The fifth season of the crime drama spin-off
focusing on an elite group of New York cops

continues. This week, Detectives Goren and
Eames attempt to unravel the mystery of how a
billionaire’s son ended up dead. Suspicion
appears to point towards the mogul’s young,
ambitious wife, but the detectives think that the
case is more complicated than it seems...
There should be a happy atmosphere at the home
of wealthy radio mogul Jonas Slaughter (guest
star Malcolm McDowell) and his young, Chinese
wife Anna: they are celebrating their four-year-old
daughter’s birthday, along with Jonas’s adult
sons, Trip and Chance. But the mood is
somewhat cool: Chance’s disapproving wife
keeps making snide remarks about Anna, Trip is
getting drunk and Jonas feels left out watching his
wife and daughter communicating in Chinese.
The next morning, Trip Slaughter is found
strangled in his hotel room – he has been covered
in latex paint during some kind of erotic game and
his cash and watches are missing. There is also a
book in the room written by Larry Lewis, a
professor at a local college. It emerges that Trip’s
estranged wife thinks Trip had a girlfriend who
attended the same college. Goren and Eames
visit the professor and find out that he had been
seeing a dominatrix – could she be a link to Trip?
Another connection is discovered when it
emerges that Larry Lewis had once been married
to Anna, who was his nanny when he was in
China. After marrying him back in the States,
Anna then left him for Jonas Slaughter – and, in
return for a no-nonsense divorce, Jonas put up
the cash for a worldwide tour of Larry’s latest
book. “Lewis got paid off once,” says Eames.
“Maybe he came back to the well and ran into
Trip?” But Larry insists that Trip had sought him
out in the hopes of getting dirt on Anna, who he
suspected was after his father’s fortune. Lewis
claims that he refused to help Trip: “His father
scares the hell out of me!”
The case takes on a new complexion when the
detectives interview Oscar Landau, who occupied
the hotel room next to Trip’s. He initially claims not
to have seen anything on the night of Trip’s death,
but later admits that he saw an Asian woman in the
hallway. Oscar then tells Goren and Eames that
Jonas came to see him while he was travelling in
Istanbul, specifically to ask him to keep quiet about
seeing the woman. “His wife kills his son and
Jonas Slaughter flies half-way around the world to
protect her,” says Eames. “Now that’s love.”
Soon afterwards, some of Trip’s stolen jewellery
turns up at a pawn shop in Chinatown. However,
the seller is identified not as Anna but as an escort
who says that Larry Lewis paid her to go to Trip’s
room with the latex paint and prepare the way for
Larry to go in and kill him. Larry denies having
anything to do with it, and it looks like he is telling
the truth when the evidence shines the spotlight
back onto Oscar Landau. He confesses that Trip
had hired him to get dirt on Anna – and that Jonas
had then paid him to murder Trip.
Jonas has covered his tracks well, creating
plenty of material to lead the detectives to Anna
as a suspect. But why would he have wanted his
own son killed? Goren and Eames must tread
carefully if they are to convince Anna of her
husband’s guilt – and then work out how to nail
the man who has so far escaped justice.