Mike Logan

Law & Order character
Det. Mike Logan
Time on show	1990–1995 (Law & Order) 1998 (Law & Order - Movie) 2005–2008 (Criminal Intent)
Succeeded by	Rey Curtis (Law & Order) Zach Nichols (Criminal Intent)
Partner	Max Greevey Phil Cerreta Lennie Briscoe Carolyn Barek Megan Wheeler Nola Falacci
First appearance	"Prescription for Death" (Law & Order) "Everybody's Favorite Bagman" (Actual first appearance (pilot episode)) "Stress Position" (Criminal Intent)
Last appearance	"Pride" (Law & Order) "Last Rites" (Criminal Intent)
Portrayed by	Chris Noth

Michael "Mike" Logan, played by Chris Noth, is a fictional character in the Law & Order franchise.

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, (CI: "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

Mike Logan was born in New York City into a working-class, Irish Catholic family, and attended a Catholic school.^[1]

Law & Order

He is originally portrayed as a cocky chauvinist with a short temper. As the show progressed, however, it supplied more of the character's backstory; subsequent episodes 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 breed in him a cynical view of the Church; he quips in the episode "Apocrypha" 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.

His anger explodes when his first partner, Max Greevey, is murdered by a suspect and he comes close to killing the perpetrator, relenting only at the last minute and nearly losing his job over it. Throughout the ordeal, he forms a strong bond with Elizabeth Olivet, the department's resident psychiatrist.^[5] In the 2008 episode "Betrayal", it is implied that Logan and Olivet had a brief affair.

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.

He has professed a serious dislike for upper-class professions, especially lawyers, accounting for his antagonistic relationship with Jack McCoy. He has diverse political views; he is adamantly pro-choice,^[8] supports gay rights, compares the Patriot Act to George Orwell's 1984^[9] and, while he has at various points held slight prejudices against people of Arabic and Japanese descent, by 2007 he 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), and 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 woulda been worth another ten 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 active duty 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 Olivet 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 Terry Driver, a corrupt ADA who had enhanced her own reputation at the expense of others. Driver, who is running for attorney general, goes 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, but the inflexibility and corruption of the justice system he sees in this case leaves him badly shaken. A priest who first put Logan on the case advises him to get out while he can, but Logan's decision is not revealed until the following season, when Ross mentions to Wheeler that her partner quit on her, referring to Logan. He is replaced by Zach Nichols.

Fictional Work History

Notes