Law & Order (TV Series) Possession (2001) User Reviews

Who Killed The Lunch Lady?

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 12 February 2012]

The Law And Order episode Possession is a uniquely New York story because it deals with that phenomenon known as rent control. The victim here is this elderly woman with a reputation of being an old miser who is stabbed to death in the hallway of her building on Madison Avenue. It's a small apartment building and the ground floor is occupied by Linda Thorson's dress shop and Thorson is also the owner and occupies another apartment.

Another unit is occupied by John Schuck who is Thorson's brother, but they are feuding. He's an iconoclast and it turns out she and the late victim who earned a living as a cafeteria lady in one of the public schools were an item when they were young and frisky.

Thorson has a great business opportunity to sell the building if she can get the tenants out. She did get the rest, but Schuck and the lunch lady. And why would she, the lunch lady has a lease and guaranteed rent of $362.00 a month. As Sam Waterston says, he'd kill for that apartment.

So would many New Yorkers. Possession aired in 2001 and back in my working days with New York State Crime Victims Board, I was first assigned to a senior citizen's unit and I had to take financial information including rent in 1979. Would you believe that I saw rents from some of the elderly as low as $40.00 a month? Someone who moved to their dwelling or was there during World War II when rent controls were first instituted was still paying at that rate with no regard to inflation. No wonder tenants want to stay no matter how good or bad a neighborhood might get and no wonder landlords can be unscrupulous in terms of evicting them.

In fact it's those rent stabilization laws and those who work under that umbrella that leads to a solution to the crime. This episode is a truly New York story.

There is some strange karma going on in that building, Jack.

[Mrpalli77 · 8/10 · 12 November 2017]

Two maintenance men discovered an old lady dead on the stairwell. Briscoe thought she might be a tramp, due to her looking, but she actually lived in the building, a classy place in a fancy neighborhood. Police interviewed the unpleasant super and his stepsister (a woman who recently suffered from a stroke that lead her unable to use properly her right hand) who owned a dress shop downstairs. Even if they're relatives, they haven't spoken each other for over thirty years. The prime suspect was a janitor close to the victim, but the knife found at his disposal was not the murder weapon, that was actually a pair of scissors. The strange thing detectives have realized since the beginning is how could a canteen laborer like the victim have afforded an apartment like this. Too many secrets are hidden inside the block and many people wanted the woman out of the building, even a real estate agent.

An Hitchcock like episode, where for three times policemen and lawyers were sure to find the right perp and the last was the lucky one. Very useful in the investigation was the Asian employee (Mary Ann Hu) at the dress shop.

Building secrets

[TheLittleSongbird · 7/10 · 23 May 2022]

"Possession" is another 'Law and Order' episode where the concept isn't anything original but still has enough to make one interested in seeing it. Personally do prefer the episodes that tackle difficult and controversial topics that are still to this day hardly outdated (which for me is what the franchise excels in doing at its best), or at least ones that are more so, but again if a fan of 'Law and Order' or wanting to see all the episodes there is no reason really to avoid "Possession" in my mind.

After being impressed generally by three of the previous four episodes, with "Soldier of Fortune" being the one minor disappointment, it was hard to not have high expectations watching "Possession" on first watch. On the most part, they were met if not exceeded. "Possession" struck me as a good episode if not a great one. A lot of great things here, just like the previous episodes, but it is a case of other episodes doing a few elements better than here.

Perhaps "Possession" though could have done with having more tension and edge, while everything is interesting it is not as edge of the seat-worthy as other episodes. More surprises wouldn't have gone amiss as well as tighter pacing in the first quarter or so.

Elisabeth Rohm really struggles to bring such a cold, robotic character to life and continues to look ill at ease.

So much is done well though. It is a slickly made episode, the editing especially having come on quite a bit from when the show first started (never was it a problem but it got more fluid with each episode up to this stage). The music is sparingly used and never seemed melodramatic, the theme tune easy to remember as usual. The direction is sympathetic enough without being too low key on the whole.

Furthermore, "Possession" has a thoughtful script that like a lot of 'Law and Order' episodes raises interesting questions worthy of debate with somebody. Love Briscoe's one-liners. The story is tactful while also providing lots of intrigue with the secrets, making one feel sad and angry and eager to know what the secrets are. Nothing is too simple or too complicated and the second half even is riveting. The character writing and interaction are near-on point, faltering only with Southerlyn. The rest of the acting is excellent.

In conclusion, good but not great. 7/10.