Mike Logan (Law & Order)

Det. Mike Logan
Law & Order character
First appearance	Season 1 (L&O): "Prescription for Death" Season 4 (CI): "Stress Position"
Last appearance	Season 5 (L&O): "Pride" Season 7 (CI): "Last Rites"
Portrayed by	Chris Noth
Time on show	1990–1995 (Law & Order) 1998 (Exiled - movie) 2005–2008 (Criminal Intent)
Succeeded by	Rey Curtis (Law & Order) Zack Nichols (Criminal Intent)
Partner	L&O Max Greevey Phil Cerreta Lennie Briscoe Exiled Tony Boyer Frankie Silvera L&O: CI Carolyn Barek Megan Wheeler Nola Falacci
Information
Nickname(s)	Mike Mikey (by Phil Cerreta, Don Cragen, and occasionally Lennie Briscoe)
Occupation	Police Officer
Title	NYPD Detective
Family	Unnamed mother Unnamed father

Michael "Mike" Logan is a fictional character in the police procedural and legal drama television series Law & Order franchise, played by Chris Noth.

History in the franchise

Logan initially appeared on Law & Order from the show's pilot episode. He appeared in every episode beginning with the first season in 1990 until Noth's dismissal from the series in 1995. After appearing in the franchise telemovie Exiled, the character then guest-starred in the Law & Order: Criminal Intent Season 4 episode "Stress Position". Logan subsequently became a regular on Criminal Intent, starting with the first episode of season five, "Grow," which originally aired on September 25, 2005. Logan then left the series in the 21st episode of season seven, "Last Rites," which originally aired on August 17, 2008.

Character development

Law & Order

Mike Logan was born in New York City into a working-class Irish-Catholic family and spent 10 years attending Our Lady of Mercy.^[1] He is originally portrayed as a cocky chauvinist with a short temper. Later episodes, however, reveal a darker, more complex side to the character; it is gradually revealed that he had been abused as a child, both physically (by his unstable, alcoholic mother^[2]) and sexually (by his parish priest, whom he later confronts and brings to justice).^[3] These early traumas lead to his rather cynical view of the church; he quips in one episode that "My mother beat me with one hand while she held a Rosary with the other. The next time I enter a church, it'll be in a pine box carried by six of my friends." When he was a young man, his pregnant girlfriend had an abortion against his wishes.^[4] As these traumas are revealed, his "short fuse" evolves into a deep-seated pathological anger.

In several episodes, his anger explodes; when his first partner, Max Greevey, is murdered by a suspect, Logan comes close to killing the perpetrator, relenting only at the last minute. The incident nearly costs Logan his job.^[5]

Logan's second partner, Phil Cerreta, is also shot in the line of duty,^[6] but he survives and takes on a desk job. ^[7] In the following episodes, his partner is Lennie Briscoe.

Logan has professed an intense dislike for upper-class professions, especially lawyers, accounting for his antagonistic relationship with ADA Jack McCoy. He has diverse political views; he is adamantly pro-choice,^[8] supports gay rights, compares the Patriot Act to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four,^[9], is presumed to be pro-death penalty and, while he has at various points held slight prejudices against people of Arabic and Japanese descent, by 2007 shows unbridled disdain towards any form of racism.

Appearances post-Law & Order & pre-Criminal Intent

When Noth was fired from the show in 1995 over a salary dispute, the Logan character was written out; in the Law & Order universe, Logan is transferred from Manhattan Homicide to the Staten Island Domestic Disputes squad in 1995^[10] for publicly punching a homophobic politician who had been tried for the murder of a gay man (based on the Dan White case). He is replaced by Det. Rey Curtis.

The Logan character was revived in 1998 and given his own TV movie, Exiled: A Law & Order Movie. In the movie, Logan tries to get his old job back by solving the murder of a prostitute, in the process discovering that his old friend, Detective Tony Profaci, is involved in the crime. During the course of the film, he becomes a homicide detective again, but is kept on Staten Island, where he has little opportunity to pursue significant cases.

