Parasites (Season 2, Episode 19)
Premise: Bones found under a Manhattan backyard are identified as a Romanian mail-order bride, until dental records reveal the dead woman is her twin and the case leads to a sex-trafficking ring protected by a diplomat.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 2, Episode 19
- 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
- Mili Avital as Irina Burton, Victor Steinbach as Razvan Toscu, Michele Pawk as Valentina Bilescu, Gary Basaraba as George Burton, Lili Bordán as Oksana
- Director
- David Platt
- Writers
- Story: Dawn DeNoon & Lisa Marie Petersen & Robert F. Campbell & Jonathan Greene; Written by: Martin Weiss
Summary
“Parasites” begins when workers digging a hot tub foundation in a Manhattan backyard uncover a woman’s skeleton along with a studded dog collar, a leash and a crucifix. Suspicion falls first on the former owner, surgeon Brad Stanton, whose drug-addicted first wife, Abbey, used to show up demanding money, but Stanton shows Benson and Stabler that Abbey is alive in a care facility. The medical examiner finds the woman was strangled, and arsenic in her dental work points to an Eastern European upbringing. A forensic anthropologist rebuilds her face.
Tenant files from buildings overlooking the yard, checked against missing persons reports, match the face to Ava Parulis, a Romanian woman who rented an apartment behind the yard in early 1998 and vanished that April. Her brother-in-law, George Burton, reported her missing; his wife, Irina, is Ava’s twin and describes a sister who moved from one rich man to the next. The detectives question Ava’s former lover Matt Sloan, Romanian diplomat Razvan Toscu, a dentist she dated, and Paul Amis, who brought her over as a mail-order bride through Valentina Bilescu’s agency, Euromatch, then returned her after a 90-day trial. They also find the abusive man Ava later married.
The dentist’s records do not match the skull, but Irina’s do: the dead woman is Irina, and the woman living as Mrs. Burton is Ava. Ava has already fled the Burton house with the family’s cash, leaving an apology note. George recalls that three years earlier his wife came home at 2 a.m. from seeing Ava and spent two weeks in bed. Bank and phone records show monthly payments to Bilescu, and a raid on a Chelsea warehouse finds women held for prostitution, Bilescu, and Ava, who has been buying freedom for their younger sister, Oksana.
Ava says she buried Irina after finding her body. Oksana says Bilescu forced her into prostitution when her American husband rejected her. Euromatch’s hidden books name Bilescu’s silent partner: Toscu. Facing George, Ava says Toscu left Irina’s body outside her building after Ava threatened to go to police, having raped and killed Irina in the belief she was Ava. Toscu has diplomatic immunity, and when Romania refuses Cabot’s request to waive it, a State Department official declares him persona non grata, giving him 48 hours to leave.
Spoiler, the ending: The detectives go back to the remains. Two grains of pollen recovered from Irina’s clothing prove to come from a hybrid orchid Toscu cultivates. His government drops his immunity, and the detectives arrest him for Irina’s murder as he prepares to leave the country. George tells them he and Julia will manage. The episode does not say what becomes of Ava.
Why it stands out
- Mili Avital plays both twins, Ava and Irina.
- The episode cites the real 1997 case in which the Republic of Georgia waived a diplomat’s immunity so he could be prosecuted for a fatal drunk-driving crash in Washington, D.C.