Is Jessica Brady Leaving Law & Order Season 24? Why Maura Tierney May Already Be Exiting After Just Debuting

Warning: SPOILERS ahead for Law & Order season 24, episode 8, “Bad Apple.”Law & Order season 24, episode 8, “Bad Apple,” includes a fall finale cliffhanger that suggests that Maura Tierney’s Jessica Brady may be exiting the series only half a season after joining it. Brady became the new commanding officer at the homicide unit after Camryn Manheim’s Kate Dixon left Law & Order. She made it clear from the beginning that she is a no-nonsense leader who doesn’t care what her officers think of her, as long as they do what she asks them to. This ruffled Riley’s (Reid Scott) feathers and made it harder for him to accept the change.

Brady’s introduction continued a Law & Order change in tone that originally started with Nicholas Baxter. Like Baxter, Brady intends for the department to focus on closing more cases while keeping the bigger picture in mind. This means being willing to lose a smaller case to ensure New York City is safer in the long-term and that more people get justice. “Bad Apple” is the first story about her professional life before she transferred to the Homicide Unit, giving the audience the first insight into who she was before. However, Brady’s decisions in this story might lead to her downfall.

Brady Makes A Potentially Career-Ending Sacrifice In Law & Order Season 24, Episode 8

She Makes A Difficult Decision In The Name Of Justice

Law & Order season 24, episode 8 features Brady struggling with whether she should come forward about police corruption. When a young cop, Harrison, is found dead in the park, Shaw and Riley quickly realize he worked at Brady’s old precinct. The case initially seems straightforward, with the murder weapon being identified as belonging to a drug dealer whose hideout was recently raided by the dead cop. However, Brady quickly realizes she got the wrong man and that Harrison’s partner shot him to keep him from exposing police corruption.

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When Brady arrests the dealer, the 2-9 celebrates her. Therefore, deciding to fight for justice rather than putting an innocent man in jail is difficult for her. Additionally, the drug dealer committed many other violent crimes, so it would have been easy for Brady to justify looking the other way. However, she can’t abide the idea of Harrison not getting the justice he deserves, so she risks everything to investigate and arrest Harrison’s partner for his murder. This makes her a pariah among the cops in her old precinct because she broke the “blue wall” by turning on a fellow cop.

The pressure to remain quiet gets worse as the trial proceeds, as none of the other cops in the 2-9 are willing to testify against the defendant. This puts the entire case at risk, and Brady testifying means admitting that all of them — including her — were complicit with the corruption in the past. Brady thus decides to testify with the full knowledge that she is confessing publically to behavior that could end her career. She, therefore, is not surprised to learn at the end of the episode that an Internal Affairs agent wants to question her.

Why Is Law & Order Season 24 Already Setting Up Brady’s Exit When She Just Joined

“Bad Apples” Was The Fall Finale, So The Series Wants To Raise The Stakes Before The Hiatus

Despite Brady’s predicament, it’s not necessarily the case that she will be fired after the IAB investigation concludes. Not only did she come forward when other cops in the 2-9 refused to do so, but she has knowledge of who else was complicit in police corruption. Thus, it’s entirely possible that Brady will strike a deal with IAB where she does not face expulsion from the force or criminal charges if she tells them everything she knows about the corruption at the 2-9.

Since the audience won’t find out whether Brady is staying or going until Law & Order returns from its midseason hiatus, it’s likely that the reason for setting up this story is to create a cliffhanger that will keep people talking over the long break between episodes. If the series is indeed setting up Brady’s exit so soon after she began, however, that would suggest that something about the character is not working, and thus, the writers decided to write her out.

Will Law & Order Season 24 Really Get Rid Of Brady?

It’s Unlikely For Several Reasons

It would be difficult for Law & Order to keep plans to write Brady out under wraps for the entire midseason hiatus. The new leader leaving so soon after she started would be huge news, and it would be difficult to contain leaks. Thus, the fact that, so far, there is no news suggesting that Brady is leaving is a good sign for her future. Additionally, Brady appears in the trailer for the second half of Law & Order season 24, which suggests that she will still be part of the show, at least for the foreseeable future.

Law & Order has had sudden cast changes before. However, these characters don’t get much of an exit story, leading to Dixon’s disappointing Law & Order disappearance and similar stories. Furthermore, getting rid of Brady without having someone lined up to replace her would make it difficult to produce new stories involving the police side of cases, as there would be no leader. Thus, it’s more likely that this story simply raises the stakes for Brady during the fall finale — and that she’ll find her way out of trouble when the second half of the season begins airing.

The beginning of the long-running franchise Law & Order is a crime-drama series created by Dick Wolf and launched on NBC in 1990. The series follows the day-to-day lives of detectives and legal professionals in New York who are involved in apprehending and prosecuting dangerous criminals.

Cast

George Dzundza , Chris Noth , Dann Florek , Michael Moriarty , Richard Brooks , Steven Hill , Paul Sorvino , Carolyn McCormick , Jerry Orbach , S. Epatha Merkerson , Jill Hennessy , Sam Waterston , Benjamin Bratt , Carey Lowell , Angie Harmon , Jesse L. Martin , Dianne Wiest , Elisabeth Rohm

Release Date

September 13, 1990

Seasons

23

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