Lennie Briscoe

Det. Lennie Briscoe
Law & Order character
First appearance	"Point of View" (L&O) "The Abominable Showman" (TBJ) "
Last appearance	"C.O.D." (L&O) "41 Shots" (TBJ)
Portrayed by	Jerry Orbach
Time on show	1992–2004 (Law & Order) 1996-1999 (HLOTS) 1998 (Exiled: A Law & Order Movie) 1999–2000 (SVU) 2005 (Trial by Jury)
Seasons	3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 (L&O) 1 (TBJ)
Credited appearances	273 episodes (L&O) 3 episodes (HLOTS) 3 episodes (SVU) 1 episode (CI) 2 episodes (TBJ) 282 episodes (total)
Preceded by	Phil Cerreta (L&O)
Succeeded by	Joe Fontana (L&O) Chris Ravell (TBJ)
Information
Family	Julia Briscoe (daughter) Cathy Briscoe (daughter; deceased) Unnamed brother Ken Briscoe (nephew) At least two unnamed grandchildren Harry (uncle; deceased) Unnamed ex-wives
Partner	John Flynn Mike Logan Rey Curtis Ed Green Hector Salazar

Leonard W. "Lennie" Briscoe is a fictional character on NBC's long-running police procedural and legal drama television series Law & Order. He was created by Walon Green and René Balcer, and was portrayed by Jerry Orbach. He was featured on the show for 12 seasons, from 1992 to 2004; making him one of the longest-serving main characters in the series' 20-year-run history, as well as the longest-serving police detective on the show. He also appeared in three Law & Order spin-offs, and was part of the original cast of Law & Order: Trial by Jury, appearing in only the first two episodes due to Orbach's death. He appears in 282 episodes (273 episodes of Law & Order, two episodes of Law & Order: Trial by Jury, one episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, three episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and three episodes of Homicide: Life on the Street), the TV movie Exiled and the Law & Order video games Dead on the Money, Double or Nothing, Justice is Served and Legacies.

Orbach's performance as Briscoe on the New York-based series was so popular that it resulted in him being declared a "Living Landmark" by the New York Landmarks Conservancy, along with fellow longtime series cast member Sam Waterston (who portrayed the law prosecutor Jack McCoy on the show).^[1]

Law & Order universe

Lennie Briscoe is introduced in the 1992 episode "Point of View" as the new senior detective in the New York City Police Department's 27th Detective Squad in the 27th Police Precinct's Station House.^[2] In the episode "Virus" his birthday is given as January 2, 1940. His superior officer during his first season on the show is Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek); a year later, Lt. Anita Van Buren (S. Epatha Merkerson) takes over the 27th Squad. He was previously assigned as a detective in the 116th Det. Squad in Queens.^[3]

Briscoe joins the squad after Det. Mike Logan's (Chris Noth) partner, Sgt. Phil Cerreta (Paul Sorvino), is shot by a black market arms dealer and transfers to a desk job in another precinct.

After Logan is transferred to Staten Island in 1995,^[4] Det. Rey Curtis (Benjamin Bratt) becomes Briscoe's partner.^[5] Four years later, Curtis goes into early retirement to take care of his multiple sclerosis–stricken wife,^[6] and he is replaced by Det. Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin) in 1999.^[7]

Character biography

Lennie Briscoe grew up in the Meatpacking District of Manhattan.^[8] He had a brother.^[9] As a child, he attended P.S. 21, as his father had before him,^[10] as well as P.S. 189. He attended college at the City College of New York.^[11] A veteran of two failed marriages, Briscoe has two daughters by his first wife, the elder Julia and the younger Cathy (Jennifer Bill), and a nephew, Det. Ken Briscoe (played by Orbach's son, Chris). Cathy was born on June 23, 1971 and was murdered on March 4, 1998.^[12] By 2002, he had at least two grandchildren.^[13]

Prior to working for the NYPD, Briscoe worked at his uncle's liquor store^[11]

Briscoe began working in the NYPD homicide department in 1981.^[14] Like most detective characters on the early seasons of the show, Briscoe carries a Smith & Wesson Model 36 revolver as his service weapon.^[15]

He is a recovering alcoholic. He often makes references to being a "friend of Bill W." which is a reference to his having attended Alcoholics Anonymous. In the 1996 episode "Aftershock", after witnessing an execution from a case that he helped investigate, Briscoe falls off the wagon with disastrous results; A.D.A. Claire Kincaid (Jill Hennessy) is struck and killed by a drunk driver while driving him home from a bar.^[16] He feels responsible for her death,^[17] and he remains sober for the rest of his life.

