Fade up on a guy buckling his son into a car, then hugging his wife goodbye. It seems like a garden-variety "see you tonight" send-off, but as she pulls out in the Volvo, the guy makes a "...Dun!" face and checks his phone.
In a motel room, the guy portentously removes his shoes, rolls up his sleeve, and starts to lie back on the bed, saying nervously, "Okay. Here we go. I'm really doin' this." He lies back out of frame.
Cut to Green getting the bullet from CSU -- it looks like a drug overdose. The guy isn't wearing his watch or wedding band, and left his credit card and driver's license on the bureau. Another detective tells us that his name is Thomas Lupo (uh oh), and the hotel maid reported seeing a woman in her mid-twenties visiting the room about a half-hour after Thomas checked in. The detective makes reference to some other suspicious death in which a hooker ripped off her john, and after a "joke" about reconsidering infidelity, we go to the credits, in which Rubirosa's hair appears to have improved about a thousand percent.
Green interviews Thomas's wife, who reports that he'd gotten distant in the last couple of weeks, and suggests Green talk to Lupo's brother, Cyrus, who's "flying in today from...somewhere." She asks where Lupo's wedding band is. "It's missing, along with his watch," the other detective reports.
Cop shop, where Van Buren recognizes Cyrus Lupo's name, and Green hopes he's more helpful than the wife: "That lady just didn't want to deal." On the computer, Van Buren finds Lupo, who's assigned to NYPD Intel; he's been overseas for several years, but he used to work patrol out of the precinct, before Green's time. I'll bet y'all ten bucks right now that the "Intel" thing is an excuse to make the Cyrus Lupo a savant know-it-all in the Goren mold, but we'll have to see.
Green picks up a grizzled and sunglassed Cyrus at Customs, and briefs him on what little they have; Lupo says that "hookers and dope" isn't his brother -- he's "not a weak person," he beat cancer five years ago. Green asks when Lupo last spoke to his brother, and Lupo takes an endless pause before saying he doesn't know; Thomas called a couple of weeks before, but Lupo "couldn't" get back to him. When Green asks who might have wanted Thomas dead, Lupo doesn't answer, and Green has to give him the "don't think you're working this case" speech.
Lupo bonds with his niece and nephew, then goes through some of his brother's things, finding a picture of the two of them together; the missing watch and wedding band; and a prescription bottle. He's interrupted by Thomas's wife, Jenny, who tearily asks why Thomas left his ring there. They hug. Jenny sobs; Lupo looks intensely into the middle distance.
Green heads down to the M.E. Working a foxy Helen Mirren hairdo, M.E. Rogers, I think it is (...?), says she got his message, and when he's like, "In the what now?", it turns out Green didn't call her -- Lupo did, using Green's name because nobody at the M.E. knows him. Awkward! In any case, Thomas's cancer had returned, as Lupo suspected when he found the painkillers; Thomas had about three months to live. And the official cause of death is an overdose, all right -- of potassium chloride, the same chemical used in lethal injections.
At the precinct, Green and Van Buren talk about how Thomas put his affairs in order, which makes it seem like a suicide. Lupo doesn't want it classified that way, because the case will get buried; Green's like, we've got actual murders to solve here, and maybe Thomas "had good reasons to take a shortcut to the exit -- maybe if you'd called him back and talked to him, you'd know why." Damn, Green. Four minutes, unnecessary roughness. After an uncomfortable moment, Lupo asks for permission to work the case, which Van Buren obviously denies. Then her phone rings, and as Lupo stomps out, Van Buren hangs up and tells Green to saddle up: "Someone else just took a shortcut to the exit."
The victim, Driscoll, is slumped in his wheelchair; he died the same way Thomas did.
