Death
In 2005, the Briscoe character was written out after the second episode of Trial By Jury coinciding with Orbach's death on December 28, 2004 from prostate cancer. The character's departure from the show was originally to be in the episode "Baby Boom" where members of the DA's Office attend a memorial service for him after dying from an illness. This scene was in fact filmed but never actually made it into the episode before its airing, leaving Briscoe's whereabouts after his last appearance in the second episode unknown.
In the 2005 Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "Diamond Dogs" (Chris Noth's first episode as a regular cast member), Logan, questioning a burglar's fence in a pool hall, is clearly referring to Briscoe when he says that a former partner was a "wizard with the stick". In the 2007 Criminal Intent episode "Renewal", Logan says that Briscoe has died but he still sees him alive in his dreams.
In 2008, Green explains he returned to gambling briefly after Briscoe died. In a 2008 episode of Criminal Intent, a Catholic priest who was a friend of Briscoe approaches Logan after a prisoner's deathbed confession to a 16-year-old double murder in The Bronx.
In the 2009 Law & Order episode "Fed", Briscoe's old partner Rey Curtis returns to New York to bury his deceased wife Deborah, who had finally succumbed to MS, next to her parents. Anita Van Buren was able to come to the tail end of Deborah's funeral and meet with Curtis where Curtis revealed that he had spoken with Lennie Briscoe just before his death and that Lennie was his old wisecracking self right up to the end.
Read more about this topic: Lennie Briscoe
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“The techniques of opening conversation are universal. I knew long ago and rediscovered that the best way to attract attention, help, and conversation is to be lost. A man who seeing his mother starving to death on a path kicks her in the stomach to clear the way, will cheerfully devote several hours of his time giving wrong directions to a total stranger who claims to be lost.”
—John Steinbeck (1902–1968)
“Time turns the old days to derision,
Our loves into corpses or wives;
And marriage and death and division
Make barren our lives.”
—A.C. (Algernon Charles)
“If society gives up the right to impose the death penalty, then self help will appear again and personal vendettas will be around the corner.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)