Double Strands (Season 13, Episode 4)
Premise: Rollins links a New York rape to a serial rapist she chased in the South, but the suspect’s DNA cannot tell him apart from someone he never knew existed.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 13, Episode 4
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Sgt. John Munch (Richard Belzer), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Nick Amaro (Danny Pino), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), ADA Casey Novak (Diane Neal)
- Guest stars
- T.R. Knight as Gabriel Thomas and Brian Smith, Roxanna Hope Radja as Janey Thomas, Gillian Alexy as Danielle Hynes, Francie Swift as Defense Attorney Sherri West, Connie Ray as the twins’ biological mother
- Director
- Fred Berner
- Writers
- John P. Roche
Summary
“Double Strands” begins when dancer Danielle Hynes, just cast in a Broadway show, is followed and raped by a gloved attacker who orders her to look at his face, tells her to smile, calls her mommy and demands that she say she loves him. Her description of a yin-yang tattoo on his neck and his getaway by bicycle convince Rollins that he is the serial rapist she hunted in Atlanta, known as the Atlantic Coast Rapist: 15 rapes over nine years in Georgia, Virginia and Maryland, then three years of silence. Benson thinks she is reaching, but the sketch goes public, and Lana Mills comes forward about an unreported rape in Morningside Park. A tip names Gabriel Thomas, a pharmaceutical rep and father who moved from Geneva in June.
Both women pick Gabriel in a lineup. His lawyer, Sherri West, is new to defense work, and Gabriel talks freely and hands over his work history, which places him in each area during the attacks and in Switzerland during the gap. His DNA matches the first four rape kits and Danielle’s; he insists the labs are wrong. After he is remanded at arraignment, he is found bleeding heavily in a holding cell and asks Amaro to tell his six-year-old son, Luke, that he never raped anyone. His wife, Janey, then mentions that Gabriel never left her side when she miscarried on Halloween weekend 2003, the date of one Maryland rape. Amaro tips off West to the date, and sworn statements from a doctor and Janey’s mother place Gabriel 100 miles away at Johns Hopkins. That victim had described a chipped tooth and an abdominal scar, which Gabriel does not have.
Gabriel reveals he was adopted, and his birth mother says she gave up twin boys. The other, Brian, later sought her out and, as a teenager, testified after his adoptive mother killed his adoptive father. Brian Smith, a parks department worker since July with the same tattoo, has followed Gabriel from city to city. Because identical twins share DNA, Novak calls the case reasonable doubt. To draw Brian out, Gabriel is released on bail but kept out of sight, and Rollins serves as bait in a park.
Spoiler, the ending: Brian attacks Rollins in a tunnel after she slips out of her backup’s view, and Amaro subdues him, possibly with excessive force. Brian will talk only to the blonde detective. Rollins flatters him, then confronts him with the scar, the chipped tooth and a fingerprint left on a screwdriver in 2003, since twins do not share prints, and draws out his story. Gabriel goes free and learns he has a twin, who always knew about him.
Why it stands out
- T.R. Knight plays both identical twins, Gabriel Thomas and Brian Smith.
- Peter McRobbie appears as Judge Walter Bradley, a role he first played in Season 5.