Trick-Rolled at the Moulin (Season 22, Episode 13)
Premise: Three women drug and rob wealthy men with a lethal batch of counterfeit pills, and the case leads back to the death of Benson’s brother Simon.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 22, Episode 13
- Starring
- Capt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Sgt. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Katriona “Kat” Tamin (Jamie Gray Hyder), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), ADA Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino), Chief ME Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie)
- Guest stars
- Charlotte McKee as Piper Thomas, Teresa Ting as Jade Chen, Courtnee Carter as Despina Johnson, Armando Riesco as Edward Buddusky, Adam Heller as Dr. Walter Linderman
- Ripped from the headlines
- Appears to draw on the case of the New York strippers who drugged and robbed wealthy men, later told in the film Hustlers.
- Director
- Batán Silva
- Writers
- Story: Warren Leight & Julie Martin & Denis Hamill & Monet Hurst-Mendoza & Melody Cooper; Teleplay: Brianna Yellen; Story & teleplay: Brendan Feeney
Summary
“Trick-Rolled at the Moulin” opens with Stabler leaving Benson a message: Sacha Lenski watched from a window as Kathy got into the car, so she was the bomber’s target. Social-app billionaire Xavier Garcia, the boyfriend of Kat’s cousin Lily Bustani, spends a night out with Piper Thomas and Despina Johnson, and at a hotel a third woman, Jade Chen, joins them as he fades and they press him for his PIN. He is found dead, naked and tied to the bed. Retired cop Kurt Mulhall, the hotel’s security man, says paramedics have been called for other men lately. Warner finds alcohol, oxycodone, fentanyl and MDMA and leaves the manner undetermined. Stabler tells Benson he feels Intel is keeping him in the dark on Kathy’s case, and she begs him to slow down.
A second man, Paul Landry, a trader whose fans see him as a Robin Hood against hedge funds, dies the same way at the Hotel Moulin, where Benson’s brother Simon died of an overdose. The responding officer, Det. Ray Fernandez, did little in Simon’s case; Simon’s phone shows his last call was to Edward Buddusky, a wealth manager who says he was Simon’s Narcotics Anonymous sponsor. Mulhall’s tip leads detectives to pediatric neurosurgeon Walter Linderman, who survived by giving himself Narcan. He calls the women friends but, warned his wife may learn of it, gives up a contact for Piper.
Piper is caught leaving town with watches, rings, $10,000 in cash and a tablet of selfies with her clients, including Buddusky and Simon in October 2019. Pressed by Carisi, Buddusky admits he and Simon were high school friends; he hired Piper and Despina to cheer Simon up, and when he woke at a motel to find Simon dead, he dressed the body and cleaned the room before leaving. Witnesses identify all three women. Warner traces the deaths to a homemade knockoff of Purple Magic, oxycodone cut with fentanyl; Stabler explains that Richard Wheatley, whom he blames for Kathy’s death, sells the real brand. A video from Piper’s phone shows the women partying over Simon’s body with Felix Tinga, who posed as her driver but is their dealer. Jade, the mother of Felix’s daughter, gives him up after being warned that his suppliers are dangerous.
Spoiler, the ending: Facing death on the street or in prison, Felix goes back out as an informant and tells a contact the police know about their counterfeit pills. As the squad tails his car east on Lispenard Street, Benson tells Stabler something is happening; gunfire breaks out, and the episode ends as a shots-fired call goes out.
Why it stands out
- The first half of a two-part crossover that concludes in Season 1, Episode 5 of Law & Order: Organized Crime.
- The case reopens the death of Benson’s half-brother, Simon Marsden, whose overdose in Season 21 had been treated as accidental.
- Tamara Tunie appears as Chief Medical Examiner Melinda Warner, a special guest star in Season 22.