Law & Order: Criminal Intent/Season 4

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Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001- 2011) is a criminal drama television series, part of the popular Law & Order franchise created by Dick Wolf. The show focuses on the Major Case Squad, an elite group of detectives specializing in cases of political sensitivity or public attention.

Semi-Detached [4.01]

[A shock jock with a history of mental problems is believed to have committed suicide, but clues lead the detectives toward a psychiatric nurse with an obsession]

Ray Garnett: [doing his radio call-in show] Come on, Linda. Let 'em out to play.

Linda: [on the phone] But, um,... I'm in the kitchen, Ray. What if somebody sees me?

Ray Garnett: Honey, it's just you, me, and the FCC.

Linda: [giggling] Okay, I did it. I took it off. You happy now, Ray?

Ray Garnett: Well, sweetie, that depends. Are they, um, berries, mangoes, or melons?

Goren: Last time, he left a suicide note?

Garnett: He made a tape. He had it with him in the car. Ray loves the sound of his own voice.

[Goren has explained that someone tampered with the victim's antidepressants to force him to commit suicide.]

Goren: Last time he tried to kill himself, his kids stopped him. This time, he was fighting chemistry. And chemistry won.

Capt. Deakins: Murder by suicide.

Carlson: Don't you care about me at all? I know you do, I saw it.

Goren: I didn't mean for you to see it.

The Posthumous Collection [4.02]

[A controversial photographer is murdered, and his last shoot holds the vital clue]

Eames: As murders go, it's pretty flashy.

Goren: Could be the point.

[At a crime scene, Goren finds an unknown substance wrapped in tin foil.]

Eames: Somebody bake a potato?

Goren: [smells the substance] It's residue. I don't know what it is.

Eames: [pleased] A smell you can't identify.

[Goren has discovered that the models in the photographs are dead.]

Goren: He killed them and then took photos of them.

Eames: Can hold the pose for hours and not complain. The perfect models.

Goren: You know, you can repress the memory of abuse all you want. But it always find a way to express itself.

Goren: Gerhardt's most humane work. And no one will ever see it.

Want [4.03]

[Goren and Eames investigate a serial killer who kills to create a perfect, submissive partner]

Goren: [to Tagman] You've done evil things, but you're not evil.

Goren: Whatever you meant or didn't mean, they're now going to convict you of first-degree murder.

Hicks: Don't let them scare you. If they had the evidence, he wouldn't be here talking to you.

Goren: [slamming his hand down on the table] Do not mistake my meaning for being here! Do not! [to Tagman] Maybe he's right, John. Maybe you will walk out of here a free man - but you won't be free. Because you want what you want: someone who won't leave. Who won't judge you. Someone who will surrender herself to you. A girlfriend. Now, this need, it won't stop. You know that about yourself, don't you?

Tagman: [choking up] I... no. No. I'm not like that.

Goren: John, your loneliness is so deep you can't help but do this again. Hurt other women. Commit evermore depraved acts. You ate Amanda's flesh. You cooked it with potatoes and onions. Because you needed to be connected to her, to be close to her. That's what your life is always gonna be like. You're always gonna be looking for that connection, each day worse than the last. I know you want to stop. I know you want to be a good person. I can see it, because you have remorse. It's why you drink. John, take responsibility.

Hicks: Mr. Tagman, don't answer him.

Goren: This will never stop until you take responsibility.

Hicks: The interview is over...

Goren: She can't even remember her own name, John. She can't remember.

Hicks: Detective...

Goren: How many more?

[Tagman tears up for a moment, and then breaks down]

Tagman: [sobbing] I don't know why I do this! I wanna know why, I... oh, God, I'm so sorry! I just wanted... I'm sorry! What is wrong with me? Oh my God!

Eames: A heartfelt confession. So much for the death penalty.

Eames: [about Tagman] I hear he volunteered to be a guinea pig for an experiment on the criminal brain.

Carver: They should do tests on how one man can shed so many crocodile tears.

[Just then, Carver takes a phone call.]

Carver: [subdued] Mr. Tagman was beaten to death by another inmate in Sing Sing this morning. He was in the laundry working when he was attacked.

