Charlotte Colavin

Paulie takes pains to integrate his mother Nucci into the social world at Green Grove. Meanwhile, Furio faces up to his inner feelings during a trip to Italy to see his ailing father; Ralph introduces Tony to his new 'goomar,' Valentina; and Carmela finds a new source of investment income.

An aspiring actress, Lucy Dolan, is found shot to death in her apartment above a busy delicatessen. Missing is an elaborate plasma screen television. Lucy worked at a seedy comedy club in Staten Island but obviously lived beyond her means. Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Green (Jesse L. Martin) search her locker at the club and find a stack of traffic violations, including a photo ticket. That leads them to the vehicle and intersection near the deli, where they see in the background, an out-of-town couple shooting videos. They track down the couple from Ohio, but they've already sold the footage to a local TV station. The cops get the tape and are able to track the vehicle, a beige Ford Explorer, and also in the photo see the suspects carrying the television. Tracking the vehicle through a Freemont Downs Racetrack VIP parking pass visible on the windshield, they have their suspects - Matt Carton (Omar Sharif Scroggins) and Harry Johnson (Malcolm Barrett). They get the third suspect, Daniel Otum (Dakoda Anderson), by sneaking around their high-end attorney's office.

When a social worker is killed, his gambling habit and scam of the foster-care system are revealed. A drug-addcited mother desperate to reclaim her baby becomes a suspect, but her lawyer - former ADA Paul Robinette - proves to be a challenge to McCoy and Kincaid.

Brian Teague, a college student, is found strangled to death. The killer used a type of choking move that is learned in the military or in the past at the police academy. Brian was confrontational, spoke his mind, organized protests and had a rap sheet of domestic disturbances to prove it. Brian was supposed to be at a rally that day, and Briscoe and Green try and trace his last steps. First he had a beef with a mailman outside a newsstand, but the mailman, Kenny Silva, claims it was just words. Then it turns out, he was arrested that afternoon, and they think the cop who caught him might be the suspect. Even though he was brought in, he started making so much trouble and threatening to call the ACLU, the supervisor cut him loose. Dawso, the officer who arrested him, claims he gave him a "tune up" but didn't kill him. Meanwhile, they find his parents' Lexus defaced, and the repair shop owner says that Brian had called for the tow, from a bar. The bar is a watering hole for veterans, and they realize Brian was in enemy territory.

The investigation into a shooting spree at a posh fund-raiser seems to lead to the work of anti- Semitic fanatics, until Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Curtis (Benjamin Bratt) realize that the killings were far more personal in nature. When the real killer is caught, fireworks fly as Schiff (Steven Hill) and McCoy (Sam Waterston) find themselves in a battle with the Governor to keep their jobs.