Shadow (Season 11, Episode 12)
Premise: SVU teams with a Special Frauds detective to prove that a socialite who embezzled from a charity also murdered her wealthy parents.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 11, Episode 12
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), Dr. George Huang (BD Wong), Chief of Detectives Muldrew (John Schuck)
- Guest stars
- Sarah Paulson as Anne Gillette, Naveen Andrews as Det. Ash Ramsey, Dennis Boutsikaris as Nate Hartman, Edward Hibbert as Nigel Prestwick, Valerie Cruz as U.S. Attorney Camilla Velez
- Director
- Amy Redford
- Writers
- Amanda Green
Summary
“Shadow” opens when a chauffeur finds wealthy Bert and Elaine Gillette dead in bed, Elaine hacked with a hatchet and Bert shot. The scene looks like a murder-suicide, but the medical examiner finds no gunshot residue on Bert’s hand, and the police commissioner keeps the politically connected case with SVU. A cut window pane and an alarm left unset point to a killer who knew the couple’s routine. Their daughter, Anne, says a dark-haired man has been following her, and shop security footage confirms it. Using Anne as bait while she plans the funeral, Benson and Stabler draw the man out at a church, only to find he is Det. Ash Ramsey of Special Frauds.
Ramsey has tailed Anne for two weeks as part of an unofficial inquiry, approved by Chief of Detectives Muldrew, into $3.5 million taken from the Prestwick Foundation through fake charities after Anne’s trust fund ran out. She is also the sole heir to more than $200 million. Muldrew shuts the inquiry down once an anonymous donor repays the money, so the squad treats Anne as a victim. She points them to business manager Nate Hartman, her lover and accomplice, and the detectives are with him when she calls to coach him to say Ramsey stalked her parents. They arrest her at the funeral for witness tampering, angering Muldrew. In interrogation she toys with Ramsey, insisting they are both runaway rich children. The detectives use photos from a sadomasochistic club to push foundation head Nigel Prestwick into pressing embezzlement charges, and U.S. Attorney Camilla Velez takes a federal bank-fraud case.
Anne threatens Stabler’s family, and he sends them to stay in New Jersey. An informant at Rikers reports that she has put a $100,000 contract on Benson and Ramsey, and Cragen takes the squad off the case.
Spoiler, the ending: Benson and Ramsey carry on anyway. While Anne is being moved to federal custody, a staged ambush in Queens makes it look as if both detectives have been killed, and the hit man, who is working with the police, takes her to a motel. There she wires his fee from a Geneva bank and admits killing her parents, saying her mother was trying to have her cut out of the will and her father was collateral damage. Benson and Ramsey knock as room service, and Anne is arrested, screaming that she will kill them all.
Why it stands out
- Sarah Paulson plays Anne Gillette and Naveen Andrews plays Ramsey, the Special Frauds detective. Paulson said in an interview that it was hard to draw on real life when playing a possible sociopath.
- John Schuck appears as Chief of Detectives Muldrew, a recurring role on the series.