Eames: I guess now everybody has what they want.

Great Barrier [4.04]

[Goren's nemesis, Nicole Wallace, resurfaces as the brains behind a diamond theft ring]

Wallace: [reading a plaque on the station wall] "The Greatest Detectives in the World". You have to wonder about people who need such positive reinforcement.

Wallace: I came here for a truce, Bobby.

Goren: A truce?

Wallace: Notwithstanding your "unrelenting pursuit of evil".

Goren: Evil, Nicole, is also unrelenting in its pursuits.

Wallace: You're both so transparent, using Ella to get at me.

Goren: That's Nicole's maternal instinct rearing its little head.

Eames: You can't deny those feelings even if you can't have kids of your own.

Wallace: Yes, thank you. We can't all be blessed with eggs ripe and ready for hire. Tell me, detective, did your sister at least let you keep the sonogram so you could have something to cuddle up with at night?

Eames: [angry but controlled] I see my nephew at least three times a week. Being pregnant was a great experience. Consider yourself robbed.

[Goren theorizes that Wallace killed her own child]

Wallace: Who helped you concoct this theory, your mother?

Goren: In her wildest delusions, she never spawned anything like you, Nicole.

[Wallace has jumped to her apparent death, but her body is never found]

Goren: How long do you think it would have taken for Nicole to collect a quart of her own blood?

Eames: If the blood was a set-up, why wouldn't Ella say something about it when she saw it all over the room?

Goren: Maybe she was in on it. Maybe we never turned her.

Eames: And she had to learn the hard way.

Goren: It's just a thought.

Eosphoros [4.05]

[Goren and Eames investigate the death of a prominent atheist leader who is kidnapped, ransomed and murdered]

Carver: Congratulations, you've managed to unite atheists and Christians in common cause against police harassment.

Eames: We do what we can.

Carver: What you seem to be doing is playing musical suspects.

Goren: Well, she didn't believe in heaven and hell, so how would she know the devil was massaging her neck?

In the Dark [4.06]

[A head donated to medical science leads Goren and Eames to the steam tunnels under the city and a scam involving homeless men being murdered for money.]\

[Harassing an employee at a body donation department of a university to try and get information. Goren starts poking into morgue coolers and opening up containers.]

Goren: Look at that. It's a heart, from a--

[He looks at the label on the container.]

Goren: --Mr. Hoss. It hardly looks used.

Employee: I should talk to an attorney.

Eames: Better make it a good one, with experience in murder cases. That lady's head had a bullet in it.

[Employee gapes. Goren looks at him.]

Goren: Cat got your tongue?

[He points down at one of the containers containing body parts.]

Goren: 'cuz there's an extra one in here.

Body snatcher: Better I take them than leave them for Donald.

Goren: Who's Donald?

Body snatcher: A demon, of course.

[Rodgers wheels in a cart containing disassembled body parts.]

Dr. Rodgers: Metcalf still had his hands and feet. His head was up in San Francisco. The rest of him is at a research lab in Maui. Some people have all the luck.

[Deakins watches Goren toying with a piece of leather, angling it up to the light.]

Deakins: Beaming signals to the mother ship?

[Deakins walks into an office and sees a line of files of victims Goren and Eames have found.]

Deakins: So this is it. The rest of the iceberg.

Goren: They're an interesting couple.

Eames: The killer and Mrs. Magoo.

Goren: Dinnertime. I wonder what alibi they're serving.

Eames: The dark ages. Sometimes I think we're still living in them.

Magnificat [4.07]

[Goren and Eames investigate the deaths of three boys and injury to their mother and older brother when a car exploded]

Eames: [about Whitlock] I don't know about you, but that guy's starting to stick in my craw.

Goren: I see why you're not angry at her. Because she's a reflection of everything that you've done to her.

Whitlock: I did nothing but help her.

Goren: No, you terrorized her! You got kicked around at work, you came home, and you crushed her.

Whitlock: I never laid a hand on her!

Goren: You didn't have to!

Silver Lining [4.08]

[Goren and Eames link the murder of an antique appraiser to silverware thefts]

[Eames falls asleep during a late-night stakeout. Goren wakes her up by waving a cup of coffee under her nose.]

