Law & Order lost its last remaining star from the original run of the series with Sam Waterston's departure as DA Jack McCoy, but Season 23 still has plenty in store in the 2024 TV schedule. Scandal alum Tony Goldwyn has joined the show to play new District Attorney Nicholas Baxter. The change is bound to shake up the status quo for the detectives and attorneys who are still on board, and Mehcad Brooks opened up about the newcomer's arrival.
Mehcad Brooks' Jalen Shaw went through the wringer in Law & Order's first episode without Jack McCoy, which you can find streaming with a Peacock Premium subscription. Between some sky-high personal stakes for Shaw and the scene that left Brooks needing to "go home and unravel," it was probably for the best that he didn't have to deal with a new DA on top of everything else.
That won't be the case for much longer, however. So, when I spoke with Brooks, he shared how the Law & Order status quo is different with Baxter as DA after Sam Waterston's departure:
It was such a pleasure and honor and privilege to work with Sam, and call him a friend and laugh and joke with him and just to be in his presence. Incredible. I think America loves conflict. Right? [laughs] We love that in our entertainment in particular, and this is no different. I think that [happens] anytime you bring something new, particularly [into] a structural framework as in a new DA who can run that office any way he likes. He can be fair, he can be moral, he can be virtuous, or he can be political. And we just don't know who Baxter is yet.
Law & Order fans aren't the only ones with a blank slate when it comes to DA Baxter at this point! The characters are in the dark as well. Shaw and Co. worked with Price in the first episode without McCoy, with Hugh Dancy's character serving as acting DA. That changes once the show comes back from its brief break, and Mehcad Brooks went on to share Shaw's trust issues with the new District Attorney:
Shaw is one of these guys who doesn't trust anybody because he solves murders for a living. [laughs] It's not a job in which you go,'Yeah, I trust you!' You don't just trust people off the bat, and so I think what happens is Shaw doesn't know what to expect yet. And as you know, a DA can set the bar here or can set the bar there, as [to] how much evidence that you need to prosecute a case.
The cops and lawyers of Season 23 have only ever worked under Jack McCoy as DA since Law & Order's revival return, so working with Baxter is presumably going to be new territory for all of them. Whether that makes their jobs easier or harder remains to be seen! Brooks continued:
What's interesting is we don't know if that's going to be a good thing or a bad thing because we don't know if it's going to be political. We don't know what his motivations are. We don't know what his worldview is. We don't know what life experiences he's bringing to the office. We're pretty deliberately careful with our relationship with the DA office.
"Deliberately careful" is definitely not how the detectives and DAs had to define their approaches to working with McCoy, but Baxter's motivations are mysterious at this point. While McCoy stepping down meant that the mayor couldn't install one of his cronies into the office to ruin Price's career, that doesn't mean Baxter is going to be Jack 2.0.
Luckily, the wait to see DA Baxter in the mix with the rest of the characters isn't too much longer. Law & Order went on a brief break after the end of February, but will return on March 14 with the murder of a successful Wall Street investor. While Shaw and Riley will have to investigate, Baxter will put pressure on Price and Maroun to secure a guilty verdict.
Based on the promo for the episode, there will be plenty of drama to go around! Take a look:
Tony Goldwyn's first episode of Law & Order, called "Balance of Power," airs on Thursday, March 14 in its usual 8 p.m. ET time slot on NBC. As always, L&O is followed at 9 p.m. ET by Law & Order: SVU and then Law & Order: Organized Crime at 10 p.m. ET.
