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If you've been counting the minutes until Chevy Chase returns to the limelight in this Friday's Law & Order episode by playing the not-entirely-fanciful role of a Hollywood actor whom, upon being stopped for drunk driving, delivers a virulently anti-Semitic diatribe to his arresting officers, we suggest you read no further: The LA Daily News' The Mayor of Television blog has seen the episode, and details the original SNL breakout star's virtual disappearance beneath the skin of a matzo-mistrusting conspiracy theorist:

Chevy Chase gives his funniest performance in about two decades as Mitch Carroll, a washed-up entertainer (big stretch there). Through a clenched jaw that apparently serves as character development, Chevy's Mitch spews such invective as "Are you a Jew? You're a Jew, right? I should've known they'd stick me in a room with a Jew cop! I'm not talking to any Jew!" and "They suck the money out or this town so they can send it to Israel to make bombs and matzo" and "Jews are always playing the victim when all the time, I'm the one who's been the victim."

The big twist is that here, when Mitch (begins with "M") is pulled over, there's blood spattered on his clothes, blood linked to a murdered Jewish TV executive whom he had insulted (and who had subsequently blackballed him in the entertainment industry - by this episode's reckoning, Jews pretty much do run Hollywood).

This being Law & Order, home of the shocking twist ending, we'd advise viewers not to presume the Jew-hater is guilty, no matter how many red or pickled herrings the show's cleverly manipulative writers throw your way. For while Law & Order may be having some fun with creative license, it's nevertheless a series made by showbiz insiders, who know darn well that a racist actor who might occasionally let a drunken, "Hollywood Hebe" epithet fly would almost certainly never go so far as to eliminate the one guy who could help get his next project ordered.

[Photo: TVGasm.com]