User Reviews

I agree with the Internal Affairs cop who said it was an ironic day indeed when their department is willing to give a shooting of a black teen by a veteran cop a once over, but the precinct won't. The one with whom this doesn't sit right is George Dzundza and he's got a job he even convincing partner Chris Noth to back him up. But Noth does come around.

Police officers John Finn and Jack Gwaltney from their patrol car spot a drug deal in progress and give chase as the participants split up. Gwaltney gives up his pursuit when he hears shots fired. Finn has shot down a kid who has a magnum in his hand and the other has taken off.

I won't go into it all, but the whole thing stinks on ice to Dzundza. Finn has had several complaints against him. The deceased was a community hero of sorts, going to Princeton.

In the end it's tragedy all around. The deceased was not quite the role model the neighborhood made of him. And Finn who might have been severely disciplined blew it by trying a cover-up.

Besides those mentioned there's also a good performance coming from Al Freeman, Jr. as the pastor of the church the deceased and his family went to. Ditto for the survivors of the incident the deceased's younger brother Richard Haversham and Erik King the street wise drug dealer who finds his life turned inside out with this whole affair.

Better quality was yet to come in later episodes of 'Law and Order', but its very early years were still solid while not completely finding its groove straight away. Found all the previous episodes good to great, my favourite being "Prescription for Death" and my least being "Everybody's Favourite Bagman" (which was actually the pilot and it has the feel of one).

Liked "Poison Ivy" a little better than the previous reviewers and found it a very solid episode. One with a lot of great things that was just missing the extra something. That extra something in this case being to my liking a little more tension and that it could have gone into its challenging subject with a little more depth. Greevey having doubts and the strong possibility of the victim not being what he seems being hardly novel, handled well still but could have been a little less obvious.

It was great though that "Poison Ivy" had an equal mix of the law and order sides of the case, showing both procedures in the show and its spin offs was a great idea and always makes me when done right think hard about the truth and making a judgment myself. The case does grip as does the inestigative/procedural work, even though we are completely on Greevey's side when he thinks things don't add up. The prosecution element is intriguing and it is great to see how these prosecutors work and get a result.

Again it was gutsy exploring a difficult current issue (which has always been a major interest point of the 'Law and Order' franchise and plays a sizeable role in its appeal), the regular characters' moral dilemmas and the complications of getting a result. Even if the depth wasn't always there, the intrigue certainly was.

Can't fault the gritty production values here or the sparingly used and unobtrusive music (also that memorable main theme). The script is thought-provoking and intelligently written, with no fat and no focus on soapy personal lives which could be a problem in the later seasons of 'Special Victims Unit'. Michael Moriaty as ever makes much of the juicy character of Stone Greevey's hard boiled edge is brought out more than convincingly by George Dzundza. John Finn gives a strong supporting turn.

On the whole, very solid. 8/10

While patrolling the streets of New York, the veteran Police Officer Freddo Parisi and Officer Davis see three Afro-American suspects that split and run. Freddo chases two of them and Davis runs after the third one. Out of the blue, Davis overhears a shot and runs to the alley, where Freddo is. He finds a suspect dead with a Magnum in his hand and the other suspect missing. Detectives Greevey and Logan investigate the case against the will of the police department. Soon they find that the victim, Tommy Richardson, was worshiped by the black community since he was graduated in Princeton and used to give donations to the church. But their further investigation showed that he was a drug dealer since the time of the university, but he did not have a gun. Now Stone and Robinette are pressed and proposes a deal to Freddo for planting the Magnum in Tommy's hand, but he refuses the deal and prefers going to the court.

"Poison Ivy" is a good episode of "Law & Order" with a case very difficult for Greevy and Logan first and then for Stone and Robinette. The Afro-American community wants the punishment of Freddo, but he was released from the Internal Affairs and the Union is defending him. But Greevy and Stone believe in justice and proceed their investigation. The conclusion is predictable. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Exemplo Venenoso" ("Poisoned Example")