While recovering from the loss of his neighbor and the departure of his previous partner, Detective Logan and his new partner, Detective Nola Falacci, are on the case of a murder of an obstetrician killed in a ritualistic fashion while sorting out complex family dynamics, a doctor with a god complex, and so much spread around DNA that finding the real killer will be a miracle of genetics.

• Alicia Witt joins the cast as Detective Nola Falacci.

Logan and Falacci investigate the execution-style murder of three young college freshmen. Logan and Falacci are frustrated in their attempts to find suspects in the apparent gang shooting of the three students, who have no gang affiliations whatsoever.

• After this episode, the season paused for six months for the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike.
• This was also Alicia Witt's last episode.

Still on leave from the force, Goren decides to tip the balance in his favor with an undercover operation hoping that it will help him get back on the job, while Eames investigates a triple homicide which turns out to be related to Goren's case. When Eames finds out that Goren never informed her about his assignment, she becomes very upset, leading to a sizable rift between the partners.

• Dean Winters guest stars as Detective Mike Stoat.

Detectives Logan and Wheeler investigate the case of a television news anchor who is blackmailed by a popular tabloid gossip columnist. When the man goes to the NYPD and wears a wire for detectives, the car blows up and the columnist is killed, while the anchorman is severely injured. The detectives find themselves up to their eyeballs in suspects and motives, where no one theory and suspect can be ruled out as a possibility, because the columnist was extorting money from famous people, ostensibly to open a luxurious restaurant and trying to protect his younger sister. The list of suspects include a mobster whom the victim had some major gambling debts and a physician who has operated on many renowned athletes, as well as an unscrupulous filmmaker and his wife/assistant – a studio executive who is disturbed to hear about any drug involvement in relation to a huge star who recently died on set. As Logan and Wheeler begin to stitch together the pieces, they discover a sordid secret life of sex and deceit that could be a motivating factor in the crime.

• Mary McCormack guest stars as her character Mary Shannon, from In Plain Sight.
• Julianne Nicholson returns from maternity leave.

While taking his three-year-old son on an evening stroll in the park, stock analyst Skip Lowe (Jason Pendergraft) is gunned down by someone familiar to him. While the detectives are investigating the shooting, Paloma Renzi (Lisa Kathleen McMahan), the mother of another toddler, is gunned down under similar circumstances. Detectives Goren and Eames find a connection between the two victims, but when a third parent with a three-year-old surfaces as a victim (and turns out to be the first victim), she seems to have no connection to Skip and Paloma, so Goren and Eames shift their focus to the Day Care Center that all three children have in common, where there is an exclusive and long waiting list.

• This episode's title is the longest title of any episode in the Law & Order franchise.

Detectives Goren and Eames investigate the case of Paul Phillips, a student at an elite private school, found dead, hanging from overhead pipes in the boiler room. The detectives survey the crime scene and meet a Renaissance art teacher, Mrs. Anna Nobile (Joanna P. Adler), who found the boy's body. They learn that she has a daughter, Tessa (Sarah Steele), who also is a student at the school. Preliminary findings indicate that the death appears to be suicide, until Goren looks below the surface. He discovers fresh mud on Paul's sneakers, while Eames adds that the knot was a sailing knot and Paul's cellphone and backpack are missing. They tell Captain Ross about the victim. His father is a corporate raider, known for toughness, as Goren theorizes the man was embarrassed by his son. Then, the detectives meet with the victim's parents.

The mother says he was looking forward to his school prom, but she doesn't know how it went because they went out of town to a regatta. The father does not respond well, insulting them. In the morgue, Dr. Rodgers informs detectives that the cause of the young man's death was asphyxiation by hanging, but his skull was bashed in. Rodgers shows them the two- to three-day-old bruises all over his body, concluding the victim was brutally beaten before his death. Goren and Eames go talk to Jack Walker (Anthony Carrigan), a boy the grief counselor said Paul might be friends with. At home, Jack shows the detectives a make-out, grotesque cartoon the victim made. Later, a police computer technician shows them the video of a girls group, wearing sports goggles and masks, attacking Paul, knocking him down, kicking and punching him furiously. Nevertheless, the investigators cannot prove their theories until meticulous research yields a lost clue that could be the missing link to resolve the case.

• Based on the Horace Mann School controversy.

A neighborhood receives notices from a watch group that a sex offender is moving in. The entire community is soon making the offender's life miserable. The following day, his headless body is found floating in the Maspeth Creek. Logan and Wheeler learn that offender, Kyle Jones, pleaded guilty to statutory rape. He was 19, she was 15. He served five years and was staying at his mother's house when the murder happened. Both Jones' mother and the girl in question say that the sex was consensual, and the complaint was filed by the girl's parents and prosecuted by Terri Driver (Leslie Hope), an ADA who has since made a name for herself. The detectives' investigation uncovers official misconduct in the DA's office, and makes Logan some new enemies.

• Inspired by the murder and decapitation of Daniel Sorenson.

Logan and Wheeler's jobs are both put at risk when a priest convinces him to reopen a case that may reveal the corruption of an ADA who will go to any length necessary -- including getting Logan and Wheeler removed from their jobs -- to keep the truth a secret.

• This was Chris Noth's final episode; he was replaced by Jeff Goldblum.
• Denis O'Hare would later return to the role of Father Shea in the 2013 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit season 14 episode "Presumed Guilty."

Detective Robert Goren is visited by the past when he finds a picture at his mother's grave that indicates an old nemesis has returned. The case becomes more complex when his brother and a mentor reappear. Goren's brother Frank (Tony Goldwyn) is murdered, and Nicole Wallace (Olivia d'Abo) appears to be the killer. After that, the people he holds closest to him end up in grave danger, and Goren will be pushed to the breaking point to solve his toughest case yet.

• Warren Leight's last episode as executive producer