Ricardo Morales (Law & Order: LA)
Encyclopedia
Det. Ricardo "Rick" Morales is a fictional character
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
featured in the NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
legal drama
Legal drama
A legal drama is a work of dramatic fiction about crime and civil litigation. Subtypes of legal dramas include courtroom dramas and legal thrillers, and come in all forms, including novels, television shows, and films. Legal drama sometimes overlap with crime drama, most notably in the case of Law...
series Law & Order: LA, portrayed by Alfred Molina
Alfred Molina
Alfred Molina is a British-born American actor. He first came to public attention in the UK for his supporting role in the 1987 film Prick Up Your Ears...
.
Fictional character biography
Ricardo Morales in an offspring of a political family, Morales was a "battlefield general" in the courtroom yet "coarsely sardonic and self-deprecating" in real-life. Morales has a deep abiding sense of justice. He got his work ethic from his father, a man who took great pride in his work. Like most Los Angeles DAs, he had an eye for politics and he's very media savvy. Morales had reach the end of his rope with all the politics in the district attorney's office, so he goes back to his roots as a detective, where he feels he can make more of a difference in apprehending criminals.Early life
Morales grew up in Boyle Heights. To raise extra money for college Morales drove a town carTown car
A town car is a historical automobile body style in which the front seats were open and the rear compartment closed, normally with a removable top to cover the front chauffeur's compartment...
around the city, often being shocked at things he saw in his rearview mirror.
Early police life
In the 1980s, Morales started out as a patrolman with the Los Angeles Police DepartmentLos Angeles Police Department
The Los Angeles Police Department is the police department of the city of Los Angeles, California. With just under 10,000 officers and more than 3,000 civilian staff, covering an area of with a population of more than 4.1 million people, it is the third largest local law enforcement agency in...
until he wound up shooting an armed suspect, which might have played in him becoming a homicide detective. He lost at least two partners; one to cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
, the other fell in the line of duty.
He later quit the police department figuring "he might make a real difference" as a prosecutor.
As a prosecutor
Morales is a sardonic pragmatist who thinks moral rectitude is lovely but ineffective in a street fight. Though he knows how to manipulate both his public image and behind-the-scenes politics, he's still a killer in the courtroom who lives to see justice served.He's the kind of guy who suavely makes sure every camera is rolling before delivering a properly dignified and sobering statement. He's not a grandstander, but a man with political ambition who understands that in L.A., people like their public officials to walk and talk like stars.
It's seen that Morales has gone head-to-head with most judges and criminal defense attorneys, and at some point on a personal level.
In "Zuma Canyon
Zuma Canyon
"Zuma Canyon" is the ninth episode of the revamped and renamed Law & Order spinoff, Law & Order: LA. The episode originally aired on April 11, 2011 on NBC...
", Morales gets personally involved when an eleven year old Mexican child named Fernando (Quinton Lopez) is found guarding a marijuana crop with a loaded gun, after being kidnapped from his family in Mexico by a drug lord named Caesar Vargas (Jose Pablo Cantillo
Jose Pablo Cantillo
Jose Pablo Cantillo is an American actor of Costa Rican descent.Jose Pablo Cantillo grew up in Terre Haute, Indiana, and attended Terre Haute South Vigo High School where he was a tennis standout for all 4 years, leading the Terre Haute South Braves to a State Runner-Up finish in 1996...
) who was responsible for slaughtering members of a Mexican family at a quinceañera
Quinceañera
Quinceañera , sometimes called "Fiesta de quince años", "Fiesta de Quinceañera", "Quince años" or simply "quince", is the celebration of a girl's fifteenth birthday in parts of Latin America and elsewhere in communities of immigrants from Latin America...
and then later killing Detective Rex Winters (Skeet Ulrich
Skeet Ulrich
Bryan Ray Trout , best known as Skeet Ulrich, is an American actor best known for starring in the CBS drama Jericho as Jake Green and for portraying Billy Loomis in Scream...
