Outsider (Season 8, Episode 12)
Premise: A string of rapes by a man who craves praise draws Fin into an uneasy partnership with a Brooklyn detective who links them to three murders.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 8, Episode 12
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Det. John Munch (Richard Belzer), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Chester Lake (Adam Beach), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), ADA Casey Novak (Diane Neal), Judge Lena Petrovsky (Joanna Merlin)
- Guest stars
- Kal Penn as Henry Chanoor, Navid Negahban as Dr. Rankesh Chanoor, Tiffany Pao as Ming Hao, Kelli Giddish as Kara Bawson, Ernest Waddell as Ken Randall
- Director
- Arthur W. Forney
- Writers
- Paul Grellong
Summary
“Outsider” opens with Hudson University student Ming Hao telling her resident adviser, Ken Randall, that a masked man raped and choked her on a subway platform. She will not file a report, so Ken, who is Fin’s son, presses his father to look into it. A transit officer who brushed off the 911 call leads Fin to two costumed waiters from an Edgar Allan Poe–themed restaurant who saw the attack and chased the man away. Ming’s story leaves six hours unexplained; her younger sister, Chun, reveals that Ming took her to a free women’s clinic in Brooklyn for birth control and that their traditional parents have arranged Ming’s marriage to a man in Hong Kong. Her parents threaten to sue and move Ming back home.
Socialite Kara Bawson, daughter of developer Tom Bawson, is then raped in a SoHo gallery by a man who demands to be praised. Det. Chester Lake of Brooklyn SVU turns up, convinced the rapist also raped and strangled three women in Brooklyn. He and Fin clash, then agree to work together for 48 hours. Bawson points them to Kara’s former fiancé, Oliver Mitsakos, whom Ming recognizes as a teaching assistant who once pursued her, but while he is being questioned a third woman, Edie Rimpo, is attacked by a man wearing latex gloves. The victims’ medical ties lead to Dr. Rankesh Chanoor, who founded the Brooklyn clinic and also practices at St. Catherine’s, and Novak gets his records by presenting the subpoenas as a Medicaid fraud inquiry. Chanoor is arrested, but the victims do not recognize his voice in a lineup.
A nurse manager says Chanoor has a history of mistreating nurses. In his office the detectives find a scrapbook of newspaper stories about the attacks, and Chanoor says the handwriting belongs to his son, Henry, the clinic janitor he treats with contempt. Henry is caught on a bus to Montreal, and Fin and Lake flatter him until he brags about his prowess and complains about his father. At his arraignment his sister, Debi, says their diabetic mother, Geeta, will accept injections only from Henry, and the judge grants house arrest with an electronic monitor. Henry soon breaks free, and his mother, who helped him, refuses to say where he went.
Spoiler, the ending: Henry calls in to a radio program, and Lake recognizes a whistle in the background as coming from a recycling plant in Red Hook, which leads the detectives to a freighter about to leave a nearby port. Henry seizes a dock worker as a hostage, and Fin shoots him. With only a flesh wound, Henry asks whether his trial will be on television as news crews gather.
Why it stands out
- Adam Beach makes his first appearance as Brooklyn SVU Det. Chester Lake, who joins the main cast the following season.
- Kelli Giddish, who plays rape victim Kara Bawson, later joins the series as Det. Amanda Rollins beginning in season 13.
- Kal Penn guest stars as Henry Chanoor.