Steel-Eyed Death

"**Steel-Eyed Death**"
"Steel-Eyed Death"
Law & Order episode
Episode no.	Season 20; Episode 13
Directed by	Michael Pressman
Written by	Christopher Ambrose; Julie Martin; Richard Sweren
Production code	20013;
Original air date	March 1, 2010
Guest appearances
	Dr. Emil Skoda
Episode chronology
← Previous; "Blackmail"	Next →; " Boy on Fire"
	List of episodes

"Steel-Eyed Death" is the thirteenth episode of the

twentieth season of NBC's long-running legal drama Law & Order

.

Plot

A family of four is found murdered in their home. One of the killers is a boy experiencing symptoms of a type of post-traumatic stress disorder.

In this episode,

Detective Lupo

admits he had PTSD and a drinking problem after seeing a horrible crime scene on a past Christmas.

Production

"Steel-Eyed Death" was directed by Michael Pressman and written by Christopher Ambrose, Julie Martin, and Richard Sweren.

Cultural references

Music by Australian horrorcore rap artist KidCrusher is featured in the episode, including the songs "Killin' Shit" and "A Dirty Fuckin' Murder". The artist said he was told the episode was based on a horrorcore festival when he allowed his music to be featured in "Steel-Eyed Death". Upon learning the episode depicted Juggalos, he later claimed to be angry that his music was used. He said, "I am pretty pissed off to hear they based the episode on Juggalos and try to make us all look like criminals and real serial killers, and that we would kill kids."^[1]

This episode is partially inspired by the

Presbyterian

pastor, his estranged wife, their teenage daughter (who had been dating McCroskey), and one of their daughter's friends.

Reception

"Steel-Eyed Death" drew criticism from Juggalos and fans of horrorcore hip hop music, who felt the episode unfairly equated the music genre and its fans with violent crime and murder.^[1]

In its original American broadcast on March 1, 2010, "Steel-Eyed Death" was watched by 7.58 million average households over the hour, and received 1.9/5 aged between 18 and 49, according to

Nielsen ratings. The episode had outperformed Life Unexpected on The CW, which drew only 1.88 million households. "Steel-Eyed Death" had 0.98 million viewers less than the episode of 24 that aired on Fox that night which drew 8.56 million viewers.^[2]

References

^ ^a ^b Haruch, Steve (March 2, 2010). "Is a Local Juggalo Community Tied to MURDER?". Nashville Scene. Retrieved March 4, 2010.
^ Seidman, Robert (March 2, 2010). "TV Ratings: Back to Fourth Place for NBC; Big Numbers for The Bachelor and The Big Bang Theory". TV by the Numbers. Retrieved March 7, 2010.

External links

"Steel-Eyed Death" at
IMDb

This article about an episode from a dramatic television series is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

[Haruch-1] Haruch, Steve (March 2, 2010). "Is a Local Juggalo Community Tied to MURDER?". Nashville Scene. Retrieved March 4, 2010.

[2] Seidman, Robert (March 2, 2010). "TV Ratings: Back to Fourth Place for NBC; Big Numbers for The Bachelor and The Big Bang Theory". TV by the Numbers. Retrieved March 7, 2010.

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