Law & Order

Ed Green: Looks like her acting career was doing all right. Nina Cassady: Yeah, so was Marilyn Monroe's. When the legendary actress Marilyn Monroe died in 1962 from a drug overdose, it was ruled a probable suicide but some people speculated that it was accidental. Some conspiracy theorists have suggested that she was murdered. Erin's manner of death in this episode is similarly ambiguous at first.

The title of this episode, Melting Pot, refers to a term used to describe a place where residents come from a variety of different cultures, but all come together and lose their individuality while becoming part of the masses. It is often used to describe the United States.

Connie Rubirosa: Theo van Gogh was murdered by a fanatic because he made a blasphemous film. In 2004, Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh and Somali-born Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali made a film called Submission that accused Muslims of oppressing women. Ayaan was raised Muslim and she had undergone female circumcision as a child and later been forced into an arranged marriage, which led her to question the faith in Submission and in various writings. Theo was murdered by a Muslim extremist. Ayaan also received death threats and she left Holland as a result.

This episode appears to be ripped from the headlines of the Diego Pillco case. In November of 2006, Pillco got into an altercation with actress and director Adrienne Shelly and murdered her, staging her death to look like a suicide. Her final film, Waitress, premiered on January 21, 2007, at the Sundance Film Festival. Shelly appeared in the Law & Order episode, "High & Low".