Rapist Anonymous (Season 15, Episode 9)
Premise: A woman from Rollins’s recovery circle says a fellow member raped her; when he falls from her roof, Rollins’s loyalty and private life end up on trial.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 15, Episode 9
- Starring
- Sgt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Nick Amaro (Danny Pino), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Det. Brian Cassidy (Dean Winters), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), ADA Rafael Barba (Raúl Esparza), ME Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie), Judge Elana Barth (Jenna Stern)
- Guest stars
- Amy Seimetz as Lena Olson, Thomas Sadoski as Nate Davis, Geoffrey Cantor as Gene Fierstein, Jennifer Restivo as Melissa Blume, Nia Vardalos as Minonna Efron
- Director
- Steve Shill
- Writers
- Julie Martin & Warren Leight
Summary
“Rapist Anonymous” opens on a squad dinner with good news: Benson placed 48th of about 8,000 on the sergeant’s exam, and Cassidy has his detective’s shield back, with an assignment in IAB. Rollins is elsewhere, at an A.A. meeting with Nate Davis, her Gamblers Anonymous sponsor and lover, where Nate’s former sponsee Lena Olson marks almost a year sober. That night Lena comes to Rollins and says Gene Fierstein, a lawyer from the program who is engaged to another woman, raped her. She had consensual sex with him earlier and let him back in, but says she begged him to stop the second time.
Gene shows texts in which Lena asked to be humiliated, and Barba will not charge him. Rollins tells Lena to keep away from Gene. Soon after, Gene falls to his death from the roof of Lena’s building, and Warner finds he had ejaculated just before he fell. Lena admits she let him in, performed oral sex on him on the roof ledge as they had done before, and pushed him when he got rough. Gene had left his fiancée, Melissa Blume, a voicemail saying he feared what Lena might do, and the building super says Lena asked how to switch off the roof door alarm, whose battery was gone that night. Lena is arrested for murder. Amaro, wary of Nate, slips into an A.A. meeting, hears that Nate preys on newcomers, and he and Rollins have a shouting match in the squad room.
At trial Rollins admits on the stand that Lena hid the texts when she first reported the rape. Melissa testifies that Lena sent her explicit videos and claimed Gene as her own. Lena says Gene degraded her and that she feared him, and Barba presses her on her repeated lies to the police. Called by the defense, Nate admits he slept with Lena until about a week earlier, that he is sleeping with Rollins, and that he told Lena about Rollins, her job and her sister’s history of domestic violence. Barba uses this to suggest Lena chose Rollins as a sympathetic detective and played them both.
Spoiler, the ending: Lena is convicted of murder. Cragen tells Rollins that everyone on the force has made mistakes, then introduces her to his friend Eileen Switzer. Rollins turns down Fin’s offer of a beer, saying she needs a meeting, but the episode ends with Rollins back at a blackjack table, calling for card after card.
Why it stands out
- Benson learns she placed 48th of about 8,000 on the sergeant’s exam, and Cassidy gets his detective’s shield back.
- Rollins’s gambling addiction drives the story: she is in Gamblers Anonymous, and her relationship with her sponsor becomes trial evidence.
- Amy Seimetz plays Lena Olson, Thomas Sadoski plays Nate Davis and Nia Vardalos plays Lena’s lawyer, Minonna Efron.