Rogers briefs Van Buren on the tox cocktail found in both victims -- a heavy-duty sedative, a paralytic, and the potassium chloride. It sounds familiar to Van Buren, and Green supplies that it's the same cocktail used by Dr. David Lingard, a.k.a. "Dr. Death," a.k.a. "please don't sue us, Jack Kevorkian." Lingard is an assisted-suicide proponent who admitted on TV to killing his patients and was convicted of murder; he just got out of jail a month ago. Rogers leaves, and Van Buren and Green look at Lupo across the office, where he's been pacing for hours. Van Buren then talks up Lupo's overseas service, and says Lupo isn't related to the second victim: "It wouldn't be a policy violation for him to work that case." It would be a contrivance violation, but it's not like we don't know Sisto's a regular, so let's just go with it. Green isn't thrilled...
...but the scene finds Green and Lupo at the Lingard residence, where Lingard is naturally denying everything because it's only 18 minutes in. Lingard is played by Brad Dourif, which is a black bit of casting humor given Dourif's breakout role, and he's speechifying about how he knows the terms of his parole, and he can't so much as give advice about how to commit suicide, even though people ask him all the time. Then he gets up on a right-to-die soapbox that I feel like we've seen on at least 14 past L&O episodes. Lupo presses him, but he won't admit to anything.
On a laptop at the precinct, Lupo watches the TV interview that got Lingard convicted. The interviewer, Bill Nolan, is played by Michael McKean, which made me worry on first viewing that we were in for a modified version of the talk-show-host-murder ep starring Robert Klein, because why get a big name for that role if he's a herring of the red variety? Then Green turns up a record of a pay-phone call that Thomas received, from a diner on the same block where Driscoll died.
Over they go to show the counterman some pictures, and Lupo does some of that old-time Goren mind-reading to elicit the information that Driscoll used to come there with a nurse named Mila; she works at a nearby hospice. Green shoots Lupo an impressed look, but mark my words, we'll be seeing those patented Eames "oh, of course you know Sanskrit, jackass" eye-rolls by February.
At the hospice, Mila is saying that Driscoll had a friend who died at the hospice, so when Driscoll decided he wanted to die, he came to Mila for advice. She sort of mealymouths around whether she actually helped Driscoll, but uses some of the same rhetoric Lingard did, and it comes out that she's Lingard's daughter; she uses a different name professionally, for obvious reasons. Questioned about Thomas, she claims that Thomas contacted her through Driscoll; saying they can't trick her like they did her father, she denies any indictable involvement in the suicides: "There are videos to prove it." Bill Nolan has them, because he's doing another special on Lingard.
At the studio, Nolan gives up the videos easily enough. Green says Nolan should work with them, given how smoothly he got Lingard to confess on-camera. "Smooth enough for an Emmy," Nolan glibs. Lupo glares holes into Nolan's back as he takes his leave.
On Driscoll's suicide tape, Nolan asks him why he's taking his own life now. Driscoll sensed that his family had been keeping the truth about his illness from him, but thanks to Nolan, he got his "real medical report," and he now knows he has ALS -- Lou Gehrig's disease. (Everyone else who just flashed on that "you think he'd have seen that coming" Denis Leary line can come sit to me in Hell.) Driscoll makes sure to say that nobody helped him kill himself, before he administers the lethal dose. Lupo, standing in the doorway, almost can't watch. Rubirosa is also looking on, and sighs that Driscoll exonerated Mila. "But it's bull," Lupo grunts, and Rubirosa reminds him that "it's a dying declaration," so they can't prosecute. Green's like, hold up -- the autopsy says Driscoll had spinal muscular atrophy, not Lou Gehrig's. Lupo confirms for the radio audience that Driscoll only thought he had Lou Gehrig's because of the report provided by...Nolan.
Rogers confirms that Driscoll had SMA, which is non-fatal and "nothing like the horror show" of ALS. Driscoll got a check-up at St. Fabian's three weeks prior; St. Fabian's misdiagnosed him, but that original report -- the wrong one -- stayed in his file.
