Megan Wheeler | |
---|---|
Law & Order character | |
First appearance | "Tru Love" |
Last appearance | "Major Case" |
Portrayed by | Julianne Nicholson |
Time on show | 2006–2009 |
Seasons | 6, 7, 8 |
Credited appearances | 24 episodes |
Preceded by | Carolyn Barek |
Succeeded by |
Nola Falacci (Season 7 temporary replacement while in Europe) Alexandra Eames (in the last 2 episodes of season 8) Serena Stevens (Season 9) |
Information | |
Family | Margo Jane Wheeler (Daughter) Colin John Ledger (Ex-fiancé) |
Megan Ann Wheeler is a fictional character portrayed by Julianne Nicholson on the NBC-USA Networkseries Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
Megan Wheeler becomes a detective in the Major Case Squad when she replaces Carolyn Barek (Annabella Sciorra) as Mike Logan's (Chris Noth) partner. She transfers in with the new captain, her mentor Danny Ross. She had worked undercover for three years—including assignments on vice, drugs, and white-collar crime—and handled a money laundering probe with Ross.
During an investigation, Wheeler recalls how her mother had to become a waitress to support both of them when Wheeler's father abandoned them. It is later revealed that Wheeler's father, a lawyer connected to the Mafia, disappeared 20 years before and is either in hiding or dead—killed by the mob. Her father had allegedly been getting a cut of mob profits, which helped pay Wheeler's private school tuition; but the arrangement ended after a change of mob bosses.
When Wheeler first joins the Major Case Squad, Logan questions whether someone as young as her would be capable of handling major homicide cases, and he remarks that she is his first partner to have freckles. Ross replies that, in her three years undercover, "no one ever made her." However, the age difference proves useful when Wheeler is familiar with the shorthand used by adolescents in text messaging one another. However, she is shown in the same episode to be unable to hear the ultrasonic ring tone used by a teenage suspect to sneak a cell phone into school, a frequency that it was claimed few people over age 30 can detect. She gets engaged to a businessman named Colin Ledger (played by Nicholson's husband, Jonathan Cake). Eventually, however, Ledger is arrested by the FBI for fraud, money laundering, and racketeering.