Ghost (Season 6, Episode 16)
Premise: A cartel hit man’s gun links a string of murders to the attack on Alexandra Cabot, forcing the former prosecutor out of witness protection to face him in court.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 6, Episode 16
- 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), ADA Alexandra Cabot (Stephanie March), Defense Attorney Roger Kressler (Ned Eisenberg)
- Guest stars
- Brían F. O’Byrne as Liam Connors, Reymond Wittman as Antonio Montoya, Nicholas Gonzalez as Det. Mike Sandoval, Mitch Pileggi as DEA Agent Jack Hammond, Mickey Kelly as Doyle Shanahan
- Director
- David Platt
- Writers
- Amanda Green
Summary
“Ghost” begins when office workers find hedge fund manager Elena Brevet raped, tortured and killed at her firm; her husband, Jason, is found dead at home, killed the same way after the attacker waited for him to fly back from Miami. Traces in the couple’s emptied safe point to at least a million dollars in cash, and forensic accountants find that Brevet Investments was a pyramid scheme laundering Colombian drug money through a shell company, Casa Vega Enterprises. Elvira Castilla, who wrote checks into the account in exchange for cash, names the go-between, Sergio Montoya. Benson and narcotics detective Mike Sandoval find Montoya and his wife shot dead and their eight-year-old son, Antonio, wounded.
Antonio says a ghost shot him. Ballistics tie the gun to the shooting of ADA Alexandra Cabot, ordered by drug lord Cesar Velez, and DEA records link the nickname El Fantasma to Liam Connors, a former IRA gunman from Belfast who now kills for the cartels. A rental car traced to IRA fundraiser Doyle Shanahan leads the squad to a fuel depot on the Gowanus Canal, where Connors is caught after a chase, and Antonio picks him out of a lineup. On the way to the grand jury someone opens fire on the boy, wounding Sandoval. Judge Lois Preston will not extend the deadline and frees Connors, so Benson and Stabler rearrest him on the spot for Cabot’s murder.
DEA agent Jack Hammond warns Cragen that he will not lie under oath, and Cragen realizes that Cabot is alive in witness protection, something Benson and Stabler kept from him; he tells them they have committed perjury. Cabot returns and insists on charging Connors with her attempted murder, though testifying puts her back in danger; she has lost her career and friends and missed her mother’s funeral. Novak, angry at being kept in the dark, brings the new charge, and the judge turns down defense attorney Roger Kressler’s demand that the two detectives be arrested. Antonio, plagued by nightmares, wavers about testifying. The night before her testimony, Cabot tells Benson about her new life in Wisconsin as “Emily,” and Benson quietly lets her see Connors’s file.
Spoiler, the ending: On the stand Cabot concedes that she never saw who shot her, but she needles Connors about the family he left in Ireland until he erupts with threats and the judge calls a recess. Encouraged by Cabot, Antonio decides to testify. The jury convicts Connors on all counts, with the penalty phase set for the next morning. Cabot misses the squad’s celebration: marshals are moving her and Antonio to new identities, and she has left only a goodbye.
Why it stands out
- Stephanie March returns as Alexandra Cabot for the first time since Season 5’s “Loss,” in which the character’s death was faked and she went into witness protection.
- Mitch Pileggi makes his second appearance as DEA agent Jack Hammond, following “Loss.”