Brief Interlude (Season 14, Episode 23)
Premise: A Canadian mother on her first trip alone is found beaten and raped in Central Park, and the search for her attacker uncovers the nightlife she kept from her family.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 14, Episode 23
- 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), ME Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie), CSU Tech Colin Bennett (Max Baker)
- Guest stars
- Richard Thomas as Nat Randolph, Kerry Butler as Ariel Randolph, Nick Mills as Phil Desapio, Russell Saylor as Charley Landry, Rhys Coiro as Santiago Morales
- Director
- Kevin Bray
- Writers
- Story: Pedro Garcia & John P. Roche; Story & teleplay: Peter Blauner & Kevin Fox
Summary
“Brief Interlude” begins when a jogger finds an unconscious, badly beaten woman in a rowboat that has drifted ashore behind Gracie Mansion. The jogger, who was there to buy Adderall from a teenager, saw two boys going through the woman’s pockets. Warner finds signs of rape, a blow from a thin-edged wooden object, alcohol and ecstasy in her blood, an old hernia repair done with steel stitches rarely used in the U.S., and evidence that she has had at least two children. Rollins, back on duty after her shoulder wound, poses as a tired new mother to help Fin arrest the boys, Jaspar Barron and Todd Harper. Todd admits taking change, a lipstick and a hotel key card.
The hotel room has been ransacked, but a Canadian passport names the victim as Ariel Randolph, 32, a music blogger and podcaster from Edmonton. When Benson calls the video chat number Ariel used twice a day, her young sons answer. Her husband, Nat, a television host, flies in with the boys, Wayne and Grant. Ariel’s calls lead to sound engineer Phil Desapio and to Charley Landry, who handles admissions at a public school where she asked about enrolling her sons. Nat points to a guitarist in her photos, Santiago Morales. In Santiago’s loft the detectives find Ariel’s iPad, and Landry arrives dressed as a woman. The cousins say Ariel partied with them at a club in Astoria and ran off when she realized Charley was a man. Charley’s DNA matches saliva on her neck, and Santiago took the iPad to protect him.
CSU’s Colin Bennett explains how the Hell Gate tides could carry a rowboat from Astoria to the Upper East Side. Street cameras show Phil picking Ariel up near the club. He admits she scratched him when he tried to kiss her after they ate at a diner, insists she then walked into the park alone, and asks for a lawyer. Footage from the diner supports parts of his story. Nat tells Benson he has promised God to let Ariel go if she wakes up.
Spoiler, the ending: During a search of the park, Amaro chases a homeless man wearing Ariel’s scarf who turns out to be a registered sex offender. His teeth and DNA match the bite marks, and his tent holds her phone, purse and an oar stained with her blood. Ariel had given him half a sandwich outside the diner. Ariel dies with her family beside her. On her recovered phone is an unsent video in which she thanks Nat for trusting her, calls him a good man and father, and tells her sons that being their mother is the adventure she wants most.
Why it stands out
- Richard Thomas plays Nat Randolph, the husband and father, and Kerry Butler plays Ariel.
- Max Baker’s forensics expert Colin Bennett, first seen in Season 13, works out the rowboat’s route through the Hell Gate tides.