) at his home. Fernando offered to testify in court against Vargas if his family could be brought to America, but when that time came he was murdered by a woman posing as court briefer - who was likely hired by Vargas.
Morales quits being a deputy district attorney and returns to the LAPD as a detective, after being frustrated with the justice system and the prosecutorial politics involved in trying to convict Vargas, who in turn got away with kidnapping charges along with multiple counts of murder and manslaughter charges.
Return as a detective
Morales coming back - grateful Lt. Gonzales pulled the strings to get him into Robbery-Homicide - on the job almost set a guilty rapist free with a coerced confession; although DDA Dekker managed to get the perpetrator to plead out to two counts of murder with no parole when it's discovered he was sending one of the victims - Don Alvin (Tim DeKayTim DeKay
Timothy Robert DeKay is an American character actor. His first on screen acting job was as corporate giant Larry Deon on seaQuest 2032. He was a cast member of the series Party of Five from 1997–1999, Carnivàle from 2003–2005 and Tell Me You Love Me in 2007...
), a man he bound and gagged in his bathroom - messages from his cell. With that victory Morales asked Alvin out for a drink in which Alvin told him to go home to his family, leaving Morales pondering.
In "East Pasadena"; skeletons are brought out of the closet when Morales shoots an armed suspect, which brings out he was involved in an officer involved shooting before in his police career as a detective, which might have played in him becoming a detective. He was evaluated by the police shrink, who told him he could return to duty.
Tensions rise between Morales and Dekker in "Benedict Canyon" when it's discovered in open court that Morales and one of his old partners, Terry Briggs (Jeff Fahey
Jeff Fahey
Jeffrey David "Jeff" Fahey is an American film and television actor. He has portrayed Captain Frank Lapidus on the ABC series Lost and the title role of Deputy Marshal Winston MacBride on The Marshal.-Early life:...
) met in a bar and had drinks for over four hours, running a high tab - Briggs killing a successful Hollywood stylist, hired by the stylist's sister; which later Morales figured out. Briggs was murdered in prison, awaiting the resume of the trial. Later over drinks, Dekker and Morales are back on solid ground; after Morales jokingly accepts an apology from Dekker.
Partnership with T.J. Jaruszalski
Morales is portrayed as "coarsely sardonic and self-deprecating" while being very wise and politically and media savvy while his partner T.J. Jaruszalski, is portrayed as practical and being a Hollywood native, knows the ins and outs. There is often a bit of tension between Morales and Jaruszalski, but it later resolves.After being involved in an officer involved shooting, the defense later wanting what was said in Morales's psych evaluation admitted into open court. In the session he talked about Winters's murder and the effect it had on his partner, Jaruszalski - Morales leaving him with the permission to admit his psych evaluation in court, which Jaruszalski does. At the end of the episode, Jaruszalski asks him what would have happened if he had told Morales not to admit his evaluation into open court; Morales says he didn't consider that Jaruszalski would object to it.
Family
Morales's parents are LatinoLatino
The demonyms Latino and Latina , are defined in English language dictionaries as:* "a person of Latin-American descent."* "A Latin American."* "A person of Hispanic, especially Latin-American, descent, often one living in the United States."...
immigrants, his father was a groundskeeper at the Hillcrest Country Club. He mentions having brothers, where on vacations his father would load them up in a van and take them to the beach.
Morales mentions to Fernado, a boy set to testify against a murderous Mexican drug dealer, that he had a daughter named Karina; who doesn't live with him.
Reception
Joel Rubin of the L.A. Times said, "Molina as a detective is compelling."Hillary Busis of Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
had to say, "At the very least, Molina’s switch from the courtroom to the precinct — however implausible it might be — seems like a good move for the show. While Morales isn’t as fun as, say, Lenny Briscoe, he does have more gravitas and presence than Winters did. It will also be interesting to watch his principles get tested in the field, and to see how his lawyer brain affects his policing."