Rebels (Season 6, Episode 2)
Premise: An NYU student is stabbed to death in a biker bar, and the one witness the police can find says his online writing makes him a reporter who can keep his sources secret.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 6, Episode 2
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Rey Curtis (Benjamin Bratt)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Claire Kincaid (Jill Hennessy), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Elizabeth Rodriguez as Caridad Montero, Robert Knepper as Daniel “Igor” Smith, Timothy Wheeler as Milton Stillman, Chris Messina as Tommy Bell, Sam Schacht as Louis Bell
- Director
- Ed Sherin
- Writers
- Teleplay: Ed Zuckerman; Story & teleplay: Suzanne O'Malley
Summary
The Investigation
“Rebels” begins with NYU student Tommy Bell stabbed to death at Strokers, a biker bar where the remaining customers claim to have seen nothing. A tourist recalls a young woman in braids screaming over the victim, and Tommy’s father, Louis Bell, points the detectives to his son’s girlfriend, Caridad Montero, whom he dismisses as trash. She says she was in the ladies’ room. The weapon, an oil can opener used as a beer tool, is found in a trash can, and a second blood trail leads out the back door.
Tommy had gone to the bar to buy a motorcycle advertised online; the seller says he left when members of the Yankee Rebels biker club showed up. At the club’s headquarters a member called Igor insults Curtis with a slur, and Curtis draws his gun, to Briscoe’s dismay. A biker gossip newsletter on a computer bulletin board describes the stabbing and mentions “Dadi,” Caridad’s nickname. Neighborhood women tell Curtis her ex-boyfriend is Igor, but Igor and the bartender say the Rebels had already passed her around sexually, which seems to rule out jealousy.
Curtis tracks the newsletter’s author, “the Phantom,” through bulletin board logs, a hospital stay and a cloned cell phone to Milton Stillman, a biker known as Stiletto, whose blood type matches the second trail.
The Trial
Stillman, who has a stab wound in his back, refuses to name the killer and invokes New York’s press shield law. A Columbia journalism dean backs him; McCoy argues that the bikers Stillman questioned had no idea they were talking to a reporter. Pressed by Schiff and by Louis Bell’s ally on the City Council, the office pays to relocate Caridad, who now says Igor, real name Daniel Smith, did the stabbing.
The judge orders Stillman to testify about what he saw himself. Testifying without a waiver, and so with automatic immunity, he tells the grand jury he killed Tommy. Caridad calls that a lie the gang forced on him, and a grand juror’s question shows the panel doubts her. Stillman’s remark that Tommy’s collar was up sends McCoy looking for the missing jacket. Tommy had left Caridad’s apartment in her old Yankee Rebels jacket, club colors outsiders wear at their peril, after his father offered him money to clean up his life.
Spoiler, the ending: Facing a reckless murder charge, Caridad admits she talked Tommy into wearing the jacket after he dropped her, expecting him to be roughed up, and that Igor, ribbed by other bikers about Tommy, stabbed him. Igor is indicted for second-degree murder, Stillman for perjury, and Caridad pleads guilty to reckless endangerment.
Why it stands out
- An early look at online publishing: the case turns on whether a biker writing for a computer bulletin board qualifies as a journalist under the press shield law.
- The new Briscoe–Curtis partnership shows strain, from Curtis pulling his gun on a biker to his admission that he looked into Briscoe’s past drinking.
- Because Stillman testified without waiving immunity, his surprise grand jury confession leads to a perjury charge rather than a murder case.