All episodes Season 20 S20E14 2010-03-01 60 min 1990s NBC

Law & Order

Boy on Fire

TV Flash files “Boy on Fire” as hour 447 of 545 in the TV Flash guide — Law & Order (1990–2010) on NBC, season 20, episode 14, aired 2010-03-01, 60 min.

From the desk

How this hour is filed

This leaf is S20E14: listed hour 447 of 545 in the Law & Order guide, hour 14 of 23 in season 20. It aired 2010-03-01 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “Steel-Eyed Death” (S20E13). Next is “Brilliant Disguise” (S20E15). Broadcast log — titles and dates, not a plot bible.

Law & Order — Boy on Fire (S20E14)

Catalog log

Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.

When Lupo and Bernard come upon the burning body of Cesar Ramirez (Noel Rodriguez), a sixteen-year-old charter school student from a bad neighborhood, they begin to question his young mentee Moses (Aaron Shaw), who was the last person to see him alive. After evidence leads the detectives to a shocking cell phone video of the crime being committed, they soon realize that the four people in the video may be in cahoots with an unexpected ally. The investigation leads the detectives to the high school principal, Martha Woodside (Debra Winger), who has all of the right answers. With a shady educator, tampered alibis and jealous schoolboys all coming into play, the detectives discover that their case may be more than elementary, and until new evidence comes to light, there is no one that ADAs Cutter and Rubirosa can put on trial.

Viewer FAQ

Where does Boy on Fire sit in the Law & Order guide?

S20E14 is listed hour 447 of 545 — hour 14 of 23 in season 20, season 20 episode 14.

When did Law & Order S20E14 air?

Boy on Fire aired 2010-03-01 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 20

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