Victims (Season 2, Episode 13)
Premise: Someone is shooting paroled sex offenders named on a neighborhood watch flyer, and Stabler is assigned to find the killer of the man who maimed a child in one of his own cases.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 2, Episode 13
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Det. John Munch (Richard Belzer), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), ADA Alexandra Cabot (Stephanie March)
- Guest stars
- Eric Roberts as Sam Winfield, Ann Dowd as Louise Durning, Rosemarie DeWitt as Gloria Palmera, Sylva Kelegian as Lindsay Branson, Brianna Steinhilber as Corrine Wilson
- Director
- Constantine Makris
- Writers
- Story: Dawn DeNoon & Lisa Marie Petersen & Robert F. Campbell & Jonathan Greene; Written by: Nick Kendrick
Summary
“Victims” opens with paroled child rapist Thomas Marchek shot three times in the face, with Sam Winfield of the Citizen Watch patrol first on the scene. Cragen has asked for the case because Stabler put Marchek away five years earlier for abducting seven-year-old Corrine Wilson (called Corrine Branson in the episode) and leaving her cut and unconscious in a drainpipe, and Stabler bristles at investigating his death. Corrine’s mother, Lindsay Branson, had threatened Marchek at his parole hearing, and Corrine, now taught at home, tells Stabler she is ugly.
A co-worker says a blonde woman in a light blue Honda had been stalking Marchek, while his girlfriend, Gloria Palmera, and her friend Louise Durning say Citizen Watch members harassed the couple. Lindsay drives a blue Accord and was out that night, and over Stabler’s protests Cabot and Cragen put her in a lineup, where the co-worker picks her out. She admits trailing Marchek with her ex-husband’s gun but says she could never fire. Then Craig Moss, another paroled rapist on the same Citizen Watch flyer, is shot the same way, and ballistics clear Lindsay’s gun.
Cragen orders round-the-clock guards for the last two men on the flyer, Trent Wills and James Campbell, and warns Stabler about his defiance. Winfield, an Albany ex-cop who retired early after a disputed shooting of a rapist, owns a 9mm, and Louise and Gloria say he threatened Marchek with a gun. After shots hit Campbell’s home and Winfield’s alibi collapses, a search turns up a gun that matches that attack but not the murders. Stabler draws Winfield out by recalling how he once nearly shot a child killer, and Winfield admits frightening Campbell and describes a woman he saw running from Marchek’s killing.
The description fits Gloria, whose co-worker admits punching her time card. The detectives find her bleeding after a suicide attempt and save her, and Stabler, who has a bandaged wound, is exposed to her blood; she is HIV-positive. Gloria claims both killings, saying Marchek infected her, but gets the details of Moss’s death wrong. Both men were patients at the clinic where Louise is a social worker, and Louise, who has a permit for a 9mm, confesses: she told Gloria about Marchek’s infection and shot both men to keep them from infecting anyone else.
Spoiler, the ending: Louise says she has AIDS after a rape nine years ago and that her drugs no longer work, leaving it uncertain whether she will live to serve a sentence. Stabler starts a month of preventive HIV medication and must wait for his results; he turns down Benson’s offer of a drink and thanks Cragen.
Why it stands out
- Eric Roberts, an Academy Award nominee for “Runaway Train,” guest-stars as Sam Winfield, a former cop turned vigilante.
- Ann Dowd plays social worker Louise Durning, and Rosemarie DeWitt plays Gloria Palmera.
- Stabler reveals a case from his own past, a child killer he came close to shooting until he saw a young girl in the suspect’s car.