What Happened to Michael Imperioli's Detective Nick Falco on Law & Order?

Falco's first appearance was in Season 15, Episode 21 ("Publish and Perish") as the temporary partner to then-Detective Joe Fontana (Dennis Farina) after Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin) was shot in the line of duty in the previous episode.

Falco was transferred over from Brooklyn North to assist while Green was recovering. 

"I figure a few weeks, Manhattan South Homicide, like a paid vacation," he joked to Fontana after the two met.

Fontana later revealed that Falco was going to law school at night.

In Episode 23 ("In God We Trust"), viewers learned Falco had two children, including a daughter. He told a suspect in Episode 24 ("Locomotive") that his son was 3 and his daughter was 6.

Falco and Fontana were partnered up in Season 15, Episode 21 while Fontana's regular partner, Ed Green, was recovering from a gunshot wound sustained in the line of duty the previous episode.

Though the pairing could have been awkward, Falco made a point of inquiring after Green when the two first met, putting Fontana at ease. Later in the episode, when Fontana expressed that it felt strange to see someone else working at Green's desk, Falco offered to relocate — something else Fontana appeared to appreciate, though he said it was unnecessary.

By Episode 22 ("Sport of Kings"), the two were pretty comfortable with one another: They responded to the scene of a man's murder and Fontana was ripping on Falco's fashion sense.

"Barney's is good," said Fontana. "Bergdorf's!"

"Ninety-nine bucks. Century 21," Falco responded, pointing to his own suit and referencing the New York City-based luxury discount retailer (which closed in 2020 after filing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy but reopened its flagship lower Manhattan location in 2023). "With a vest."

Their sartorial differences came up again at a crime scene in Episode 23, when Fontana asked Falco to reach inside a soot-covered air shaft. 

"Is something wrong with your hand?" Falco asked.

"Luciano Barbera," Fontana replied, gesturing at his camel-colored clothes. "Please."

"You're high maintenance​," Falco noted, reaching into the vent.

Falco's last episode as a detective in Manhattan South Homicide was Season 15, Episode 24 ("Locomotive"). Green returned to the squad and his partnership with Fontana in Season 16, Episode 1 ("Red Ball").

Imperioli's character returns for one final episode in Season 16.

In Season 16, Episode 21 ("Hindsight"), Falco is seen waking up late and apparently hungover in bed after getting a call from work. Though he was wearing his wedding ring, he found pink lingerie and women's shoes on the bedroom floor and heard the shower going in the bathroom.

"Excuse me," he said, knocking on the door. "Forgive me for forgetting your name, but..."

That's when he noticed blood all over his right hand and opened the bathroom door. Inside was a clearly dead woman in a man's white shirt, covered in blood — and a serrated kitchen knife was in the bathroom sink.

When Fontana and Green arrived at the scene, he was yelling and nearly hysterical, but thought the woman's name was Sonya.

"What happened to you?" Fontana eventually asked him. "Where's your family?"

"Boca," Falco replied. "My wife, she took the kids, moved back in with her parents. I hit a run of bad luck, man."

"Been drinking that much that you black out?" Fontana asked.

"Been drinking a little but Joe — Joe — I didn't do that," he said.

Green looked rather skeptical.

Falco later tried to insist to Lieutenant Anita Van Buren (S. Epatha Merkerson) that he be allowed to investigate the woman's murder, but she refused, noting he was a murder suspect on modified assignment with no gun and no shield. (He did not listen.)

He explained that he met the woman at a bar and brought her back to his place around midnight, where he cracked a bottle of wine and she flipped through his CDs. He remembered nothing after that.

It turned out Sonya's last name was Vasquez and she was a community college student with a history of going home with married men who passed out and woke up robbed. There were "knockout drugs" in Falco's system and the bartender where they'd met said Sonya appeared to have been waiting for someone — and didn't respond to overtures from any man except Falco.

Unfortunately, Falco had also spoken to the bartender and to Sonya's community college lab partner, who detectives learned was part of the crew with which she'd been committing the robberies. The lab partner was subsequently shot and killed, and Falco's business card was in his pocket. Falco was also the person to find the evidence tying another woman to the murder scene in his own apartment. His actions led to the acquittal of Sonya's killer, who was the girlfriend of another member of Sonya's robbery crew.

To make up for the errors that caused the prosecutor's office to lose the case, he participated in a successful sting targeting the leader of the crew, who confessed to setting up Sonja's murder and killing her lab partner.

Falco hasn't appeared in an episode since.

While Imperioli's time as a Law & Order cast member was short, Falco's storyline came to a dramatic conclusion in Season 16. And the brief stint might've been the plan all along, as Imperioli was still a main cast member on The Sopranos at the time. The Los Angeles Times reported in 2004 that the Emmy-winning actor was hired to "temporarily" appear in the final episodes of Season 15; his guest appearance in Season 16 was a surprise for fans.