Strain (Season 7, Episode 5)
Premise: Two gay men carrying a fast-killing strain of HIV are executed and labeled killers, and the hunt for their murderer draws in Fin’s own son.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 7, Episode 5
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), 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), ME Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie), Judge Lena Petrovsky (Joanna Merlin)
- Guest stars
- Brian Bloom as Gabriel Thomason, Ernest Waddell as Ken Randall, Bill Smitrovich as Liam Weller, CCH Pounder as Carolyn Maddox
- Director
- Constantine Makris
- Writers
- Robert Nathan
Summary
“Strain” opens when shoppers find store manager Robin Weller dead in a shoe store’s window display, stripped, shot execution-style and surrounded by shoes facing him, with “killer” painted nearby. The staging looks like a message about the victim. A club stamp on Robin’s hand leads to the Green Ballroom, where ID scans show he attended a gay circuit party, and also that Fin’s son, Ken Randall, was there. Fin visits Ken, who confirms he is gay and says he never told his father because he expected this reaction.
The medical examiner finds that Robin had AIDS though he tested positive only six months earlier. His estranged father, Liam Weller, who has a $500,000 policy on him, says he spent his savings on Robin’s drug rehabs and points to a violent boyfriend, Lydon Grant. Detectives find Grant killed the same way in his loft, which is covered in meth. A narcotics lieutenant suspects MKS, a suburban gang that robs gay meth users. Ken tells Benson about a club party, where the squad watches a “Meth equals death” protest and arrests MKS member Henry Fanello. He admits robbing gay men but denies the murders. The lab then finds that both victims carried the same drug-resistant strain of HIV that kills within a year, pointing to a killer trying to stop its spread.
The health department admits that its list of HIV-positive residents was copied from its computers, apparently by a fired janitor, Gabriel Thomason, who now works with an activist group called the Rainbow Army. Fin asks Ken, a computer science student, to go in wearing a camera, and Gabriel hands him a damaged disk to open. It is the stolen list, and on it is Alexander Thomason, Gabriel’s younger brother, who died three months earlier after being infected by Robin. Arrested at a protest, Gabriel confesses, saying two deaths are nothing next to the thousands the strain could kill.
Spoiler, the ending: Defense attorney Carolyn Maddox argues that Gabriel acted in defense of the gay community, and the judge allows it. A disease-control doctor warns that the strain could become a pandemic, but Novak presses Gabriel on his brother’s own choice to have unprotected sex. The jury convicts him of second-degree murder on both counts. At sentencing, Liam Weller says that he understands why Gabriel acted and asks for mercy, and Gabriel receives the 15-year minimum. Weller admits he told Robin he wished him dead when Robin came out.
Why it stands out
- Ernest Waddell returns from the previous season as Fin’s son, Ken Randall, whose story continues later in the season in “Venom.”
- Stabler does not appear in the episode.
- CCH Pounder guest stars as defense attorney Carolyn Maddox.