide — Law & Order (1990–2010) on NBC, season 16, episode 15, aired 2006-03-01, 60 min.

From the desk

How this hour is filed

This leaf is S16E15: listed hour 364 of 545 in the Law & Order guide, hour 15 of 22 in season 16. It aired 2006-03-01 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “Magnet” (S16E14). Next is “Cost of Capital” (S16E16). Broadcast log — titles and dates, not a plot bible.

Law & Order — Choice of Evils (S16E15)

Catalog log

Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.

After the body of a teenage boy is found dead in a warehouse, detectives use DNA to connect the boy to a convicted rapist and serial killer, then to the boy's mother, Allison Ashburn, the convict's ex-wife. While trying to solve Danny's murder, Fontana and Green learn that he recently got his girlfriend Tina pregnant, and his mother had seen him recently when she had given him money despite having claimed she had not seen him for months. Allison finally admits that she murdered her son after the police arrest her new husband John, but claims she did it to save the world from her son, whom she was convinced would become a monster just like his biological father. Borgia and McCoy face an uphill battle trying to convict the perfect soccer mom.

Viewer FAQ

Where does Choice of Evils sit in the Law & Order guide?

S16E15 is listed hour 364 of 545 — hour 15 of 22 in season 16, season 16 episode 15.

When did Law & Order S16E15 air?

Choice of Evils aired 2006-03-01 and is listed at 60 minutes.

Do I watch in order, or is it modular?

Modular is the point. Cases close. Casts change. Start anywhere in the original 1990–2010 run and you will understand the clang within twenty minutes. Order matters only if you care which partner is standing next to whom.

In the series

Why this series still plays

For the walnut that became a city: street then courtroom, a clang as civic punctuation, and two decades of interchangeable parts that taught TV how to clone a night. Comfort is the feature. The original 1990–2010 cathedral still teaches the form; the revival is the machine refusing to clock out.

Picture a Tuesday when the nation still had a cop show that split like a walnut: first the street, then the courtroom, a clang on the soundtrack that became civic punctuation. Law & Order premiered September 13, 1990, on NBC, created by Dick Wolf, and it did not invent the procedural so much as industrialize it. Prescription for Death is the template in miniature — a hospital night, a dead patient, cops then lawyers, no hug required. On the palate: newsprint, a New York that looks like a location budget with a…

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Filed against

Also in season 16

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