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The Best Episodes of Law & Order Season 16

Every episode of Law & Order Season 16 ranked from best to worst. Discover the Best Episodes of Law & Order Season 16!

Binge this in 16h 30m•Peaking at 8.8/10

In cases ripped from the headlines, police investigate serious and often deadly crimes, weighing the evidence and questioning the suspects until someone is taken into custody. The district attorney's office then builds a case to

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Episode Rankings

  1. #1 Fan Favorite
    Law & Order Season 16 Episode 1 - Red Ball
    8.3/10(373 votes)

    #1 - Red Ball

    S16:E1

    A young girl is abducted in broad daylight, and the only link to the girl is an ex-convict who wants a deal before he's willing to talk.

    Director:Matthew Penn
    Writers:Dick Wolf, David Wilcox

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  2. Law & Order Season 16 Episode 2 - Flaw (II)
    8.1/10(411 votes)

    #2 - Flaw (II)

    S16:E2

    Green and Fontana bring SVU Detective Olivia Benson onto their scene when a DOA has her number on his cell phone. This crossover starts on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit S07E02 Design (I).

    Director:Jean de Segonzac
    Writer:Chris Levinson

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  3. Law & Order Season 16 Episode 3 - Ghosts
    7.9/10(327 votes)

    #3 - Ghosts

    S16:E3

    Fontana and McCoy pursue a man believed to have murdered a young girl ten years earlier despite numerous obstacles.

    Director:Constantine Makris
    Writer:Unknown

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  4. Law & Order Season 16 Episode 4 - Age of Innocence
    7.3/10(294 votes)

    #4 - Age of Innocence

    S16:E4

    The bombing death of a husband set to remove the feeding tube of his wife, who's in a persistent vegetative state, focuses the investigation on the protesters.

    Director:David Platt
    Writer:Unknown

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  5. Law & Order Season 16 Episode 5 - Life Line
    7.8/10(307 votes)

    #5 - Life Line

    S16:E5

    Police turn their attention to the murder of an undercover reporter, but realise that the killer isn't as guilty as he appears.

    Director:Rosemary Rodriguez
    Writer:Unknown

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  6. Law & Order Season 16 Episode 6 - Birthright
    7.9/10(324 votes)

    #6 - Birthright

    S16:E6

    Teenage suspect Traci Sands dies in police custody after being arrested for the murder of the man who reported her to child protective services. Rodgers reveals that she died because someone outfitted her with a benecrine I.U.D. that reacted with Sands' sickle cell syndrome and ended up killing her. Fontana and Green follow the trail to a charitable clinic and nurse Gloria Rhodes, who believes she is saving the world by sterilizing women that she does not believe are worthy of having children. McCoy faces former assistant district attorney Paul Robinette in court as Robinette defends Rhodes.

    Director:Constantine Makris
    Writer:David Slack

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  7. Law & Order Season 16 Episode 7 - House of Cards
    7.4/10(289 votes)

    #7 - House of Cards

    S16:E7

    The team investigates the killing of a single mother and the abduction of her child.

    Director:Michael Pressman
    Writer:Unknown

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  8. Law & Order Season 16 Episode 8 - New York Minute
    7.7/10(276 votes)

    #8 - New York Minute

    S16:E8

    Detectives discover that the owner of a trucking company has been smuggling illegal aliens and suspect that a citizens border-patrol member has killed him.

    Director:Don Scardino
    Writer:Nicholas Wootton

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  9. Law & Order Season 16 Episode 9 - Criminal Law
    8.4/10(363 votes)

    #9 - Criminal Law

    S16:E9

    The deaths of three women with the same name lead Fontana and Green to the nine-year-old conviction of Leland Barnes, who had shot and killed his wife in an office full of people. With two of the three witnesses against him dead and Jack McCoy on the hit list, the detectives struggle to determine how Barnes, who has been in prison the entire time, got someone on the outside to kill the only people who could keep him in jail. The investigation leads them to Leland's two sons, with surprising results.

    Director:Edwin Sherin
    Writer:David Wilcox

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  10. Law & Order Season 16 Episode 10 - Acid
    8.3/10(352 votes)

    #10 - Acid

    S16:E10

    After the daughter of one of Van Buren's college friends is found dead in her room, a suicide, Van Buren joins Green and Fontana in hunting down the man who burned her face with acid months earlier, ultimately leading to her suicide. Van Buren is unsucces

    Director:Michael Pressman
    Writer:Unknown

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  11. Law & Order Season 16 Episode 11 - Bible Story
    7.3/10(304 votes)

    #11 - Bible Story

    S16:E11

    The case of a man who defiled a copy of the Torah turns into a religious battle for McCoy.

