Please, Dick Wolf, Find a Way for Jesse L. Martin to Sing in His Final ‘Law & Order’

Close on the heels of the announcement that he’ll be playing Marvin Gaye in Sexual Healing, Jesse L. Martin is leaving Law & Order, the show in which he’s starred for nine seasons. For fans of Martin, the news is bittersweet; we’ll miss seeing him on our TVs every week, although luckily there’s no shortage of Law & Order reruns on the air if we really need a fix. But we’re glad that Martin is quitting in search of a movie career, especially one that — in his first major project, at least — will let him exercise those golden pipes.

Did Martin ever sing even a bar as Detective Ed Green? We don’t think so. Maybe Dick Wolf, as a little gift to fans, can have Green go out not in a hail of bullets but with one of those patented surprising glimpses of a L&O character’s private life? We like to imagine that for years and years, Ed has been auditioning for musicals on the side, and he leaves the NYPD for his big Broadway break. We can picture it now: A good-bye party at a downtown bar; Sam Waterston on the piano; and Martin, cocktail in hand, suddenly croons Boyz II Men’s “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday.� We’re shedding a tear even thinking about it.

Jesse L. Martin exiting ‘Law & Order’ [Variety]
Earlier: Jesse L. Martin and James Gandolfini Administer a Little ‘Sexual Healing’