His drinking harmed his family; he was often absent from his daughters' lives, and they have distant, fractious relationships with him as adults. Briscoe blames himself, especially when Cathy, a methamphetamine addict, is murdered by a drug dealer named Danny Jones after she testifies against him in court.^[18] However, he finds closure when Jones dies from a heroin overdose.^[19] It is implied (although never explicitly stated) that Briscoe considered having Jones killed. One of Briscoe's former snitches had offered to kill Jones if Briscoe could get his charges reduced. Briscoe is later seen talking to the arresting officer about the snitch, but it is never confirmed if Briscoe did him the favor.^[12]

Briscoe was raised Catholic, but is Jewish on his father's side and occasionally attends Jewish services as a courtesy to his first wife.^[20] His father served in the United States Army during World War II and helped to liberate a Nazi concentration camp in German occupied Poland.^[21] Briscoe's father suffered from Alzheimer's and had died by 1994.^[22] Briscoe did not get along with his father and once described him as a "schmuck". Nevertheless, he took several days off when he died.^[23]

He mentions having voted for Al Gore in the 2000 U.S. presidential election.^[23] He supported the Iraq War.^[24] He plays golf, and he is also revealed to be a skilled pool player and is shown defeating an opponent in eight-ball after the break without giving up a turn.^[25][26]

Character highlights

Briscoe is one of many characters on the show to have served in the military; he was at one point a corporal in the United States Army. On several occasions he has referred to his service in the Vietnam War. After leaving the Army, Briscoe joined the NYPD in the 29th Precinct in Manhattan and walked a beat there with stops at the 31st and 33rd Precincts, also in Manhattan, and the 110th and 116th Precincts in Queens, at some point reaching the rank of detective. It is also revealed in the 1999 episode "Marathon", that he spent three years in the Anti-Crime Unit. Briscoe's detective shield number is 8220.

Briscoe typically has a wise-crack or joke about the victim or circumstances of death at the close of the opening scene, with the joke usually exhibiting a very deadpan delivery while at the same time being highly "on target." He likes music, but mostly music that was popular in his youth; in one episode, Rey Curtis chides his musical taste for stopping with Bobby Darin.^[27] Briscoe used to read Langston Hughes back when he was a beatnik "for about five minutes" because "it used to work pretty good on Jewish girls."^[28]

Many of Briscoe's former partners and colleagues outside the series (offscreen before Briscoe joined the 27th Precinct) have been or ended up becoming corrupt. In the 1993 episode "Jurisdiction", Detective Brian Torelli (Dan Hedaya) forced a confession from a mentally handicapped man; at the end of the episode Briscoe is present when Internal Affairs arrests Torelli for suborning perjury and obstruction of justice.^[29]

In the 1994 episode "Kids", the son of police Detetective Ted Parker (Robert Hogan), a former colleague of Briscoe, is arrested for shooting another teenager. Parker and Briscoe have a private conversation during which Parker, speaking hypothetically, essentially relays to Briscoe that his son fired the shots in self-defense. At the end of the episode, Parker acknowledges to Briscoe that he used his contacts in his old precinct to engineer the shooting death of a key prosecution witness in his son's case (resulting in a mistrial).^[30]

Another of Briscoe's former partners, Detective John Flynn (Kevin Conway), falsely implicates him in the 1996 episode "Corruption" for taking seized drugs from the 116th Precinct evidence room (given to him by Flynn) during their stint there several years before. Flynn makes this allegation partly to throw off the Hellman Commission, which had been convened to investigate police corruption, including the questionable shooting death of a suspect by Flynn himself at the start of the episode, and partly as revenge against Curtis, who refused to falsely defend Flynn. Briscoe, however, has an alibi—he was having an affair with Officer Betty Abrams (Caroline Kava), a married woman. Against Briscoe's wishes, Abrams testifies before the commission to exonerate him. Because of the affair, however, the commissioners question her credibility. Briscoe finally gets the truth out of Flynn with a hidden wire, but Flynn commits suicide before he can be further prosecuted.^[3] Briscoe is ultimately cleared.^[31]

In the 2000 episode "Amends", Briscoe has another reunion with one of his former colleagues that opens up some ugly history. While investigating a 20-year-old cold case, Briscoe learns that one of his former bosses, Tommy Brannigan (Brad Sullivan), had been convinced by his superior to accept bribes that helped promote him to lieutenant in exchange for letting a murder suspect go free. The now-retired Brannigan ultimately confesses to this in court, which helps Jack McCoy in convicting the suspect of the cold case. Briscoe later forgives Brannigan for his actions.^[32]

