Users (Season 11, Episode 7)
Premise: The murder of a 16-year-old in a cheap hotel exposes the therapist who controls her treatment program, and Huang breaks the law to get the case’s key witness off heroin.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 11, Episode 7
- 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), ADA Alexandra Cabot (Stephanie March), Dr. George Huang (BD Wong), ME Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie), TARU Ruben Morales (Joel de la Fuente)
- Guest stars
- James Frain as Martin Gold, Ryan Kelley as Enzo Cooke, Justine Ezarik as A.J. Dunne, James Colby as Greg Dunne, Joseph Adams as Ramsey Vickers
- Director
- David Platt
- Writers
- Michael Angeli
Summary
“Users” begins with 16-year-old A.J. Dunne found raped and strangled in a cheap Bowery hotel room, with someone else’s blood in her mouth from a bite. A picture of the scene spreads online, and Morales shows it was taken before police arrived. The desk clerk, Richard Biggs, a heroin user, admits he stole her phone and sold photos but denies killing her. Her friend Heather, texting the phone, says A.J. was meeting an older man and had accused her father of molesting her. Greg Dunne, found with blood on his shirt, is arrested, but he was in jail for brawling with A.J.’s therapist, Martin Gold, when she died. Gold runs A Sheltered Place, or ASP, a program for troubled teens, and Greg says Gold convinced A.J. she had repressed memories of abuse. Someone also left a photo of Gold groping A.J. on Greg’s windshield.
Gold’s security video clears him of the murder, and the photo proves to be doctored, but its time stamp places A.J. at ASP at 2:49 a.m., though the center is not licensed for residents; her parents admit Gold had her living there. Cragen passes on a request for discretion from Deputy Mayor Paul Fordyce, whose daughter is in Gold’s care. Warner finds hepatitis C drugs in the attacker’s blood. Two men are picked up: Enzo Cooke, a 16-year-old ASP resident on heroin who sneaked into the morgue and mumbles that he killed her, and laid-off accountant Ramsey Vickers, caught after using A.J.’s credit cards and then hospitalized with an infected bite. Vickers confesses he answered A.J.’s online ad seeking a stern father figure and choked her during sex.
Enzo, A.J.’s former boyfriend, admits faking the photo and says he saw Gold have sex with her. Huang explains that Gold posed as a surrogate father in so-called sex therapy and likely pushed her to find such men. The detectives arrest Gold at a family night in front of Fordyce, who denounces them to the press, but Cabot cannot prove statutory rape without A.J., and her only witness, Enzo, is in withdrawal. Gold, Enzo’s legal guardian, reclaims him. Over Benson’s objection, Huang takes Enzo to Dr. Alberto, who treats him with ibogaine, a drug illegal in the United States.
Spoiler, the ending: Free of his cravings, Enzo returns to ASP pretending he wants back in, and when Gold gives him drugs, the detectives arrest Gold for narcotics distribution and as an accessory to murder. Enzo tells Gold he is clean and will testify. Threatened with a complaint over the ibogaine, Huang says he has already reported himself and accepted a 30-day suspension of his license.
Why it stands out
- Internet personality Justine Ezarik (iJustine) plays A.J. Dunne; she later blogged about her death scene and posted videos about filming the episode.
- James Frain plays Martin Gold, and Ryan Kelley plays Enzo Cooke.
- Huang, an FBI agent as well as a psychiatrist, deliberately breaks the law to treat a patient and ends the episode with his medical license suspended.