Goliath (Season 6, Episode 23)
Premise: Two police officers back from Afghanistan attack their wives, and the trail leads to an antimalarial drug the Army gave them.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 6, Episode 23
- 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), Dr. George Huang (BD Wong), DA Arthur Branch (Fred Dalton Thompson)
- Guest stars
- R.E. Rodgers as Officer Tommy Callahan, Amy Landecker as Jamie Callahan, Brian Hutchison as Officer Wes Myers, Jon Bernthal as Sherm Hempell, John Dossett as Dr. Trainer
- Ripped from the headlines
- The episode closely resembles the story of mefloquine (Lariam), an antimalarial drug given to soldiers that has been linked to severe psychiatric side effects.
- Director
- Peter Leto
- Writers
- Michele Fazekas & Tara Butters
Summary
“Goliath” begins when Jamie Callahan, who is pregnant, tells Benson and Stabler that her husband, Officer Tommy Callahan, has grown angry and paranoid and raped her after threatening to get his gun. Tommy calmly denies it and admits only to a one-night stand; his partner, Kristen Vaill, concedes that he once slapped Jamie and that she let it go. He served a year in Afghanistan with the Army Reserve. The squad lets him go, but when his commander, Capt. Barbara Pierce, puts him on modified duty, he punches her. That same night Officer Wes Myers, back from four months in Afghanistan, shoots his wife, Kendra, dead and then shoots himself in front of their son, Anthony. He survives surgery.
Both men belong to a Reserve brigade based at Fort Crompton in New Jersey. Huang rules out post-traumatic stress: Callahan describes bizarre nightmares, paranoia and thoughts of cutting his own throat, which suggests a toxin. The base doctor, Dr. Trainer, and Colonel Gage will not release records. Sherm Hempell, a tabloid reporter who revealed that Myers was court-martialed for cowardice, tells the detectives to ask about Quinium, an antimalarial drug. Callahan then kills himself on a locked psychiatric ward. The drug maker insists Quinium is safe. Myers wakes and recalls being sure his wife was cheating, and says a medic handed out the pill every Monday in the chow line.
Hempell supplies a Fort Crompton spreadsheet logging soldiers’ side effects, last edited by Trainer. Meeting Novak in secret, Trainer says eight of his patients have brain stem damage and all took Quinium, and that the Army has long known the risks but values a once-a-week pill against deadly malaria, but he refuses to testify. The Army answers Novak’s subpoenas with hundreds of boxes, and when she subpoenas Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Branch is furious but lets her convene an investigating grand jury. Koehler says he knows of no Army practice of giving soldiers the required warning pamphlet, and Trainer testifies that the brain damage has no known cause.
Spoiler, the ending: The grand jury finds Callahan and Myers criminally responsible for rape and murder, respectively, and finds no criminal liability for the drug company or the Army, though it says the matter deserves further inquiry. Branch lets Novak make a deal under which Myers will spend at least a year in a mental health facility. No one can say how long the drug’s effects last or who will be next.
Why it stands out
- This is the sixth-season finale, with Novak taking on the Department of Defense.
- R.E. Rodgers, who plays Tommy Callahan, had played an ex-military character in the show’s second season.
- Jon Bernthal plays tabloid reporter Sherm Hempell.