Wicked Game (Season 21, Episode 6)
Premise: The meth death of a young gay Black man leads to a wealthy political fundraiser who pays vulnerable men to let him inject them, and Price goes after him for murder with a hate-crime count.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 21, Episode 6
- Detectives
- Det. Kevin Bernard (Anthony Anderson), Det. Frank Cosgrove (Jeffrey Donovan)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Nolan Price (Hugh Dancy), ADA Samantha Maroun (Odelya Halevi), DA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston)
- Guest stars
- Currie Graham as Kyle Swanson, Jack Noseworthy as Senator Jack Nathan, Jarvis B. Manning Jr. as Andre Walker, Gerald Caesar as Jalen Brooks, Michael Beach as defense attorney Brian Harris
- Ripped from the headlines
- The case reportedly draws on that of Ed Buck, a West Hollywood political donor convicted in 2021 on federal charges that included the methamphetamine deaths of two Black men in his apartment, Gemmel Moore in 2017 and Timothy Dean in 2019.
- Director
- Alex Hall
- Writers
- Story: Pamela Wechsler & Art Alamo; Teleplay: Rick Eid
Summary
The Investigation
“Wicked Game” turns on the death of Darien Wilson, a 20-year-old performer found naked inside a designer trunk left on the street. The medical examiner finds a needle mark, rope marks on his wrists and gold polyester fibers. His devout parents in the Bronx had cut him off after he came out as gay. The official cause is methamphetamine toxicity, and a dose that never entered his bloodstream shows someone injected him again after he was dead.
Darien’s last ride took him to a gallery fundraiser for Senator Jack Nathan of Connecticut, hosted by Kyle Swanson, who had the cameras switched off. Street video shows Darien with Nathan, a married man, who admits driving him to a small gathering of men at Swanson’s townhouse but says he hooked up with someone else and saw no drugs. A search turns up Swanson’s matching Marcel Dupont luggage. Swanson admits casually dating Darien, insists he was alive at midnight and calls the death self-inflicted, and the last guest to leave says the two were alone together.
A friend says Darien called Swanson “The Big Man” and met him at a bar where Swanson approaches young Black men. Former bartender Andre Walker says Swanson paid him $10,000 a session to be tied up and injected with meth, ignored his pleas to stop and left him in a six-day coma. Dixon tells Cosgrove she once closed a similar case, the death of Louis Knight, as an accidental overdose, and the squad finds five meth deaths of young, poor Black men tied to the same bar.
The Trial
McCoy, aware that Swanson backed his election opponent, approves a depraved-indifference murder charge. A second survivor, Jalen Brooks, comes forward, and the prosecution adds a hate-crime count, arguing Swanson chose victims who were young, Black and poor; the defense says he was simply attracted to them, but the judge agrees with Price that choosing a victim by race is enough without proof of hatred.
Defense attorney Brian Harris tells jurors Swanson found Darien already dead and only got rid of the body. Brooks leaves town before he can testify. Andre, on parole, fears that admitting drug use will send him back to prison, and Dixon wants to spare him, but Price insists he take the stand. Andre testifies that Swanson told him he did not deserve to live, and Harris attacks him as a man who took money for sex and drugs.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury finds Swanson guilty of second-degree murder, and he shouts threats as court officers restrain him. Price turns down a celebratory drink to meet the head of parole and speak up for Andre.
Why it stands out
- Lt. Dixon reveals that she once closed a near-identical death as an accidental overdose, and she drives the squad to keep digging.
- The hate-crime count rests on the idea that choosing a victim because of race is enough, even if the defendant claims attraction rather than hatred.
- Michael Beach plays defense attorney Brian Harris, a role he returns to in the season finale.