Cut to an interrogation room, where Rubirosa is telling Mila that she'll get immunity for helping Driscoll and Thomas commit suicide, if she tells them how Driscoll got the wrong report. Mila basically blames Nolan, saying that she thought Nolan could help her father's cause, so she told him about what she did for Thomas, and Nolan wanted to get another suicide on-camera; Nolan "kept talking about a deadline," and pressured a hospital source for Driscoll's report. Outside, Linus Roache's cheekbones loom forbiddingly as Mila says that Driscoll was indecisive about what to do until he saw the report saying he had ALS. After announcing that Nolan had means and motive and blah blah, Roache introduces himself to Mila as Michael Cutter, and confirms that Driscoll wouldn't have killed himself had he not thought he had Lou Gehrig's -- and that he told Nolan this.
The detectives pick up Nolan while making bad jokes about TV makeup and mug shots.
On the courthouse steps, Nolan's lawyer says that his client is charged with Man II, then does a little grandstanding about the First Amendment while expositing that McCoy got promoted to District Attorney to finish Arthur Branch's term. Rubirosa eavesdrops. Inside, McCoy himself wastes no time jumping up Cutter's ass in the classic Schiffian "I don't care what you do, unless I get criticized in the press" style. They argue about the First Amendment and sacred cows until Cutter tells him that Nolan's attorney has filed a motion to dismiss, as required by New York Penal Code Section MINIT-32. What does McCoy want him to do? "Duffy," McCoy crusts, giving Cutter's Blackberry the hairy eyeball. "Look that one up in your gadget." Instead of the stone tablet McCoy presumably read the case on, back before dirt was invented.
In chambers, Nolan's lawyer cites Driscoll's dying declaration and says the state has no case. Cutter comes back with People v. Duffy, in which apparently someone got convicted of manslaughter for lending a "distraught friend," who later took his own life, a gun. In Commitment To Journalism v. A Man's Life, CTJ loses, and the motion to dismiss is denied.
Let's make a deal! Nolan asserts that the story wasn't his idea, it was Mila's -- and the hospital source wasn't his, either, it was Driscoll's.
Cut to Rubirosa and Lupo standing over a shifty goateed guy who's claiming he didn't know there were two reports, so he just sent the first one; he tried to call Nolan to correct the mistake, he says. Lupo doesn't believe him.
DA's office. Rubirosa reports that Lupo discovered a connection between the lab tech, Rick O'Dell, and Mila -- they know each other, which Mila neglected to mention. Cutter wool-gathers about the possibility that Mila set up the whole thing: Nolan would do a story to rehabilitate her father, but she had to provide a guy willing to commit suicide on-camera, so she did what she had to do. McCoy, meanwhile, thinks Lingard is behind the whole thing.
Lingard is still denying any involvement. Rubirosa tells him that Mila says she "got involved with Nolan to vindicate" him, and Lingard shrugs, "How annoying." Hee. Rubirosa is somewhat weirded out by this attitude; Lingard sighs that he always considered parenthood "a distraction from [his] work." Meanwhile, Green has discovered some letters Mila wrote to Lingard years ago, and a picture of her at age 17 -- with, among other people, Driscoll.
Back at the office, Rubirosa and Cutter read more letters from Mila to her father, all of them slavishly devoted to Lingard and his cause. It's also clear from the letters that Mila blames Nolan for her father's imprisonment. Cutter orders Mila picked up for murder. At the hospice, Green leads Mila away in cuffs while Lupo exchanges a long look with one of the patients.
After the break, Cutter has to take back his promise not to prosecute Mila for the assisted suicides, because they're actually homicides. The judge is initially reluctant, but goes for his argument about intent, at which time Lingard has a hissy in the back of the courtroom and has to be removed.
McCoy semi-forgives Cutter, then waits until he leaves the room to undermine him with Rubirosa, who tells him that if he has something to say, he should say it to Cutter.
The lab tech testifies that Mila told him to "tweak" Driscoll's tests so they came up for Lou Gehrig's; when Nolan called, the tech provided the false report, as Mila had asked him to. On cross, the tech admits that Driscoll was "a willing participant" in his own death, and in fact was glad to help bring Nolan down. Then Nolan himself is on the stand, implicating Mila as the mastermind of the set-up; while he's casting himself as an upright Bob Woodwardian citizen, Mila rolls her eyes. On cross, Nolan concedes that he has no knowledge of Mila obtaining or administering any drugs to Driscoll.
