Law & Order Toronto Criminal Intent season 1, episode 3 review

SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers for Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent Season 1, Episode 3.

Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent Episode 3 delves into the art world, and it has a genuinely interesting premise. Artists profiting off the work of other artists is a real thing; there’s a very good American Greed episode about a woman who deceived an incredibly reputable gallery in this way. It’s like ghostwriting and in some cases it can turn criminal. But “The Real Eve” doesn’t have time to unravel a detailed plot, so it has to simplify things down, and that’s where it struggles.

“The Real Eve” is more of a paint by numbers kit than a unique painting. The characters are the folks one would expect to populate such a story. There’s the brilliant, secretive artist who turns out to be not so nice (and not as brilliant). There’s the jealous ex-husband, the much younger boyfriend, and the gallerist who adores her star client. This exploration of the underbelly of the art world only turns up one new note: that Eve Kinwood felt guilty about passing off another artist’s work as her award-winning own, and had concocted a fairly elaborate scheme to come clean about it. That’s a nice twist, because many procedurals would have stopped at making the artist the villain, who was killed by their jealous colleague or someone else they’d wronged.

The performances in the episode don’t add much color to it, though. Canadian TV veteran Greg Bryk (Bitten, ReGenesis) plays the victim’s downtrodden ex-husband Rick, and it’s fun to see Catherine Disher appear as his defense attorney. Audiences will recognize her from Good Witch, but they may also recognize her voice from X-Men: The Animated Series, in which she portrayed Jean Grey. She’s only in one scene, however, and Bryk isn’t around that long since Rick is the first suspect (which means the wrong suspect). Beyond that, it’s really Aden Young as Henry Graff who does a lot of the heavy lifting.

There’s another classic Criminal Intent confrontation scene in “The Real Eve,” and this is the most angry that Graff has gotten in the three episodes that have aired. When he’s explaining everything to the actual killer, he appears genuinely perturbed by her motivations, and Young’s performance imbues that payoff moment with a lot more punch. The theatricality of Law & Order: Criminal Intent is what sets it (and this spinoff) apart from the rest of the franchise, but this time it’s not so much a “gotcha” scene as a “how could you” scene. And when the Graff character is typically very calm, it’s entertaining to see him take it up a notch.

Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent serves up a story with a clear beginning, middle and end. The characters, their motivations and the identity of the perpetrator aren’t likely to surprise anyone. But it’s a solid crime story that neatly fills 42 minutes without any downtime. If the show can find something unique to bring to the table beyond its format, it’ll be on the right track.

Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent airs Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on The CW. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Citytv.

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