Deadly Ambition (Season 14, Episode 15)
Premise: Rollins kills her pregnant sister’s abusive ex to stop an attack, then finds herself charged with murder as the sister’s motives come into question.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 14, Episode 15
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Nick Amaro (Danny Pino), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), Dr. Elizabeth Olivet (Carolyn McCormick)
- Guest stars
- Lindsay Pulsipher as Kim Rollins, Robert John Burke as IAB Lt. Ed Tucker, Theis Weckesser as Jeff Parker, Joe Grifasi as Defense Attorney Hashi Horowitz, Isiah Whitlock Jr. as Captain Reece
- Director
- Jim McKay
- Writers
- Story: Peter Blauner & Kevin Fox & John P. Roche; Teleplay: Warren Leight & Julie Martin
Summary
“Deadly Ambition” opens with the squad on a firearms training course, where Rollins posts a near-perfect score. That night her younger sister, Kim, turns up at her apartment from Georgia with a black eye and the news that she is pregnant by Jeff Parker, the abusive boyfriend she had said she had left. Jeff follows her to New York. Amaro and Fin give him an unofficial warning, he confronts the sisters in a baby store, and Rollins obtains a temporary order of protection, which Benson and Fin serve.
Kim spends an evening with Amaro and talks about the sisters’ hard childhood. Later, Rollins comes home to find Jeff on top of Kim, who screams that he has a gun, and Rollins shoots him dead. IAB Lt. Ed Tucker, noting it is her second shooting in a year, opens an inquiry, and a department psychologist finds her reaction normal. Rollins and Kim stay with Fin. Then Kim goes to Tucker behind her sister’s back: she says Jeff was not really assaulting her and tells him Rollins once pulled a gun on Jeff.
Confronted, Kim reveals she took out a life insurance policy on Jeff naming them both, which pays nothing if he died committing a felony. Rollins hands the policy to IAB herself, saying her name was forged, but Tucker presses her about her gambling and unpaid debts. Kim becomes IAB’s cooperating witness, and Rollins is arrested for murder. Cragen covers her $250,000 bail, and her lawyer, Hashi Horowitz (called Heshy in the episode), warns her not to contact her sister. The squad suspects Kim lured Jeff to the apartment, knowing he was armed, to have him killed by a police officer.
Spoiler, the ending: Rollins confronts Kim anyway, and Kim, though she says Jeff was hurting her when Rollins walked in, accuses her sister of thinking she is better than the family; she also admits she may never have been pregnant. Amaro then meets Kim for dinner while secretly recording, and she admits urging Rollins to call the shooting an accident for the money and says she wanted Jeff gone. Tucker agrees to drop the charges and says he will ask the DA to charge Kim with murder, though Rollins says she does not want that. Rollins is left with a note in which Kim apologizes for helping herself to some of her things.
Why it stands out
- Carolyn McCormick makes a special appearance as Dr. Elizabeth Olivet, the psychologist she has played across the Law & Order franchise.
- Lindsay Pulsipher plays Rollins’s sister, Kim, and Robert John Burke returns as IAB Lt. Ed Tucker.