Hooked (Season 6, Episode 15)
Premise: A teenager found dead with her cousin’s ID turns out to have been selling sex and acting in pornography, and she was HIV positive.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 6, Episode 15
- 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 Casey Novak (Diane Neal), ME Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie), Defense Attorney Trevor Langan (Peter Hermann), TARU Ruben Morales (Joel de la Fuente)
- Guest stars
- Hayden Panettiere as Angela Agnelli, Janae Kram as Lisa Downey, Shuler Hensley as Mr. Downey, Matt Malloy as Max Long, Alex Cranmer as Dr. Derek Tanner
- Director
- Jean de Segonzac
- Writers
- Joshua Kotcheff
Summary
“Hooked” opens when Boy Scouts stargazing from a rooftop spot a girl’s body on a neighboring roof. She wears an $800 dress and has a crushed skull. Her license identifies her as Allison Downey of Yonkers, but Allison turns up alive: she lent the license to her 15-year-old cousin, Lisa Downey, so Lisa could get into clubs. Warner finds an older black eye. Lisa’s widowed father, Tim, a long-haul trucker, knew nothing of her nights out. At her Catholic school, the detectives hear about “sex bracelets,” and her best friend, Angela Agnelli, insists the girls are too busy studying for boyfriends.
Morales pulls data from Lisa’s smashed BlackBerry showing a teen hookup site and many partners. A neighbor, Nicky Sims, says Lisa moved on to older men she met online; college student Andy Wall, who dated her, has an alibi. Warner reports that Lisa had HIV and was on antiretroviral drugs, which puts every partner at risk, and Stabler asks his daughter Kathleen about a boy on the list; she says they never had sex. The prescription leads to Dr. Derek Tanner. Lisa’s designer clothes lead to a boutique manager trading clothes for sex with Angela, and then to Jerome, a desk clerk at the Barrington Hotel who sends girls to guests. Stabler, posing as a guest, exposes him, and Jerome names Tanner as Lisa’s regular. Tanner admits paying her for sex, saying she claimed to be 21. Soon he is found shot dead, and Tim Downey, who had attacked him, is suspected, though Stabler doubts it.
Angela’s scarf in Tanner’s locker leads to a tape of both girls with him, which he paid for. Angela admits Lisa also made pornography for producer Max Long, using her cousin’s license. Tanner had been secretly testing Long’s performers for HIV, so Long knew Lisa was infected but kept filming. His set backed onto the building where she died, his crew says he hit her and stepped out with his camera and tripod around the time of the killing, and the lab finds her blood on his tripod head. Long is arrested for Lisa’s murder, but his lawyer, Trevor Langan, shows he was at a charity dinner when Tanner died.
Spoiler, the ending: Prints and gunshot residue on the tape from Angela’s locker match the unidentified prints in Tanner’s apartment. Angela admits she took her father’s gun to Tanner’s apartment to get the tape back; when he refused and grabbed for the gun, it went off. She says she only wanted her life back.
Why it stands out
- Hayden Panettiere guest stars as Lisa’s best friend, Angela Agnelli.
- Stabler’s daughter Kathleen (Allison Siko) appears when her father asks about a boy linked to the victim.