Law & Order: Criminal Intent

Six months after a bank robbery, one of the thieves is killed in a deliberately set explosion. The death appears to be an accident, but the blast was intentional. Detectives Nichols and Wheeler later discover that another member of the gang had faked his own death.

Astoria Helen is a programme presented as an episode, classed within the episode genre. It delivers a concise, self‑contained story that unfolds over its runtime, keeping viewers hooked from the opening scene to the final reveal. The plot centres on a man who took part in a bank robbery. Six months after the heist, he meets a violent end when a deliberately set explosion kills him. The incident is shown as a calculated act, implying his death was part of a larger, pre‑meditated plan rather than a random accident. Detectives Nichols and Wheeler are drawn into the investigation and soon uncover a startling twist. They learn that one of the man's former partners didn’t actually die in the blast; he staged his own death to vanish. This discovery adds a layer of deception to an already tangled case. The episode uses the fake‑death revelation to link the original robbery, the subsequent explosion, and the ongoing police work. By showing how the surviving conspirator manipulated events, the story highlights the lengths the characters will go to avoid capture, leaving the audience with a clear sense of the intricate cat‑and‑mouse game at play.