    Director:Rick Wallace
    Writer:Unknown

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  12. Law & Order Season 16 Episode 12 - Family Friend
    7.4/10(294 votes)

    #12 - Family Friend

    S16:E12

    After Philip and Valerie Messick are attacked in their home, Green and Fontana follow the trail to a small-time thug named Jay Fleckner. After Valerie's testimony unintentionally helps free Fleckner, he is found dead, and detectives soon realise that Bob Cerullo, a family friend of Valerie and her late husband, was the triggerman. Unfortunately, when McCoy attempts to prosecute Cerullo, a retired cop, he threatens to claim that he deliberately planted evidence in his past cases in an attempt to get McCoy to drop all the charges.

    Director:Jean de Segonzac
    Writer:Unknown

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  13. Law & Order Season 16 Episode 13 - Heart of Darkness
    7.5/10(308 votes)

    #13 - Heart of Darkness

    S16:E13

    A journalist's suicide becomes suspect after Green and Fontana find evidence at the scene suggesting that it wasn't a suicide after all.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Carter Harris

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  14. Law & Order Season 16 Episode 14 - Magnet
    7.6/10(301 votes)

    #14 - Magnet

    S16:E14

    Fontana and Green arrest a fellow student after a young man is murdered, but McCoy faces a tough adversary when he tries to prosecute the crime.

    Director:Adam Bernstein
    Writer:David Black

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  15. Law & Order Season 16 Episode 15 - Choice of Evils
    7.6/10(296 votes)

    #15 - Choice of Evils

    S16:E15

    After the body of a teenage boy is found dead in a warehouse, detectives use DNA to connect the boy to a convicted rapist and serial killer, then to the boy's mother, Allison Ashburn, the convict's ex-wife. While trying to solve Danny's murder, Fontana and Green learn that he recently got his girlfriend Tina pregnant, and his mother had seen him recently when she had given him money despite having claimed she hadn't seen him for months. Allison finally admits that she murdered her son after the police arrest her new husband John, but claims she did it to save the world from her son, whom she was convinced would become a monster just like her father. Borgia and McCoy face an uphill battle trying to convict the perfect soccer mom.

    Director:Michael Pressman
    Writer:David Wilcox

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  16. Law & Order Season 16 Episode 16 - Cost of Capital
    8.1/10(321 votes)

    #16 - Cost of Capital

    S16:E16

    The case against a high powered executive accused of killing her lover rests on the executive's estranged husband and unstable teenage daughter.

    Director:Michael W. Watkins
    Writer:Unknown

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  17. Law & Order Season 16 Episode 17 - America, Inc.
    7.5/10(303 votes)

    #17 - America, Inc.

    S16:E17

    After Jeffrey Pope, a private military contractor, is found dead, suspicion eventually leads Green and Fontana to Robbie Howell, the younger brother of a man who died because of Pope's incompetance, and Kevin Boatman, Nick Howell's former co-worker who had witnessed the tragic events in Iraq.

    Director:Jean de Segonzac
    Writer:Unknown

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  18. Law & Order Season 16 Episode 18 - Thinking Makes It So
    8.0/10(323 votes)

    #18 - Thinking Makes It So

    S16:E18

    Fontana and Green investigate when a bank manager is involved in the robbing of his own bank and learn that his daughter is being held hostage and that he had to go along with the robbery or risk losing his daughter.

    Director:Tony Goldwyn
    Writer:Unknown

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  19. Law & Order Season 16 Episode 19 - Positive
    7.2/10(295 votes)

    #19 - Positive

    S16:E19

    When a teenage boy commits suicide after firing on a doctor and hitting an innocent party, Fontana and Green investigate why he was after the doctor to begin with.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  20. Law & Order Season 16 Episode 20 - Kingmaker
    7.6/10(305 votes)

    #20 - Kingmaker

    S16:E20

    After undercover cop Dana Baker is murdered, Fontana and Green learn that the man who killed her had discovered her identity after seeing a photograph of her.

    Director:Don Scardino
    Writer:David Slack

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  21. Law & Order Season 16 Episode 21 - Hindsight
    7.9/10(344 votes)

    #21 - Hindsight

    S16:E21

    Fontana and Green are called in to investigate when Green's former replacement, Nick Falco, is suspected of murdering a young woman he had spent the night with.

    Director:Jean de Segonzac
    Writer:Chris Levinson

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  22. Law & Order Season 16 Episode 22 - Invaders
    8.8/10(523 votes)

    #22 - Invaders

    S16:E22

    The family of a man who once turned his customers into the police is slain, and the ensuing fracas pits McCoy against a corrupt D.E.A. agent.

    Director:Matthew Penn
    Writer:Unknown

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Season 16 Ratings Summary

"Red Ball" is the best rated episode of "Law & Order" season 16. It scored 8.3/10 based on 373 votes. Directed by Matthew Penn and written by Dick Wolf, David Wilcox, it aired on 9/21/2005. This episode is rated 0.2 points higher than the second-best, "Flaw (II)".