I enjoyed this one because of the performances, despite the straighforward plot - and I'm usually critical of procedurals where the crime boils down to the words "jilted lover." Excellent work from the supporting cast here: Natalya Negoda as defendant Irina Cooper, Jesse Corti as her defiant and protective lover, and Faith Prince as Irina's co-worker who helped enable the affair.
The problem for the DA's office is that the victim was, by all accounts, a total jerk. He treated Irina, his mail-order Russian bride, like a live-in maid, and he wouldn't even help bring over her child from Russia. Tough to make a jury feel sympathy for this guy.
"They can hear that he was mean and domineering, and they can call it grounds for divorce, but I won't let them accept it as a defense for murder," says ever-principled Catholic prosecutor Ben Stone.
A really interesting twist comes late in the game too, as one of the defense attorneys wants to call the main witness's testimony into question... because he's Korean and he doesn't think a Korean person can recognize non-Asians?! The judge is pissed at the theatrics, but it seems like this oily attorney has the case law to back himself up, where it's known as "cross-racial identification." (Sounds more like "racism" to me.)
Watch and find out what happens...