Eames: [waking] Don't you sleep?

Goren: There's a lot to do.

{A master burglar has stolen valuable silverware, leaving the disassembled cabinet pieces neatly piled on the floor. But, the homeowner's money and checkbook was left behind.]

Eames: He took the silver, but not the cash. He's making fun of us.

Goren: Well, I would, too, if I were this good.

[Goren and Eames have tracked the burglar's female partner to a hotel office. Goren notices a desk has been moved.]

Goren: She moved the desk from here?

Hotel auditor: Yeah, she wanted it moved away from the outlets. Said the smell of electricity made her sick.

Goren: [to Eames] The smell of electricity.

Eames: I thought I could smell moonbeams.

Goren: Oh, when you were pregnant. [realizing] Well, that's why he was playing it safe. Because he wanted to be there for the baby.

Eames: I think I'm gonna cry.

Wesley Kenderson: This is the last time we meet like this, detective. [taken away in a police car]

Goren: I hope so.

Mrs. Kenderson: Hope is for suckers, detective.

Inert Dwarf [4.09]

[When a scientist dies due to lethal radiation, Goren and Eames find themselves investigating one of the smartest men in the world]

Eames: [hoping to access the dead man's computer] What's Neminger's password?

University dean: Carl wrote a hack-proof password deriving from bosonic string theories.

Eames: No chance it would've been the name of the family cat.

University dean: No.

Eames: The lab said Neminger was poisoned with three vials of samarium-153. It's an isotope used on bone cancer. You can get it at any hospital or university radiology department.

Deakins: Any reports of missing isotopes?

Eames: No.

Deakins: Don't tell me they don't track this stuff.

Eames: I guess not.

Deakins: Somebody's not reading the news.

Eames: [about Manotti] For being such a genius, he's not much of a liar.

Dr. Manotti: [to Eames, regarding Goren's unorthodox investigative style] Does he play the siren when he drives?

Goren: [chuckles] She drives.

Goren: My mother always said, "Be happy you're not a genius - it makes for a lonely life."

The View From Up Here [4.10]

[A condo association president is murdered, and the detectives follow leads that include a woman to whom God speaks, a substandard building, and an affair]

Goren: The fancier the building, the bigger the vermin in the walls.

Eames: It's a big comedown to go from God's avenger to prized patsy.

Gone [4.11]

[Goren matches wits with a paranoid chess master suspected of murdering a young woman]

Carly: I didn't kill her.

Goren: We don't care. You're who we've got.

Goren: See, that's what happens when you keep people from doing what they do best. It makes them insane.

Collective [4.12]

[The accidental shooting of a toy collector leads to a society focused on vampires and a con artist]

Goren: Is that when the light bulb went on? Saw what your life really was? Life of a loser. You know, pretending to be little vampires, hanging out in your vampire crypt, discussing your vampire books, having sad vampire sex in a plywood vampire box.

Eames: Poor Arnie, his robots had more heart than the woman of his dreams.

Stress Position [4.13]

[Detective Mike Logan assists Goren and Eames in investigating a case of prisoner abuse]

Logan: Funny how bad apples always find each other.

Goren: Maybe it's their barrels that make the apples bad.

Logan: Oh, the Patriot Act. Yeah, well, I read that in its original title, 1984.

[Logan comes close to assaulting a suspect with his own baton, but restrains himself]

Logan: That guy? He would have been worth another 10 years on Staten Island.

Sex Club [4.14]

[Goren and Eames investigate the murder of a former playgirl, and find a notebook so valuable people are willing to kill for it]

Eames: An aging swinger's little black book. Somebody must be desperate for a love life.

[Goren and Deakins have just listened to a tape of a man with a Southern accent arguing with an auction worker.]

Goren: "Tortious interference". A lawyer?

Capt. Deakins: Worse. A Texas lawyer.

Eames: [regarding a girlie magazine publisher's vague answers] Talking to that guy is like walking into a fog bank.

Capt. Deakins: Tough to tell your kid you neglected them because you were too busy romancing the Seventh Fleet.