There are moments in Briscoe's career when his decisions are controversial. In the 1998 episode "Stalker", a stalker accused of murdering a woman could have gone free because the police concluded that the victim had earlier lied to the police about previously being attacked by the stalker, thereby undermining the victim's credibility. However, after the victim is found murdered, Briscoe approaches McCoy and tells him that he now believes that the victim did not lie to the police concerning the stalker's earlier attacks and that he is willing to take the stand and state that the original police report was incorrect. His then-partner Rey Curtis was called by the defense to testify that he thought the original police report was correct. At the end of the episode, the stalker is found guilty; outside the courtroom, Briscoe and Curtis reconcile.^[33]

Shortly after Ed Green is assigned as Briscoe's partner, the two nearly come to blows during a particularly difficult investigation of a robbery-homicide in the 1999 episode "Marathon". Their primary suspect confesses as he is being arrested, but because Briscoe is the only officer within earshot, Green, Van Buren and McCoy are placed in a difficult position with regard to the confession. Again, Briscoe is eventually vindicated, and he and Green work to rebuild their professional rapport.^[34]

Briscoe retires in the 2004 episode "C.O.D." after 12 years at the 27th Precinct and more than 30 years in the NYPD.^[35] His replacement at the 27th Precinct is Det. Joe Fontana (Dennis Farina).

Briscoe died at some point between 2004 and 2005 (Orbach himself died on December 28, 2004). Although not addressed directly on the main series until 2008 (and mentioned again in 2009), his death was implied in 2005 and confirmed in 2007 on an episode of the "Criminal Intent" series. The three official mentions of his death, were made by each of his three junior partners on the series, Mike Logan, Rey Curtis, and Ed Green, respectively (see "Death" section below).

Spin-offs

On the first season of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Briscoe makes three guest appearances assisting his old boss, Captain Cragen (one of these reunions involves re-opening a serial murder case that Briscoe and Logan had failed to solve several years earlier in the 1994 episode "Mayhem"^[36]). Briscoe also makes a guest appearance in the Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "Poison", in which he assists the Major Case Squad on a similar case. He also appeared in three episodes of Homicide: Life on the Street.

Soon after his retirement, Briscoe joins Law & Order: Trial by Jury, having accepted an appointment as an investigator in the office of New York County District Attorney Arthur Branch (Fred Thompson), with partner Inv. Hector Salazar (Kirk Acevedo). He appears in only the first two episodes of this series - "The Abominable Showman" and "41 Shots".

Appearances

• Homicide: Life on the Street
  • Season Four
    • Episode 12: "For God and Country"
  • Season Six
    • Episode 5: "Baby, It's You"
  • Season Seven
    • Episode 15: "Sideshow"
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
  • Season One
    • Episode 3: "...Or Just Look Like One"
    • Episode 4: "Hysteria"
    • Episode 15: "Entitled"
• Law & Order: Criminal Intent
  • Season One
    • Episode 7: "Poison"

Death

In 2005, the Lennie Briscoe character was written out after the second episode of Trial By Jury; coinciding with Orbach's death on December 28, 2004 from prostate cancer. The character's departure from the show was originally to be in the episode "Baby Boom" in which members of the DA's Office attend a memorial service for him. This scene was in fact filmed but was not included in the aired episode.

In the 2007 Criminal Intent episode "Renewal", Mike Logan mentions that Briscoe has died but that he still sees him alive in his dreams.^[37] In the 2008 Law & Order episode "Burn Card", Ed Green says that he returned to gambling briefly after Briscoe died.^[38] In the 2009 Law & Order episode "Fed", Rey Curtis returns to New York to bury his deceased wife Deborah, who had finally succumbed to multiple sclerosis. He reveals to Lt. Van Buren that he had spoken with Briscoe a few days before his death, and that he was his old wisecracking self right up to the end.^[39]

Reception

• Lennie Briscoe was voted the 30th greatest television show character of all time by Bravo TV.^[40]
• Lennie Briscoe was Law & Order's third greatest detective on the Hallmark Channel poll in 2010, beaten only by Special Victims Unit Detective Olivia Benson, who came in second, and Criminal Intent Detective Robert Goren, who won the poll.
• Lennie Briscoe was ranked #9 on Sleuth Channel's poll of America's Top Sleuths between Sherlock Holmes at #10 and Gil Grissom of CSI at #8.^[41]
• Lennie Briscoe was named one of TV's Smartest Detectives by AOL TV.^[42]
• Lennie Briscoe was ranked 15th on TV Guide's list of the 25 greatest TV detectives.^[43]

References