Almost Famous (Season 22, Episode 12)
Premise: A 14-year-old is shot while kicking in a neighbor’s door for a social-media dare, and the prosecutors pursue the manager of an influencer house who profits from teenagers’ dangerous stunts.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 22, Episode 12
- Detectives
- Det. Frank Cosgrove (Jeffrey Donovan), Det. Jalen Shaw (Mehcad Brooks)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Nolan Price (Hugh Dancy), ADA Samantha Maroun (Odelya Halevi), DA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston)
- Guest stars
- Patrick Ball as Jason Wheeler, Garrett Gallego as Max Brewer (“Mad Max”), Danny Garcia as Virgil Gilbert, Kiera Allen as Amber Koenig, Natalie Gold as defense attorney Megan Wallace
- Director
- Bethany Rooney
- Writers
- Pamela Wechsler & Jennifer Vanderbes
Summary
The Investigation
“Almost Famous” begins with 14-year-old Eli Barone rehearsing with his acting coach and leaving when his mother calls. The next morning he is found in a stairwell of his building, shot in the chest at close range, with a broken ankle and signs the body was moved. His mother finds his bed stuffed to look occupied and recalls a “Sean”: Sean Kapinski, who turns out to be Sean Capples, with a Chicago child-pornography conviction. Kapinski says it came from texting a topless photo of his high-school girlfriend, and his recording of the session shows Eli leaving alive.
Lobby video shows Eli letting in a man with a food bag, a thief who admits stealing Eli’s bike and says a man with a big key ring saw him. That points to the superintendent, Virgil Gilbert, who reported finding the body. Spotting a new door and blood, the detectives draw a confession: Gilbert shot an intruder who burst through his door, then realized it was Eli. Lacking a gun permit, he moved the body and called 911 hours later. Eli’s texts show an influencer called “Mad Max” recruited him for a filmed “door-kick challenge,” and Max appears on lobby video minutes after Eli. At Max’s influencer house, manager Jason Wheeler tells him to ask for a lawyer. Max Brewer, two months short of 18, is charged with manslaughter and held without bail.
The Trial
Max’s mother and stepfather say Wheeler, his guardian and money manager, told him to do it. Former resident Amber Koenig, recruited at 16, broke her spinal cord climbing skyscrapers under a contract demanding six risky challenges a month and 7 million followers, with Wheeler keeping 70 percent of the revenue. Wheeler is charged with manslaughter, and Max agrees to testify and hand over the door-kick video in exchange for dismissal of all charges.
At trial, Wheeler’s lawyer, Megan Wallace, wins suppression of the video: the phone belonged to Wheeler’s company, and Max was acting for the government when he turned it over. She also suggests to Gilbert that he had romantic feelings for Eli. Max’s parents try to take him home to Florida, and he is held as a material witness. After they visit Wheeler at Rikers, $1 million moves from his company to their account, which the judge accepts as Max’s earnings. Max, afraid of losing his followers, refuses to testify.
Spoiler, the ending: Without Max, the prosecutors confront Wheeler with sworn statements from Amber and from parents of a boy left in a coma by a “blackout challenge,” and threaten more charges. Wheeler pleads guilty to second-degree manslaughter and is sentenced to five to ten years. Asked about Max, the prosecutors say they will now try him for manslaughter.
Why it stands out
- The video that could have proved the case is thrown out because the cooperating teenager counted as a government agent when he handed over a phone his manager owned.
- Eli is first seen rehearsing Holden Caulfield’s lines from The Catcher in the Rye, and that recorded session later clears his acting coach.
- The prosecutors end the episode by turning on their own former cooperator, who forfeits his no-charges deal by refusing to testify.