Courtship (Law & Order: Criminal Intent) - Episodes

In the Law & Order: CI seventh season premiere, the death of an officer named Kevin Quinn (Gerald McCullouch) pulls Goren from his compassionate leave as the case is given top priority, but his relentless investigation brings out information related to Eames' husband's death, and the fallout threatens to become catastrophic as the case is reopened, potentially freeing the man she blames for her loss.

• This was the first episode of CI to air originally on USA Network.

While recovering from the loss of his neighbor and the departure of his previous partner, Detective Logan is on the case of a murder of an obstetrician who is killed in a ritualistic fashion leaves Logan and his new partner, Detective Nola Falacci, sorting out complex family dynamics, a doctor with a god complex, and so much spread around DNA that finding the real killer will be a miracle of genetics.

• Alicia Witt joins the cast as Detective Nola Falacci

Detectives Goren and Eames investigate the murder of a dentist which turns out to be connected to the death of one of his young patients. As Goren and Eames look into both murders, they follow a trail of counterfeit mouthwash from the streets of Harlem to the FDA and Wall Street ambit. Though initial suspicions by dentist's wife are levied against the local population, the victim was loved and embraced by the Harlem community. The detectives turn their attention to a man, whose close proximity to the clinic makes him an obvious choice for a good eye witness. The man tells them that he saw a woman, then two teen boys leaving the clinic the night of the murder. But when suspicious activity turns up on dentist's credit card, Goren and Eames zero in on the two teen boys. Then, the detectives bust the kids for stealing the credit card, but one of the boy's mother gives them an unexpected motive for the dentist's murder: the good doctor was a suspected pedophile. Goren suspects that the children are suffering from alcohol poisoning, and he thinks that mouthwash in the dentist's goody bag for his patients may be the culprit. Unfortunately for one of the boys, his toxicology report reveals that he did not die of alcohol poisoning, but in fact was killed by a lethal amount of Diethylene glycol in his system. The detectives realize that the FDA and a big Wall Street corporation may have had a hand in these deaths.

Logan and Falacci investigate the execution-style murder of three young college freshmen. Logan and Falacci are frustrated in their attempts to find suspects in the apparent gang shooting of the three students, who have no gang affiliations whatsoever.

• After this episode, the season was paused by the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike.
• This was also Alicia Witt's last episode.

Still on leave from the force, Goren decides to tip the balance in his favor with an undercover operation hoping that it will help him get back on the job. Meanwhile, Eames investigates a triple homicide which turns out to be related to Goren's case. When Eames finds out that Goren never informed her about his assignment, she becomes very upset, leading to a sizable rift between the two detectives before their departure from the show.

• Dean Winters guest stars as Detective Mike Stoat.

While in his car committing blackmail, gossip columnist T.K. Richmond (Mo Rocca), who used his insider knowledge to feed his habit, is murdered while being taped by the police. This leaves Detectives Logan and Wheeler (who is returning from Europe) to work through a list of suspects that grows longer the more they probe the victim's life. They must peel through the layers of lies, motives, and misleads to get to the truth.

• Mary McCormack guest stars as her character Mary Shannon, from In Plain Sight.
• Julianne Nicholson returns from maternity leave.

Detectives Logan and Wheeler investigate a murder attempt against a woman, shortly after returning to the United States from South Asia. A political martyr and influential leader, Bella Kahn (Indira Varma), she leads an ethnic group and clearly appears to be the target of a political assassination. Along with collecting evidence, Logan and Wheeler examine the body of the shooter, taken out by her bodyguard, but not before the assassin could get off two shots, one of which felled her young woman assistant, who sacrificed her own life, diving in front of her boss to take the fatal bullet. At first, the detectives turn their suspicion to the bodyguard, but the activist family completely trusts their hired security, and rejects the possibility that the man could be complicit in a murder attempt. Then, the detectives decide to place the notorious woman under strict surveillance for her protection.

While taking his three-year-old son on an evening stroll in the park, stock analyst Skip Lowe (Jason Pendergraft) is gunned down by someone familiar to him. While the detectives are investigating the shooting, Paloma Renzi (Lisa Kathleen McMahan), the mother of another toddler, is gunned down under similar circumstances. Detectives Goren and Eames find a connection between the two victims, but when a third parent with a three-year-old surfaces as a victim (and turns out to be the first victim), she seems to have no connection to Skip and Paloma, so Goren and Eames shift their focus to the Day Care Center that all three children have in common, where there is an exclusive and long waiting list.

