Zebras (Season 10, Episode 22)
Premise: A paranoid killer walks free after a CSU technician’s paperwork error, and new murders seem to target everyone who crossed him, until SVU learns who is really behind them.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 10, Episode 22
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Sgt. John Munch (Richard Belzer), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), Dr. George Huang (BD Wong), CSU Ryan O’Halloran (Mike Doyle), Judge Elizabeth Donnelly (Judith Light), Defense Attorney Julia Zimmer (Kelly Bishop), CSU Tech Dale Stuckey (Noel Fisher)
- Guest stars
- Nick Stahl as Peter Harrison, Carol Kane as Gwen Munch, Ronald Guttman as Edgar Radzinsky, Tim Bohn as Jacob Nauss
- Director
- Peter Leto
- Writers
- Amanda Green & Daniel Truly
Summary
“Zebras” begins when a man and his daughter find tourist Rachel Nauss of Topeka slashed to death in Central Park, her clothes cut away and “Guilty” written on her forehead. Her baby son, Evan, is found alive nearby, marked “Innocent.” Photos from her camera, rescued by CSU technician Dale Stuckey, show a Parks Department work crew nearby, and the supervisor says crew member Peter Harrison left early with a bleeding thumb. Harrison, a paranoid man doing community service for menacing a woman on a subway platform, believes the police are watching him. Tricked into talking, he says he searched Rachel for a hidden wire because she photographed him. A knife and a shoe from his apartment carry her blood.
Defense attorney Julia Zimmer finds that Stuckey logged the crime scene evidence and the apartment evidence under one voucher number, opening the door to a contamination claim. Judge Elizabeth Donnelly warns Stabler that doubts about lab DNA could unravel hundreds of convictions, and in court ADA Kristen Torres, standing in for Cabot, does not oppose dismissal. Donnelly frees Harrison while calling him a murderer and berates Stuckey. Munch and Fin tail Harrison to Coney Island and lose him, and a young woman, Annie May Lawson, is found killed the same way, with Harrison’s bloody thumbprint on a soda can. On a conspiracy website, Munch recognizes a poster offering Harrison help as his ex-wife, Gwen, who reveals Harrison’s basement hideout. Munch and Fin barely survive a gas trap there, and Harrison escapes through the sewer.
Zimmer, who became Harrison’s trustee after his parents died when he was 17, steers the detectives to his former art professor, Edgar Radzinsky, who shows them Harrison’s new collages. When Stuckey says one face looks like Benson, Stabler grabs him, and Cragen throws Stuckey out of the squad. Harrison is captured raving at Zimmer’s office, but she dies moments later in her car, which has been rigged to fill with toxic gas, with “Guilty” written on the mirror. Gwen and Radzinsky are taken into protective custody, O’Halloran pulls a blood-filled mosquito from the car to identify the killer, and a note on the device, “One down, three to go,” points to one more target. Donnelly refuses to leave her home and is injected with potassium chloride there, but survives.
Spoiler, the ending: Benson goes to the lab and finds that Stuckey has killed O’Halloran and taken Stabler captive. Stuckey admits he killed the Coney Island victim, planted Harrison’s print, killed Zimmer and attacked Donnelly to repair his own mistake and punish those who mocked him. Held at gunpoint, Benson pretends to share his resentment of Stabler until she can turn on him, and both detectives survive.
Why it stands out
- The season finale is Mike Doyle’s last episode as CSU technician Ryan O’Halloran, who is killed after appearing in every season since the fifth.
- Carol Kane reprises Gwen Munch, John Munch’s ex-wife, whom she first played during the sixth season of Homicide: Life on the Street.
- Nick Stahl plays Peter Harrison, and Noel Fisher’s Dale Stuckey, introduced earlier in the season, is revealed as the killer.