Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders recap: 'Episode 2' - EW.com (blog)

The majority of the action in the second episode of Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders is divided between the detectives, who are working to build a case against the Menendez brothers, and the brothers themselves — how they’re coping and the tactics that ultimately seal their guilt in the eyes of the police. By the end of the hour, Lyle and Erik are officially in jail for the murder of their parents, and we’re finally getting into the “law” portion of Law & Order. Here’s how all the pieces fall into place to propel us into the years of trials that will dominate the remainder of the show.

We continue to get glimpses at Leslie Abramson’s pre-Menendez life, and she goes above and beyond for her clients. She visits her client from the previous episode in jail after he’s beaten up and washes the blood off his face herself. She convinces him to take a plea deal, and he expresses his utmost trust in her.

But life is not all a bowl of cherries for Abramson — her husband is frustrated with her inability to separate her work and home life. They meet for lunch, and she immediately locks in on coverage of the Menendez brothers on television. Abramson is still convinced they did it, but she wants to know why, given their track record as polite young men who were good athletes/students. “People like that don’t just wake up and turn into Charlie Manson,” she observes. Leslie is leaning hard on convincing us that there was something deeper at play here than just two individuals with homicidal tendencies.

Detectives Zoeller and Linehan are determined to prove their theory that the brothers are behind the murders. Pam Bozanich points out their lack of evidence and puts pressure on them: Her boss, D.A. Ira Reiner, is running for Attorney General and will want flashy headlines and arrests to aid in his election campaign.

A call from one of Lyle’s best friends at Princeton might just be the lead they need to break the case wide open. They travel all the way to New York City just to interview this friend, who says he and Lyle bonded over their “hard-ass” fathers. In black-and-white flashback, he reveals that Lyle told him he wanted to kill his father for hurting his mother by having an affair. Meanwhile, Lyle is still over-spending and trying to jumpstart his buffalo wing restaurant business, while Erik is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He wants to move out of the murder mansion, and Lyle promises to take care of him.

The detectives go to interview Uncle Carlos and Aunt Terry again — as luck would have it, Erik and Lyle are in the house, so the detectives wrangle them into kitchen-table interrogations. They give Lyle the “bad cop” routine, probing him on the expensive watch he bought after his parents’ death and where the movie ticket stubs from the night of the murder are. With Erik, it’s all “good cop,” promising to be nice to him and pushing him to open up until he agrees to call his psychiatrist and ask him to share his files with the police. Erik also reveals he still has suicidal tendencies by asking the police if they would have shot him if he came out of the house with a gun the night of the murder. Lyle comes in to end the interrogation party and take charge, and he is not happy. Later that same night, their family lawyer, Gerald Chaleff, calls the detectives to warn them off any further interviews without his presence.

Back in Princeton, the detectives — who are really racking up those cross-country flight expenses — interview Lyle’s business partner and friend Glenn Stevens. They tell Glenn that Lyle and Erik are suspects, but he doesn’t give them anything useful, aside from the fact that Lyle wears a wig and has since high school because he’s going bald. (God, now I feel terrible for making fun of his haircut last week.) But the real gameplan here is to play the brothers’ friends against them like pawns, so the detectives also give Glenn permission to talk to reporters. Like clockwork, Glenn tells the L.A. Times the boys are suspects and they print it, which Detective Zoeller then tries to use against Erik to tease out further information.

Instead, Erik turns to Lyle, begs him to let him move, and bemoans the newspaper story. Lyle reminds him that their father taught them to master their emotions, so Erik goes to church and looks at images of the crucifixion and the Stations of the Cross to calm down. Ah, Catholic guilt, hello old friend.

Here’s where things get complicated. Erik calls Dr. Oziel in a panic, and when they meet the next day, Erik repeats his suicidal thoughts. The reason he wants to kill himself? He and Lyle killed their parents. “We did it. We did it,” he intones. But because of patient-doctor privilege, Dr. Oziel cannot go to the police with the information. And to be honest, he doesn’t really want to — coercing the brothers into mandatory therapy sessions is a far more lucrative option.

Lyle rushes to Dr. Oziel’s office, where the doctor says Erik told him everything. Still in a fragile state, Erik says he had to tell somebody because of his overwhelming desire to kill himself. Dr. Oziel promises he won’t go to the police, but Lyle still runs off and wishes the doctor “good luck” in a menacing tone. Covering all his bases, Dr. O calls his wife and tells her to take the girls to a hotel for safety and then dictates the details of his session with the brothers to tape, à la Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity.

Erik apologizes to Lyle, and Lyle mysteriously asks, “You didn’t tell him, did you?” TELL HIM WHAT, LYLE? WHAT??? Erik says no, and Lyle promises to keep taking care of everything. (Recap continues on page 2)

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