Rubirosa and Cutter discuss the fact that they need Jenny Lupo to testify, but she's not responding to the subpoena. Lupo is dispatched to "lean on" her, which doesn't work; she doesn't want to go on the record with the fact that Thomas "preferred to kill himself instead of having a conversation with" her, and tells him to testify himself if he feels so strongly. "Tell everyone how you were too busy to talk to your sick, dying brother." Okay already, people, good God. I think he's sorry. "And then you can tell them it's because of me," she adds, like, did she and Cyrus Do It or something? The "...er" look she gets in response leads me to believe that something more than the usual survivor's guilt is at work here, but it's not followed up.
Back in the office, Cutter comes across an anti-death-penalty website -- and finds out that Mila is a registered user.
Now Mila is on the stand, doing the defendant's customary self-serving admission of involvement up to a point. She also talks about how she tried to help people "in the same spirit" her father would have, and beams hopefully at him; he just stares at her like she's got a booger. On cross, Cutter leads her slowly to the fact that the three-drug cocktail actually causes extreme pain, and that she's against the death penalty because that very same cocktail is used on death-row inmates, and as such is cruel and unusual. She's busted, and looks to her father for help, but none is forthcoming; Lingard is just shaking his head, disgusted. Nice parenting, Kookoopants. Cutter keeps hammering on Mila until she trails off with "my father t..."
In McCoy's office, Cutter remarks on the lack of décor, and McCoy snarks that it's "a working office"; he doesn't need to clutter it with awards like Branch did. Probably because McCoy has made too many enemies over the years to get any awards. Well, except for that one for most female ADAs successfully bagged. Rubirosa sticks her head in to say that the defense is putting Lingard himself on the stand.
Said testimony consists of yet more oratory about relieving pain, the small-mindedness of the law in these matters, and so on. Lingard is speaking in a somewhat constipated way as he takes full responsibility for assisting both suicides and says Mila wanted nothing to do with it, or with shanghaiing Nolan: it was all his idea. In the back of the room, Lupo knits his brow at this, but Cutter proceeds with his cross -- or tries to, since Lingard is still talking over him to prattle on about the Ninth Amendment. Mila looks on proudly, Cutter tries to get the judge to make Lingard answer the question, and tears roll down Lingard's face as he announces, "It is the right of every American to live and to die as they see fit. And I choose...here." Oh my fucking God, you're kidding me. ...Nope, they're serious. Lingard took a bunch of lethal drugs in order to make his dying declaration in the courtroom and then collapse, which he proceeds to do. Lupo is all "oh hell no" and tries to revive him, Mila lurches toward her father, cut to the overhead shot of courtroom chaos stolen from Philadelphia as Lingard bites it on the floor.
Aftermath. The judge wants to set a new trial date; McCoy isn't optimistic.
Cop shop. Lupo is watching his brother's suicide video. We see his dialogue from the beginning of the episode. Van Buren comes in, silently turns off the TV, and leaves Lupo to brood.
Aaaaand we go straight into the "In the criminal justice system" opener for the second half. When we fade up, Van Buren is signing Lupo's paperwork: "It's official." His niece and nephew, whom Lupo is babysitting while Jenny interviews for a civilian job in the building (read: "continues to arouse suspicion that, with two brothers, she got egg roll"), cutesily help him set up his desk.
Cut to a Jaguar pulling into a garage; a woman comes in with groceries, then goes into her daughter's room. Katie has the TV and the computer and the stereo and the AC all on at once, and Mom tells her to ease up on the grid before Al Gore makes a movie about her. Heh. Dad calls, but as Mom is talking to him, the line goes dead and the power goes out -- all over town, as it turns out. The honking on the street starts up almost immediately, and Mom sends the housekeeper home...