Criminal Intent

In 2005, the character was added to Law & Order: Criminal Intent. He was reintroduced in the fourth season episode "Stress Position," where he helps the Major Case Squad's investigation of a case of prisoner abuse involving corrupt corrections officers who torture Muslim prisoners.^[9] Detectives Robert Goren and Alexandra Eames question Logan's girlfriend, prison nurse Gina Lowe, about prison drug testing and her interactions with a murdered corrections officer. Later, the detectives deduce that Unit Counselor Kurt Plumm is planning to have Lowe killed; Goren and Logan attempt to escort her to safety but the prison goes into lockdown, trapping all three inside. Plumm and his partners corner Logan, Goren, and Lowe in a corridor, and Plumm implies that they intend to kill them. Goren convinces the other guards to defy Plumm, however, and one of the officers opens the gates to free the detectives and Lowe. Logan picks up one of the guards' discarded billy club and approaches Plumm menacingly, but he resists the urge to assault the man. "That guy," Logan later says to Goren, "he would have been worth another 10 years in Staten Island." Also in the episode, Captain James Deakins reveals that Logan's former superior officer, Lieutenant Anita Van Buren, had tried three times to get him transferred back to her command after his reassignment, all to no avail.

Deakins returns Logan to Manhattan as a detective under his command in the fifth season, when he is partnered with Det. Carolyn Barek.^[11] In a 2006 episode, he accidentally shoots an undercover police officer while investigating a homicide instigated by the officer's foster mother. He is cleared of official misconduct, but is troubled by having killed someone; he reaches out to police psychiatrist Elizabeth Olivet, who had helped him come to terms with Greevey's death, for counseling.^[12]

In the fifth-season episode "The Healer," it is revealed that Logan has a severe allergy to poison ivy, which manifests itself as a rash, fever, and stomach pains.

In the sixth season, the Major Case Squad is handed over to a new captain, Danny Ross, and Logan is assigned a new partner, Det. Megan Wheeler. In the seventh season, he works with Det. Nola Falacci, a temporary partner assigned to him while Wheeler is teaching American police procedures to officers in Europe.^[13]

In the episode "Last Rites", Logan goes head to head with Terri Driver, a corrupt ADA who had enhanced her own reputation by railroading defendants she had cause to believe were innocent. Driver, who is running for attorney general, threatens to go after Logan's job and builds a case against Wheeler's fiancé, who is arrested by the FBI for fraud and racketeering. Logan solves a 16-year-old homicide that Driver has been trying to bury, but the inflexibility and corruption of the justice system he sees in this case leaves him angry and disenchanted. A priest who first put Logan on the case advises him that, after over 25 years as a cop, it is time to do other things with his life. Logan nods his head and walks out of the room, but his decision is not revealed until the following season, when Ross mentions to Wheeler that her partner quit (retired) on her, referring to Logan. He is replaced by Zack Nichols. Ironically, Logan said to a fellow officer in one earlier [[Law & Order episode[[Confession that, "The next time I set foot in one of these places I will be being carried by six of my closest buddies." And in the L&O episode Bad Faith, he revealed that he had been sexually assaulted by a priest.

Weapons

Mike Logan carries a Smith & Wesson Model 36 .38 Special caliber revolver in the original Law & Order series. In Law & Order: Criminal Intent, he still carried the Model 36 in his early appearances, but he later switched to a Glock 19 9mm semiautomatic pistol.

Crossover appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street

In the pre-credit sequence of the 1995 Homicide: Life on the Street episode "Law & Disorder" (Season 3, Episode 15), Mike Logan hands off a prisoner (John Waters) to Baltimore Detective Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher), while they engage in friendly banter about which city, New York or Baltimore, is better.

Fictional work history

Squad	Borough	Division	Partner	Direct Superior
27th	Manhattan	Homicide	Sgt. Max Greevey	Capt. Donald Cragen
			Sgt. Phil Cerreta
			Det. Lennie Briscoe
				Lt. Anita Van Buren
128th	Staten Island	Domestic Dispute	Det. Tony Boyer	Lt. Stober
		Homicide	Det. Frankie Silvera
1PP	Manhattan	Major Case Squad	Det. Carolyn Barek	Capt. James Deakins
			Det. Megan Wheeler	Capt. Danny Ross
			Det. Nola Falacci

Notes

1. ^ Law & Order episode "Apocrypha"
2. ^ Law & Order episode "Indifference"
3. ^ Law & Order episode "Bad Faith"
4. ^ Law & Order episode "Breeder"
5. ^ Law & Order episode "Confession"
6. ^ Law & Order episode "Prince of Darkness"
7. ^ Law & Order episode "Point of View"
8. ^ Law & Order episode "Life Choice"
9. ^ ^{a b} Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "Stress Position"
10. ^ Law & Order episode "Pride"
11. ^ Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "Grow"
12. ^ Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "To the Bone"
13. ^ Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "Renewal"