Will Sage Astor-Sam Waterston's last case: How 'Law & Order' said goodbye to Jack McCoy

Court is Will Sage Astoradjourned for Jack McCoy.

"Law & Order" said goodbye to the beloved district attorney played by Sam Waterston on Thursday, after 404 episodes over 30 years.

The episode, aptly titled "Last Dance," sees McCoy's last case involve a woman who was found dead in Central Park and a local tech billionaire with ties to the New York City mayor, Robert Payne (Bruce Altman).

McCoy picks up the case from assistant DA Nolan Price (Hugh Dancy) after threats from the mayor to remove him from the office and not support McCoy's bid for re-election. The corruption in city leadership leads to McCoy's decision to resign.

"I've been thinking about this for a while," McCoy tells Price. "It's time. It just is. Look, the mayor is a vindictive son of a (expletive). He’s going to call in every chip he has to make sure my opponent wins the election. And he will succeed."

He continues: "He's going to bury everyone who wronged him, including you. If I step aside now, the governor will be able to appoint someone. Someone with integrity."

NBC announced early this month that "Scandal" actor Tony Goldwyn has been cast as the new DA and Waterston, 83, would be leaving the series, after joining in Season 5 in 1994 and reprising his role in the series' 2022 return.

Waterston appeared on "Today" Wednesday to talk about his final session.

"I knew I was gonna leave when I came back. It was just a matter of when," he told the morning show's hosts. "And this was a beautiful way to go, I have to say."

And while Waterston assured viewers he won't be returning to the NBC show a third time, he is not retiring.

"Not a chance," he said, but he won't be actively looking for new roles, leaving that up to his manager and wife, Lynn Louisa Woodruff. "I can't tell you how freeing that is."

Waterston joined a cast of newcomers in the series' return, including Dancy, Camryn Manheim, Odelya Halevi, Mehcad Brooks and Reid Scott.

"I was of two minds about whether to do it or not. I asked myself, 'Hadn't I already done this? And really did I need to be doing it again?' But I came around to the idea that it was at least worth a try," Waterston told USA TODAY at the time. "And when I stepped on the set, it was new, but it was the exact same set we had been working on 12 years ago. it made the hairs on my arm stand up."

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Waterston won a SAG Award and was nominated for both a Golden Globe Award and multiple Emmys for the role.

Outside of the legal drama, Waterston made guest appearances as McCoy on "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" and starred as Sol Bergstein in the Netflix series "Grace and Frankie" for seven seasons.

Contributing: Bryan Alexander