Carver: Since I have no intention of asking Mr. Radcliff any questions about that document, I see no basis to turn it over to him.

Judge Aguilar: That is the lamest argument I've heard in a month; if it's evidence he has a right examine it!

Death Roe [4.15]

[Goren and Eames investigate the disappearance of a promising chef and the murder of a restaurant critic]

Eames: Gluttony. Now I know why it made the short list of deadly sins.

Goren: Half an hour. The chef that I talked to said that's what he'd need to dress a human, and then another hour to grind the meat and bones.

Ex Stasis [4.16]

[Goren and Eames work a case where organ donation has a price for the recipients beyond their medical bills]

Capt. Deakins: I'm gettin' tired of sentences that start with "maybe".

Eames: He's not saying much of anything anymore. Somebody performed brain surgery on him with a .357 Magnum.

Carver: He gives new meaning to the phrase "Give till it hurts".

Goren: He gives because he hurts.

Shibboleth [4.17]

[The murder of a young woman leads Goren and Eames to believe that a notorious serial killer has come out of hiding]

911 Operator: 911, what is your emergency?

Body By Jake: She's not breathing.

911 Operator: What is your location, sir?

Body By Jake: Send someone to 90-- Wait, wait.

Phoebe Morton: Stop! I can't... don't kill me, I don't want to die. [choking, gasping sounds]

Body By Jake: Now she's not breathing.

[Durbin has just given evidence that his father is a serial killer]

McNare: You nosy little deviant. Your own father. How could you?

Durbin: How could you, Dad?

McNare: "Dad"? You're no son of mine.

Eames: [to Goren] That's the nicest thing he could have said to him.

The Good Child [4.18]

[The murder of a married couple in the Witness Protection Program leads Goren and Eames to investigate their adopted daughter]

Lipton: I don't even know who she is.

Goren: I-I think that you do, 'cause when I mentioned her name your pulse went up, but when I said that she was missing, you didn't skip a beat. So I don't think it's news to you.

Lipton: My, my. A human polygraph.

Eames: The plot sickens.

Beast [4.19]

[The investigation into a woman poisoned with Dioxin leads to her husband and a connection from his past]

Goren: So he killed her without touching her.

Eames: And they say all the good men are taken.

Goren: [checking furniture surfaces for cocaine] Try the chair.

Kahn: You think she snorted it off the chair?

Eames: We're thinking she didn't snort it.

Kahn: [slowly dawns on him] ...Oh.

Goren: Beauty. It's a beast.

No Exit [4.20]

[Goren and Eames investigate the deaths of five young adults who parked their car on railroad tracks and waited for a fatal crash]

Eames: A suicide club - and Carmine didn't know he was a member.

Smythe: Four counts of manslaughter. That's what I get for overestimating the intelligence of a grand jury.

Eames: Just be grateful the D.A. let you off with a plea bargain.

Smythe: I don't consider shutting down my website a bargain. All right, Joanie and Chachi, right? This is the last chat I have for them.

Eames: Thank you. You can go do your little dance in Hell now.

Goren: Killing Carmine - he was really killing himself.

Eames: There was a step in between that he skipped.

The Unblinking Eye [4.21]

[Goren and Eames investigate the murder of a young actress gunned down on the street after an evening out with her boyfriend]

Eames: Nothing like watching a crocodile cry.

Eames: She could confess, but where's the fun in that?

My Good Name [4.22]

[Goren and Eames investigate the murder of a hospital engineer and it soon becomes obvious the body has been moved]

Eames: We can't figure out how he got from your precinct, the three-five, to the two-nine, over here.

Mathis: Maybe the Easter wino helped him across the street.

Adair: You're not related to Johnny Eames, from the 9-1?

Eames: My father.

Adair: Carrying on the tradition. I like that.

False-Hearted Judges [4.23]

[Goren and Eames investigate the murders of judges and discover a very insidious threat.]

Detective: Judge Barton asked us to reevaluate her surveillance. We'd been monitoring Brownfeld's group. There were no further threats, no chatter. We... We took a calculated risk.

Carver: You need a new calculator.