...but she doesn't get there, because the thing we know, it's nighttime, the blackout is still going, and a home-security-system guy is briefing Green -- someone hit the panic button on the alarm system, but the company couldn't send anyone for awhile, because everyone else hit their panic buttons too, because, you know, blackout. The housekeeper, Isabelle, is dead on the floor with Lupo crouching over her. Dad, a.k.a. John Conlan, barges in just then demanding to know what the hell's going on -- where are Mom and Katie? Not there. Green sends Conlan outside, and Lupo wants to know if it's a possible kidnapping. Green makes an "I could tell you if I could see a damn thing" sort of comment and we go to credits.
Later, Van Buren bustles through the house demanding a generator. Green is keeping Conlan busy listing his enemies, and mentions that Conlan runs a big hedge fund. Experienced L&O fans know that it's now just a waiting game until that tidbit pays off, but what the hey, the home-security guy has "footage" of the intruders, so let's watch that. ...Actually, let's not; the state-of-the-art technology he's using is allegedly based off heat sensors, but comes from the state of Pong-istan. The police watch as two intruders come in and grab Mom and Katie, but then the battery on the home-security guy's laptop dies.
Outside, the team tries to figure out how the kidnappers forced open an electric door; the Conlans' car appears to have been hit by a blue car or van. Van Buren sends Green and Lupo out to question the neighbors, most of whom are milling around outside drinking wine and gossiping. One of the neighbors propositions Lupo about five different ways but only gets an "ohhhh...kay" face for her trouble.
Inside, the kidnappers have called re: the ransom, and they want $15 million by midnight. After ascertaining that Mom and Katie are still alive, Conlan tries to bargain, saying he can only get a couple million, because the banks are closed, and also, you know, blackout. The kidnappers don't like that, but they say they'll call back.
At the precinct, Conlan gets rigged up with Kevlar and a bagful of money while Van Buren orders him not to be a hero. The power comes on. Everyone in the squadroom: "Yaaaay!" Then it goes out again four seconds later. Everyone in the squadroom: "Awwww." Hee! After Rubirosa marches off to type up a release form on an actual typewriter -- which, obviously, is in McCoy's office, because McCoy is old and distrusts modern technology -- Green reports that the paint chips did come from a blue van. It's on the wire, but, you know, blackout, and everyone's radios are running out of juice, so Van Buren makes an announcement: every officer gets a whistle as part of his/her standard equipment, so they'll need to use those. The whistle codes are as follows: one long and two short means "suspect sighted," and three short means "officer needs assistance."
Pre-dawn. Conlan goes to the pre-arranged corner and awaits further instructions. The team watches from unmarked cars. Conlan is sent towards Hudson, and as he's walking, shhhhoooomp! A guy on a bike whizzes past and grabs the ransom bag. Green and Lupo start after the guy in the car, but a random garbage truck fouls up everyone's positions, and Lupo has to jump out and chase the bike on foot while Green brings up the rear. Lupo is hauling ass after the guy but still has enough breath to use his whistle code, and he's fweeeeeeeep-fweep-fweeping away as the pursuit unfolds, Bike Guy careening around various West Village corners, Lupo behind him, a pack of detectives behind Lupo fweeeeeeeep-fweep-fweeping on their whistles. It's pretty much the best chase scene ever on the show, is what I'm saying, especially when the guy takes a turn too fast, doesn't see a generator line stretching across the sidewalk, and gets clotheslined by it -- to death.
Back from the break, the blackout is still in effect, and Conlan is bitching about getting the FBI involved. Van Buren shuts that down, which the continuity editor should have done for her, but that'll be clearer in a few paragraphs. Green and Lupo can't ID Bike Guy, but they do have a lead on the bike itself...
...which belongs to a senior-home aide, who lent it to her friend. Well, her friend with benefits, which it takes her an eon to admit. His name is Nick Costas; she met him because he visits his father, who lives there. Said father has Alzheimer's, which means another eon of questioning that doesn't get much of anywhere because, you know, blackout, of the neurological variety. Costas Sr. rambles on about how Nick is the best southpaw the Dodgers ever had, and Lupo tries to Goren him, but no dice; however, with an assist from the FWB, they manage to find out that Costas Sr. used to own a store in Astoria. It's just not entirely clear what the address is.
