The Long Blue Line

Description

During the team's investigation of the 2005 murder of the first female cadet, eighteen year old Kate Butler of a local military school, suspects abound as they discover how brutally she was treated from day one by an array of resentful cadets and school officials.

Synopsis

In this first part of a two-part season finale, the discovery of a body in a foot locker in an exhumed grave, opens the 2005 murder case of an 18-year-old woman, Kate Butler, who went missing from a local military academy.

Kate and another woman were the first two female cadets in the formerly all-male academy. Most of the cadets, the staff and alumni (including Kate’s father), were violently unhappy with the change, giving the detectives a plethora of suspects. The first woman left after a week, and though Kate stuck it out and seemed to excel at everything thrown at her, she was still reviled.

In the end, Rush has identified the main suspect as one of Kate’s classmates, however, when she drives out to question and arrest him, she’s side-swiped off a bridge and her car sinks into the river.

Cast

Main Cast

Guest Cast

Michael Ironside as Colonel Murillo
Jesse Plemons as Ryan Stewart
Daniel Baldwin as Major Moe Kitchener
Maddy Curley as Kate Butler
Gary Hudson as Jebediah Buford
Jonathan LaPaglia as ADA Curtis Bell
Jake McLaughlin as James Addison
Joe Penny as Hank Butler
Jessica Tuck as Charlotte Butler
Shay Astar as Courtney Gaines
Dennis Hill as Keith Henderson

And

Tania Raymonde as Frankie Rafferty

Co-Starring

Jason Thomas as Lawrence Gardner

Notes

First ever two-part episode in the series.

Music

All songs for this episode are performed by Pearl Jam:

Corduroy
Come Back
Who You Are
Why Go
Rearviewmirror
In Hiding
Indifference
Yellow Ledbetter

Previews

Matt Mitovich at TV Guide Online (05/08/2009): "Kathryn Morris Previews a Red-Hot Cold Case Finale: Lilly Is Fighting for Her Life"

Behind the Scenes

Kate Butler's harassment at a football game at the hands of an angry alumnus is based on fact. Nancy Mace, first female graduate of The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, recounted a nearly-identical series of instances that happened to her during her time as a cadet in her book In The Company of Men (2000). The hate mail Kate received prior to arrival and the hostility she was shown by some cadets also echoes Mace's experiences, and those of the first woman ever to attend The Citadel, Shannon Faulkner.
2005, the year Kate Butler arrived at Pennsylvania Military Institute, is very late for the first female cadet to be arriving at a prominent military college. Virginia Military Institute was the last, admitting women starting in 1997 after losing United States v. Virginia in 1996. VMI, by that time, was the last all-male public university in the United States.