• This episode's title is the longest title of any episode in the Law & Order franchise.

Detectives Goren and Eames investigate the case of Paul Phillips, a student at an elite private school, found dead, hanging from overhead pipes in the boiler room. The detectives survey the crime scene and meet a Renaissance art teacher, Mrs. Anna Nobile (Joanna Adler), who found the boy's body. They learn that she has a daughter, Tessa (Sarah Steele), who also is a student at the school. Preliminary findings indicate that the death appears to be suicide, until Goren looks below the surface. He discover fresh mud on Paul's sneakers, while Eames adds that the knot was a sailing knot and Paul's cellphone and backpack are missing. They tell Captain Ross about the victim. His father is a corporate raider, known for toughness, as Goren theorizes the man was embarrassed by his son. Then, the detectives meet with the victim's parents.

The mother says he was looking forward to his school prom, but she doesn't know how it went because they went out of town to a regatta. The father does not respond well, insulting them. At the morgue, Dr. Rodgers informs detectives that the cause of the young man's death was asphyxiation by hanging, but his skull was bashed in. Rodgers shows them the two to three day old bruises all over his body, concluding the victim was brutally beaten before his death. Goren and Eames go talk to Jack Walker (Anthony Carrigan), a boy the grief counselor said Paul might be friends with. At home, Jack shows the detectives a make-out, grotesque cartoon the victim made. Later, a police computer technician shows them the video of a girls group, wearing sports goggles and masks, attacking Paul, knocking him down, kicking and punching him furiously. Nevertheless, the investigators cannot prove their theories until meticulous research yields a lost clue that could be the missing link to resolve the case.

• Episode bears many resemblances to a controversy over appropriate disciplinary action in incidences of online misbehavior on Facebook, where students of Horace Mann School were implicated in making racist and sexist comments, and derogating specific teachers in those terms.

A neighborhood receives notices from a watch group that a sex offender is moving in. The entire community is soon making the offender's life miserable. The following day, his headless body is found floating in the Maspeth Creek. Logan and Wheeler learn that offender, Kyle Jones, pleaded guilty to statutory rape. He was 19, she was 15. He served five years and was staying at his mother's house. Both Jones' mother and the girl in question say that the sex was consensual, and the complaint was filed by the girl's parents and prosecuted by Terri Driver (Leslie Hope), an ADA who has since made a name for herself. The detectives' investigation uncovers official misconduct in the DA's office, and makes Logan some new enemies.

• Inspired by the murder and decapitation of Daniel Sorenson.

Logan jeopardizes both his and Wheeler's careers when a priest convinces him to reopen a 16-year-old homicide case which involves politically-aspiring ADA Terri Driver (Leslie Hope), who will stop at nothing to keep the truth buried. Logan goes to war with the ambitious ADA, who is planning to run for Attorney General, when he discovers that she may have prosecuted the wrong person for her own personal gain. Meanwhile, Wheeler has to deal with her fiancé Colin Ledger (Jonathan Cake) being brought up on federal charges.

• This was Chris Noth's final episode; he was replaced by Jeff Goldblum.
• Denis O'Hare would later return to the role of Father Shea in the 2013 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit season 14 episode "Presumed Guilty."

In the seventh season finale of Law & Order: CI, Detective Robert Goren is visited by the past when he finds a picture at his mother's grave that indicates an old nemesis has returned. The case becomes more complex when his brother and a mentor reappear. Goren's brother Frank (Tony Goldwyn) is murdered, and Nicole Wallace (Olivia d'Abo) appears to be the killer. After that, the people he holds closest to him end up in grave danger, and Goren will be pushed to the breaking point to solve his toughest case yet.

• John Glover guest stars as Dr. Declan Gage
• This is the last episode for Goldwyn, Glover, and d'Abo (her longtime running character Nicole Wallace is presumably murdered by Declan Gage).
• This is the only episode to have flashbacks to other episodes until the tenth season.
• Warren Leight steps down as executive producer; Walon Green takes over as executive producer for the Goren/Eames episodes; Robert Nathan and later Ed Zuckerman take over as executive producer for the Nichols/Wheeler episodes.