How ‘Law & Order’ Wrote Out Jeffrey Donovan’s Cosgrove & Introduced Reid Scott’s Riley
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[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the Law & Order Season 23 premiere “Freedom of Expression.”]
Detective Jalen Shaw (Mehcad Brooks) has a new partner in Law & Order Season 23 in Detective Vincent Riley (Reid Scott), after the exit of Jeffrey Donovan over the hiatus. But given that the Season 22 finale didn’t set up his exit, how was Detective Frank Cosgrove’s absence explained in the premiere?
It’s a third of the way through the episode that Riley asks Shaw what happened with Cosgrove, sharing he knew him a little back in the day and calling him a good cop. “Great cop, just got jammed up,” Shaw says. On? “Being too honest about things people aren’t too honest about these days.”
“Yeah, it is not a great time to have an opinion, is it?” Riley asks.
It was in November 2023 that it was announced Donovan would not be returning; he was with the show since its return in 2022 for Season 21. Shortly after, it was revealed Scott had joined the cast in the series regular role of a new detective.
“[Riley] has a sort of a redemptive path that Shaw finds out about a little later, which causes for some amicable conflict if you will, but there’s a wonderful relationship that the two characters have,” Brooks told TV Insider of that new dynamic.
Lieutenant Kate Dixon has “known [Riley] for a long time. He’s been on the force for a long time. She’s actually been trying to get him over there, and it’s just been due to a lot of darker circumstances. It’s been a challenge, but that all comes to light in Episode 4,” Camryn Manheim shared.
Virginia Sherwood/NBC
We get a taste of all that right from the start in the premiere, with Riley’s comment about it being his first homicide case in almost 30 years, him later telling Shaw not to play the hero again on his tab (after Jalen steps in and disarms a man who won’t put down a knife), and Dixon telling Vince she’s glad he’s there and his gratitude for her “looking out.”
Later, again facing a man who refuses to put down a weapon (in this case a gun), Shaw and Riley try to talk him down. This time, the man, knowing what would happen, points his gun in Shaw’s direction. Riley shoots, and the man dies. After, he tells Shaw he’d never shot anyone before.
What did you think of the explanation for what happened to Cosgrove?
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