Patriot comes late in the original run of Law and Order, when the debates about social issues and current events began to tip toward being pedantic rather than dramatic. Here is a question that resonated then and resonates now: If the enemy is terrorists who doesn't represent a traditional military, how do you stop them?
Now, keep in mind that the FBI -- then and now -- have warned the U. S. has more to fear from domestic terrorists -- hate groups and so-called militias, for example -- than from foreign terrorists. And members of those groups have infiltrated both the police and military that this episode sees as the defenders of our freedom.
Law and Order would on occasion tackle those kinds of terrorists, too.
In this episode is the age-old suspicion of the other, the immigrant, the face not like our own. America has always struggled with this issue, and this time, it's anyone who looks "Middle Eastern" who is the target.
As you might expect, a group of self-appointed patriots, some military veterans, decide to strike first when they discover someone from Yemen who they believe is cooking up some kind of attack. He has tens of thousands of dollars in his bank account, and somehow circumstantially this all makes him fit the profile of a terrorist. When he turns up murdered, it's now up to Sam the Eagle and crew to put them behind bars.
But is the case so cut and dry?
The acting here is top notch, of course. Even some actors, like Tony Serpico, who turn up later in the maudlin SVU, is still giving natural performances that so shine brighter than soap opera antics of the other series. But special attention should be given to Leo Burmester, whose defense attorney, Hastings, is exactly the sort of southern fried butterball who talks out of both sides of his mouth without hesitation. You hate him for what he does rather than the mustache twirling silliness of more contemporary foils in the Law and Order franchise.
I won't reveal too much about the ending. It may or may not move you, as it may seem where things are obviously headed, but it speaks to both our paranoia and the notion of privilege over whose fears are allowed to culminate in violence.