Wet (Season 12, Episode 5)
Premise: A public relations executive for a soda company is poisoned with wild mushrooms, and a water-rights activist eagerly claims the blame.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 12, Episode 5
- 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)
- Guest stars
- Paula Patton as ADA Mikka Von, David Krumholtz as Dr. Vincent Prochik, Amanda Fuller as Emma Brooks, Rosemary Harris as Francine Brooks, Michael Boatman as Dave Seaver
- Director
- Jonathan Kaplan
- Writers
- Speed Weed
Summary
“Wet” opens when two late-night revelers find a naked woman drowned in a Central Park fountain, a lock of her hair cut off. With Cragen tending to the flooded precinct and the squad in temporary quarters, a park hair snipper known as Sassoon admits taking the hair but has an alibi. New ADA Mikka Von, from Chicago, brings a familial DNA hit: semen in the victim partly matches activist Monica Worley, pointing to her wealthy brother, Witt. He admits sex, says the stranger begged for it, and has video he posted on a sex site; an emergency vet places him elsewhere at the time of death.
Greg Elding identifies the woman as his wife, Lindsay, public relations chief for the soda maker Colanow and a recovering cocaine addict. Her critics include soda-tax supporters and Denny Gamm, who blames soda for her son’s suicide. Warner finds four South American mushroom species in Lindsay’s gut; their muscarine made her overheated and aroused before she drowned. Photos from a charity dinner hosted by philanthropist Francine Brooks show mushrooms on Lindsay’s salad and an intruder, mycologist and water-rights blogger Vincent Prochik. In his lab, fumes from boiling mushrooms make Benson collapse, while Prochik, used to them, rambles about water. Huang finds him odd but sane.
Prochik fires his lawyer, Dave Seaver, who wants an insanity defense, and pleads guilty. During the allocution Stabler notices he names three mushrooms when there were four, and, still affected by the fumes, starts hallucinating in court and is held in contempt. Von gives the detectives until morning; she has quietly sent Prochik’s new lawyer on vacation to buy time. Cragen returns with word that the DA has fired Von for the trick. Prochik admits he confessed to gain attention for his cause.
Spoiler, the ending: Prochik’s reaction to a photo exposes his girlfriend, Emma Brooks, Francine’s granddaughter. CSU finds the mushrooms in Emma’s apartment, and the detectives learn that Lindsay had persuaded Francine to sell her Catskills estate, with water rights headed for Colanow. Emma confesses that she killed Lindsay out of resentment over her grandmother’s affection, not water, then swallows mushrooms and has her stomach pumped. Francine disowns her and takes back a family heirloom to give Lindsay’s daughter. Prochik stays by Emma’s side.
Why it stands out
- Paula Patton makes her only appearance as ADA Mikka Von. She had been cast as the squad’s new prosecutor for multiple episodes but left to film Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, and Melissa Sagemiller’s ADA Gillian Hardwicke took over the post.
- David Krumholtz plays Vincent Prochik, and Rosemary Harris plays Francine Brooks.