Law & Order: Criminal Intent (TV Series) The Healer (2006) User Reviews

Another Scam Artist At Work

[ccthemovieman-1 · 8/10 · 4 August 2008]

Voodoo, or faking it, is the topic in this crime story in which three people are killed. Two of them are paralyzed and wrapped up as mummies, suffocating to death. Another is poisoned. This is all because the "spirits were angry" at these people, according to "Lydia Wyatt" a.k.a. The Healer, or should I say "Healer wannabe." Sherri Saum guest stars as Lydia.

Sadly, other victims of the scam turn out to be cancer patients, who think they are getting well.....until they don't need Lydia The Nurse. Then their lithium-spiked water is taken away and they don't feel so good anymore. I wonder if that is true: water, spiked with Lithium, will enhance your mood and general feeling of well-being? It does, according to the program, and also elevates your white blood cells which is a good sign.....but all the time, you aren't getting better. That's part of the story in this episode.

Pretty low when you try to fool people dying of cancer. In fact, that's about as low as it gets. Some people will do anything for money, I suppose.

On a lighter note, the episode almost pits the two Major Crime Casee detectives against one another, too. Barak is a believer of this witchcraft stuff while Logan laughs it off as nonsense. Neither one will give in. At least the exchanges between them provide some dry humor to the story.

Faith trumping science

[TheLittleSongbird · 7/10 · 6 January 2021]

Of the Logan and Barek episodes, "The Healer" had one of the most intriguing concepts on paper. It is also though one of the strangest and is one of those episodes where the execution could go either way of unsettling and intriguing and odd and confusing. While liking the Logan and Barek partnership better than most fans, they are not as good as Goren, Barek was a bit hit and miss for me and their episodes were also very inconsistent in quality.

"The Healer" is not much out of the ordinary, but actually on the whole in my view it was one of the better Logan and Barek episodes (do prefer "Diamond Dogs", "Dramma Giocoso" and especially the "In the Wee Small Hours" two parter, the last also having Goren and Eames). It starts off routine but does get better, so worth sticking with if one is unsure as to whether to continue. Again that is all personal opinion, as far as Season 5 episodes go overall it is neither one of the best or worst but somewhere bang in the middle.

Am going to start off with what could have been better. Was not entirely engrossed by "The Healer" to begin with. It just came over at first as quite mundane and very tried and tested, making it feel rather bland. It could have been tighter in the pace and the perpetrator is fairly obvious.

Logan has been a lot more interesting in other episodes of 'Criminal Intent' and especially in the early seasons of the original 'Law and Order'. He usually has a gritty edge and a dry sense of humour, his dry humour shines in his interaction with Barek and even more so with Rogers but when it comes to the grit the intensity and energy seems to be missing here. Also didn't like how shallow he seemed here, being narrow minded from the start and pretty much staying that way all the way through to the end.

However, "The Healer" does contain one of Barek's better appearances, she is not too low-key here and has some funny lines, as well as her usual perceptions, a genuine care for Logan and proves to be essential to the case solving. Logan and Barek work very well together, their chemistry is not as playful as with Goren and Eames but they work together as a team more equally. Rogers is good fun as always and while the perpetrator's identity is obvious how they are caught and how the truth is revealed are very cleverly done.

Did feel that the acting was fine, with Annabella Sciorra giving one of her better and more involved performances of her stint on the show (helped by that in her case there is more at her stake). Chris Noth does what he can with weaker material. Sherri Saum is not one to mess with and Oscar Isaac is affecting as the most rootable character. The script is thoughtful and has a good deal of intrigue and amusing moments.

In spite of the slow start, the story does get better and isn't as predictable later on. It avoids being too strange and doesn't fall into coherence. The episode looks slick as usual and the scoring is haunting and not intrusive. The direction serves its purpose well.

Concluding, not that promising to begin with but worth sticking with. 7/10

Faith trumps science

[Mrpalli77 · 8/10 · 21 September 2017]

At the beginning this episode reminds me "Silence of the lambs" movie and I suppose the perpetrator was a serial killer obsessed with cocoon. As the story goes by, we find out the murderer is related to magic issue. For the first time we see tricks used by voodoo healers such as puffer fish poison, poison ivy oil trapped in candlestick and lithium carbonate diluted in water bottle. The female witch doctor (Sherry Saum) set up a smart scam involving two naive graduate students (both with serious issues, one with suicidal attempt at the college) and taking advantage of her real work as a daycare nurse.

This time Logan's life is placed at stake due to poisoned candle and he manages to heal just in time. Barek exposes she's a religious kind of person and prayers helped his parents throughout their lives.

Voodoo Princess

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 22 November 2015]

A pair of sister tightly bound in plastic wrapping suffocated in said wrapping and died on the beds someone carefully laid them in. Just the bizarre nature of the deaths and the press that must have generated headlines would have brought Major Case in.

It doesn't take long for Chris Noth and Annabella Sciorra to zero in on Sherri Saum who has a day job as a nurse, but who sees herself as a voodoo princess as her real calling with a major in healing. What she is is a voodoo version of Dr. Feelgood and preys upon her senior citizen cases.

She does not like scoffers and even infects Noth with some of her concoctions. Those of her patients who could testify against her are now dead and the others swear she's making them better.

Saum's little scheme gets undone by two young men whom she recruited. The first is Patch Darragh whom she has to have killed because he's bringing undo attention because he thinks her magic potions will make him a chick magnet.

The other Carlo Isaac a really sad kid suffering from major depression and suicidal tendencies that Saum keeps on a string with some of her feel good concoctions. How Noth and Sciorra break him is really the heart of this episode. Saum's ex-husband Andre Blake delivers some devastating information about his ex-wife.

This CI episode is highlighted by the performances of both Saum and Isaac. As the Bard said there are more things in heaven and earth than that we can see, hear, and touch. Especially if you believe hard enough.

Who thought this line up?

[steve-2001 · 6/10 · 28 February 2020]

Just watched this show on WE TV. At 37 minutes remaining Logan says that the way they are manipulatting the patients health is a trick you learn in nursing school. Is that like saying learning how to take bribes is something you learn at the police academy?

I find his comment offensive.

Steve RN