Svengali (Season 9, Episode 6)
Premise: A copycat murder modeled on an imprisoned serial killer’s crimes exposes how far his admirers will go for him, and one of them targets Benson.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 9, Episode 6
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Chester Lake (Adam Beach), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), ADA Casey Novak (Diane Neal), TARU Ruben Morales (Joel de la Fuente), Defense Attorney Rebecca Balthus (Beverly D’Angelo)
- Guest stars
- Jared Harris as Robert Morten, Shannon Woodward as Cecilia Strayer, Gareth Saxe as Harrison Thomas, Justin Blanchard as Edgar Rabinowicz, Mitchell Jarvis as Jasper Grice
- Director
- David Platt
- Writers
- Kam Miller
Summary
“Svengali” opens with the discovery of Hudson University student Tina Snow, 21, dead in an elevator shaft. She was choked repeatedly with her pantyhose and her breasts were cut off after death; she was drunk and drugged with GHB but not raped. Her roommate says Tina, who had a record for break-ins, owed $12,000 in tuition and burned note cards that came every week. Writing recovered from one burned card leads the squad to a disused private subway platform under the Waldorf Astoria and a band of urban explorers who call themselves the Silk and Cyanide Corps. Their leader, Edgar Rabinowicz, says they left Tina at a bar, where bartender Cecilia Strayer describes a hostile man Tina left with. That night Cecilia calls Benson to say the man is back; the line goes dead, and the detectives find only blood.
TARU matches the crime scene to Venus de Milo paintings by Robert Morten, a serial killer serving eight life terms. Morten toys with Benson and Stabler, his former cellmate Jasper Grice falsely confesses, and an anonymous caller warns Benson to leave Morten alone. Grice’s hint points to Le Morte, a graphic novel by Harrison Thomas that carries Morten’s killings past his arrest; one cover mirrors Tina’s death and the next mirrors the bar. The detectives find Cecilia drugged and cut but alive in Morten’s childhood bedroom. Then a pizza box bomb addressed to Benson injures Lake and others in the squad room.
Cecilia’s wounds prove to be self-inflicted. Her apartment holds years of letters from Morten, a friend of her imprisoned father, and an ID from his law firm, where she interned so she could see him in private legal visits; the two had a sexual relationship until he tired of her. Morten tells Stabler where she hid her trophies, and the tissue is matched to Tina. Lake spots a neck tattoo on the bomber in security video, and Benson recognizes Thomas just before he ambushes her at home; though stabbed, she overpowers him. At trial, defense attorney Rebecca Balthus wins leave to argue that Morten’s hold left Cecilia unable to control herself.
Spoiler, the ending: Novak calls Morten as a rebuttal witness in return for a move to federal prison. He admits urging many people to kill, then dismisses the murder as a lifeless imitation of his work, and Cecilia breaks down, professing her love until she is removed. Morten gloats that he has sent her to a psychiatric ward instead of prison. Novak honors the deal by sending him to the federal supermax in Florence, where he will have no visitors, mail or calls, and he leaves protesting that he was set up.
Why it stands out
- Jared Harris guest stars as Robert Morten, an imprisoned serial killer who paints and gathers devoted followers.
- Beverly D’Angelo returns as defense attorney Rebecca Balthus, who represents Cecilia Strayer.