Choreographed (Season 8, Episode 9)
Premise: A model’s mysterious death in Central Park points first to her philandering choreographer husband, then to the jealous husband of his lover, who has been tracking his wife with an implanted chip.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 8, Episode 9
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Det. John Munch (Richard Belzer), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), ADA Casey Novak (Diane Neal), ME Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie), TARU Ruben Morales (Joel de la Fuente)
- Guest stars
- Bob Saget as Glenn Cheales, Catherine Bell as Naomi Cheales, Chris Sarandon as Wesley Masoner, Bernadette Peters as Stella Danquiss, Kristine Szabo as Danielle Masoner
- Director
- Peter Leto
- Writers
- Paul Grellong
Summary
“Choreographed” begins in Central Park, where two teenagers find model Danielle Masoner collapsing near her dog; she seems to nod when asked whether she was raped, then dies. Warner finds no strangulation, heart damage or semen, and a clean drug screen. Stabler is working alone, since Beck has gone back to Warrants. Danielle’s husband, Wesley Masoner, runs a dance company, and friends Glenn Cheales, a computer specialist, and his wife, Naomi, one of Wesley’s dancers, come to console him. Cafe video shows a homeless man watching Danielle. Stabler’s rough stop of the man, Mr. Keener, ends with Keener pulling a knife; Benson, newly back on the squad, helps question him, and the former lawyer, left nearly speechless by a stroke, points them to a man with salt-and-pepper hair and a broken arm.
That man, Steve, had been staying with the Masoners. He admits he was with Danielle when she went into a seizure and ran because he was high, and he says Wesley pushed him down the stairs after he accused him of cheating. Wesley denies an affair, and his lawyer, Stella Danquiss, cuts the interview short. Glenn says Wesley’s lover goes by “Jen.” A fuller screen shows Danielle was poisoned with dieldrin, a banned pesticide rubbed onto her skin shortly before she fell, and Munch learns she earned seven figures and bankrolled her husband’s company. Detectives find gloves and a vial of dieldrin under Wesley’s sink, and Naomi walks in, revealing herself as “Jen” and giving him an alibi. Homeland Security records show Wesley’s credit card bought dieldrin from Japan; he says the card was stolen.
Glenn tells the detectives that Naomi did not come home, and when he confronts her in the squad room about the affair, she collapses after he storms out. At the hospital, doctors find a genetic liver disease and an infection from an unsterile injection: a radio-frequency tracking chip in her shoulder. Morales shows that readers Glenn installed at his own door, Wesley’s loft and the theater logged her movements, so Glenn knew about the affair all along.
Spoiler, the ending: Taken to Naomi’s bedside as her heart stops, Glenn confesses that he killed Danielle to take from Wesley what Wesley took from him, smearing the poison on her arm and planting the vial. Wesley later attacks Glenn at the hospital, and Stabler is slow to stop him. Novak warns that the confession may be thrown out. Naomi’s liver then fails, and Glenn is a donor match but, under arrest, cannot donate without the corrections commissioner’s approval. Commissioner Tom Sablone at first refuses, but the transplant goes ahead and Naomi is given a good chance. Afterward Stabler and Benson discover they share a blood type.
Why it stands out
- Benson returns to the Special Victims Unit and is partnered with Stabler again after her absence earlier in the season.
- Bob Saget guest-stars as Glenn Cheales, with Catherine Bell as his wife, Chris Sarandon as the choreographer and Bernadette Peters as defense attorney Stella Danquiss.