Sam Waterston talks about his final 'Law & Order' episode and Jack McCoy's 'beautiful exit'

NEW YORK — "It's been a hell of a ride."

With those parting words, Jack McCoy stepped down from his job as Manhattan district attorney after decades of public service — and Sam Waterston bid farewell to his signature role on "Law & Order" after 19 seasons and 405 episodes spread over 30 years.

To put this run into perspective, Waterston made his debut appearance as McCoy in September 1994 in the Season 5 premiere of "Law & Order" — the same week that "ER" and "Friends" premiered on NBC. The Dick Wolf procedural — which famously told stories about "the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders" was already a well-established hit, but it had yet to become a ubiquitous, seemingly indestructible pop culture franchise.

Waterston, who joined the series after the contentious departure of actor Michael Moriarty, helped prove that the format was durable enough to withstand major cast shakeups. Yet he also became the closest thing "Law & Order" had to a central protagonist — the "ultimate conscience of the show," as Wolf has put it.

Well before male antiheroes took over TV, Waterston played McCoy as a no-nonsense attorney who was passionate about justice but also willing to bend the rules in order to obtain a conviction — a prickly character whose sharp edges were somehow softened by Waterston's