Later, Green and Lupo think they've found the right store, but of course they can't get a warrant, because, you know, blackout -- the whole system is backed up, and Cutter's basically asking the judge on duty to warrant the entire block of stores instead of one specific one. Hilariously, the judge is played by...Peter McRobbie, who I just mentioned in my prior weecap! Awesome. But of course, time's a-wasting for the hostages, and the judge thinks Cutter is bullshitting and won't grant the warrant, so Cutter's like, fuck it -- go in, I'll cover it later. Lupo cuts the padlock. It's the right store -- Costas Sr. is the owner -- and in the back, they find Mom's lifeless body. They also hear some scuffling, and Lupo gives chase (not using the whistle this time, sadly) and bags the suspect, who has blood on his shoes but professes not to know anything. Meanwhile, Green opens the blue van parked in the garage to find Katie -- tied up and stuffed under some boxes, but alive. As Lupo piles the suspect, Roy Barkin, into a black-and-white, the power comes back on.
Damn, Untraceable looks dumb.
Katie looks at mug shots, but doesn't recognize anyone; she might be able to identify voices, though, and she definitely heard two. One guy yelled at another guy over the phone about the stupid plan and how it got messed up, so apparently there's another guy besides Barkin and Costas. Rubirosa and Cutter go to visit Barkin in Rikers, offering 30 years if he gives up the accomplice or some way to find him. His lawyer supplies that Barkin is a cousin of Costas's, but Barkin himself is silent, and Cutter's like, you don't know shit, do you. "You were just dumb muscle," Rubirosa adds. "Lady, you can kiss my dumb muscle," Barkin sleazes. Rubirosa smirks, and Cutter observes that he's sure Barkin will have "plenty of takers" for that in prison. Zing! Cutter is kind of bitchy. I approve. The ADAs start to leave, and Barkin's attorney says he can't seem to find the warrant the police used to enter the store. Oops. Cutter BSes him with something about the discovery motion. Rubirosa is worried, but Cutter says the lack of a warrant doesn't have to be a problem if they can find the mastermind before trial.
At the house, Rubirosa and the detectives figure out that whoever broke in knew to expect a blackout. Later, McCoy thinks Rubirosa and Cutter should chase down that lead at the power company, then notes aloud that he saw Barkin's lawyer's discovery motion to produce the warrant. Cutter thinks McCoy maybe has too much free time on his hands if he's reviewing discovery motions, but then has to admit that there isn't a warrant. McCoy gets salty immediately, and Cutter wants to know how he could have known Nick Costas's cousin would be living in the pet store "with an expectation of privacy," but even though McCoy has done the same sort of thing hundreds of times, now he's the one ultimately responsible, so he's peeved: "What do you do for fun, Mike, juggle chainsaws? With my neck on the line?" Cutter offers to shoulder the blame; McCoy tacitly agrees.
At the power company, a guy in a hard hat tells Cutter and Rubirosa that he got an order to shut down the power supply. Threatened with FBI involvement, he's like, what? The company that bought the plant six months ago, Energyne, ordered me to -- and I've got it on tape.
And he does, and the guys at Energyne 1) sound like dicks, and 2) shut down the plant in order to jack up energy prices. The ADAs have identified the guy on the tape as Paul Kleist, an Energyne VP. Cutter complains about the complexity of the case, but McCoy tells him to suck it up: "This is the soup you asked to be in. Enjoy it." Is that soup vichyssoise? Because it's pretty cold.
