The Departure of Jack McCoy from ‘Law & Order, Reason Behind it – ”It Was Just a Matter of Time”

“Law & Order” bid farewell to the iconic district attorney portrayed by Sam Waterston on Thursday, marking the end of an era after 404 episodes spanning 30 years.

The farewell episode, fittingly titled “Last Dance,” revolves around McCoy’s final case, which begins with the discovery of a woman’s body in Central Park and leads to a local tech billionaire with connections to New York City’s mayor, Robert Payne (Bruce Altman).

The case transitions to McCoy after Assistant DA Nolan Price (Hugh Dancy) faces pressure from the mayor, who threatens to oust him from his position and withhold support for McCoy’s re-election campaign. Confronted with the pervasive corruption within the city’s leadership, McCoy makes the weighty decision to resign.

“I’ve been thinking about this for a while,” McCoy tells Price. “It’s time. It just is. Look, the mayor is a vindictive son of a (expletive). He’s going to call in every chip he has to make sure my opponent wins the election. And he will succeed.”

He continues: “He’s going to bury everyone who wronged him, including you. If I step aside now, the governor will be able to appoint someone. Someone with integrity.” “I knew I was gonna leave when I came back. It was just a matter of when,” he told the morning show’s hosts. “And this was a beautiful way to go, I have to say.”

“Not a chance,” he said, but he won’t be actively looking for new roles, leaving that up to his manager and wife, Lynn Louisa Woodruff. “I can’t tell you how freeing that is.” Waterston joined a cast of newcomers in the series’ return, including Dancy, Camryn Manheim, Odelya Halevi, Mehcad Brooks and Reid Scott.

“I was of two minds about whether to do it or not. I asked myself, ‘Hadn’t I already done this? And really did I need to be doing it again?’ But I came around to the idea that it was at least worth a try,” Waterston told USA TODAY at the time. “And when I stepped on the set, it was new, but it was the exact same set we had been working on 12 years ago. it made the hairs on my arm stand up.”

“The Last Dance” is a notable episode for more than one reason. Apart from being Jack McCoy’s last appearance on “Law & Order,” it’s also the first time the character personally prosecutes a case in quite some time. This particular element of the swansong episode was especially appealing to Sam Waterston. “It seemed completely appropriate to me,” he said about McCoy’s big courtroom finale. “You asked me to tell you what our alternative plot was. I don’t even really remember. This wiped it out.”