Back from the break, Kleist and his Montgomery-Burnsian team of lawyers aren't hearing anything Cutter has to say. Cutter threatens to charge Kleist as an accomplice because he manipulated the blackout, and throws in a bitchy comment about what time it's lights-out in the Tombs. Elsewhere, McCoy is complaining to Rubirosa about the calls he's getting from various government agencies; she doesn't know what's going on herself, and they walk into Cutter's office to find stacks and stacks of document boxes Cutter had sent over to help him with the case. McCoy wants to know where he's going with this re: the murder/kidnapping, and Cutter takes a while to explain it, but it's a fairly simple case of collusion -- Energyne arranged to go offline at certain times in order to throw business to another company, Delft. To the surprise of very few, the hedge-fund gun from the first act goes off here when we find that Delft is owned by a consortium whose majority partner is Mattawin Capital. CEO of Mattawin? Conlan.
At Conlan's office, the man himself is like, I don't know anything, so go find out who killed my wife. The ADAs suggest that somebody in Conlan's office figured out what he was doing -- eavesdropped on his calls, read his emails, somehow guessed that he's responsible for the blackouts. Conlan continues to claim that it "just happened," but as he's escorting them out, they run into Katie. Katie and Conlan leave, but not before Katie asks for the detectives' contact info, so she can thank them. Aw. Rubirosa says she'll get the addresses for Katie. Then Cutter spots a big aquarium with a sticker on it. The sticker is covering another sticker, and the second sticker is from...the Costas's pet store. A woman at a nearby desk says that the guy who installed the tank is named "Rick, Nick, something," and that the guy who sits near the aquarium is an "IT geek" who just happens to have called in sick for the last few days.
Cut to the interrogation room, where IT Geek Marty is lying, badly, to Green about buying a scorpion fish from Nick. But Marty hacked into Conlan's emails, and Marty and his lawyer chalk that up to simple nosiness, so Lupo tries the diss strategy, theorizing that Marty didn't call any of the shots and that Nick pushed him around. Marty gets sulky, so it's obviously working, until the lawyer calls them on it, and outside, Van Buren says that Marty erased the relevant emails, so they have no evidence to tie him to Conlan unless Conlan himself testifies.
Conlan, who is packing to leave town, isn't going to have anything to do with that. The ADAs pressure him, saying they don't have a warrant on Barkin, so if Conlan can't testify to the link with Marty, he might walk. Or something. It doesn't matter because Conlan is still balking; he'll go to jail, leaving Katie alone, and if it's not the state that sends him to the clink, the Feds or the SEC will get him. This is why the FBI exchange earlier didn't work; he wouldn't want that agency involved if he thought they'd nail him for the collusion as a result. I know he was desperate to find his daughter but it doesn't really line up. Cutter tries to guilt Conlan; no joy.
McCoy works the phones, trying to get other agencies to give Conlan immunity, but he's striking out. Everyone makes cynical observations about how the feds would rather string up a white-collar criminal who defrauded eight million voters than nail a guy who killed two people. Cutter is depressed about how long it would take to get Energyne into court on a criminal charge, and McCoy says something pointed about the Barkin warrant -- which, Rubirosa reveals, doesn't exist, and Barkin's lawyer knows it. They've moved to dismiss. Cutter looks ill. "Sometimes there's just one too many chainsaws," McCoy smugs, but adds that at least Cutter exposed a massive cover-up, which prompts a grand pronouncement from Cutter about how that's "just about money" -- Marty took lives. Take it easy, freshman. Then Cutter gets an idea, and asks McCoy for a subpoena on Katie.
The day, Cutter basically throws the case out before the judge gets a chance to, explaining that they can't support the indictment at the moment. The Conlans are horrified, and Cutter breaks it down for Katie -- they can't make the case against Barkin or Marty if Conlan doesn't testify. Despite the fact that Cutter just crammed a convoluted conspiracy theory into about three sentences, Katie needs almost no time to absorb the information and turns the waterworks on with a quickness, ordering her father to tell the truth or she won't live with him anyway. She storms out of the courtroom.
Cut, natch, to Conlan testifying to his role in the collusion. His testimony rings about as true as Morgan Freeman's big speech in Bonfire of the Vanities, and since it's information we've already heard several times, I won't bother recapping it. In short, Conlan does the right thing, Kleist looks like he ate a mosquito, end credits.