Stabler and Benson are on the rooftop of an apartment building with a uniformed cop. "What have we got?" asks Stabler. "Dead victim, head bashed in, privates exposed," says the cop. He nods toward Benson and Stabler. "The tech found seminal fluid on the face, legs and mouth, and we thought of you." Uh -- yeah. I guess that's one of those things you just can't say in a Hallmark card. The victim is a young man named Seth Langdon, who lived in the building. "As far as we can tell, he lived alone," says the uniformed cop. We get a good look at Seth's head and see that "gay-bashing" is, unfortunately, not a metaphor here. Stabler finds Special Victim gore on the rooftop air-conditioning unit. "Looks like this is where he went down." Benson notes that the guy couldn't have died quietly, and the cop mentions that there was a party on the third floor. "Pretty ironic ending, don't you think?" asks the uniform. "Why is that?" asks Stabler. "With it being Seth Langdon and all," says the cop. "You know, Son of William H. Langdon?" Stabler looks surprised. "Head of the Moral Coalition?" "Yeah, the guy who's always preaching good clean wholesome living, believes homosexuality can be cured?" quips the cop. "That's one way to fix them," says Benson bitterly.
Cue depressing pictures in opening-credit sequence. Cue disturbing thoughts. Oh yeah, and commercials, too.
Munch walks into the SVU cop shop and sees the whole squad at their desks looking like they're taking the SAT. "What's going on?" he asks. Cragen hands him a form. "The Police Union found us better health insurance," he says. Cassidy looks up and complains, "This form is longer than the last book I read." Cassidy is maybe not the best person to use this kind of hyperbole. Wheels turn in Munch's head as he considers these health insurance forms; as with all wheels turning in Munch's head, they move on fan belts and axles that are intricately connected through a series of gears and sprockets and pulleys to even bigger wheels, more sinister wheels, wheels that, according to the government, don't even exist -- "Don't you see what they're doing?" he asks. "Yeah, they're looking out for you, Munch," says Jeffries. "Psychiatric coverage increased eighty percent." Now, if the camera were to pan up just a little, I'm sure we would see a galvanized steel bucket labeled DRAMATIC IRONY suspended by a rope and pulley mechanism over Jeffries's head. And if Jeffries were to step just a bit to the left, we'd see a sign reading "do not pull rope until season finale." But it's only because this is a rerun that I'm able to watch for these things. Anyway, Stabler tells Munch to relax, only to start rattling on about how the feds are getting our genealogical and genetic fingerprints and they'll know exactly when we're going to die and blah blah blah. Meanwhile, Cassidy has gotten up and handed in his form to Cap'n Cragen, who points out that there are two "r"s in "hemorrhoids." "Fine then," says Cassidy, "I'll spell my pain in the ass a different way: C-R-A-G-E-N." All right, he didn't say that, but he should've. Meanwhile Munch continues in rant mode and walks over to Benson's desk, where she is still filling out her form. "See, she's got the right idea -- leave the father's side blank, that'll mess them up." Benson tries to ignore him. Stabler looks up. "Let's keep our eyes on our own paper," he tells Munch. Finally Cragen's like, "People! We have a main plot, too!" so Stabler and Benson start giving the old 411 on the vic du jour: Seth Langdon was at the party on the third floor, made his way to the roof around 1:00 am, and the rest is Special Victimry. Cassidy gets to say "seminal fluid." Munch looks over at Cragen's clipboard, sees the name Langdon, and snorts about how William H. Langdon claims to have a cure for homosexuality. "The victim was his son," says Stabler. "One out of every ten men is gay," says Cragen. "Let's see how Mr. Langdon felt about that statistic hitting home." Wow, Cap'n Cragen! Tell us more! Tell us more gay people facts!
Stabler gets up and approaches Munch by the coffeemaker. "Don't make any more barbs about Benson's father," he tells him. "What is he, an alcoholic? Deadbeat dad? Jehovah's witness?" J. Edgar Hoover? "Only thing she knows about him is he was the man who raped her mother," Stabler tells him, and walks off. Munch feels like a big chump.
Chung-chung! Let us now visit the offices of the "Moral Coalition," which are located on -- heh -- 69th Street. Stabler and Benson walk through the white hallways of morality until a stuffed shirt asks them how they got past the receptionist. "Mr. Langdon's not seeing anyone today," says Stuffed Shirt. Stabler flashes his badge, and faster than you can say "Tinky Winky," the detectives are seated in Mr. Langdon's office, decorated in Neo-Classical Prig. "My son was not a homosexual," says Mr. Langdon. "Seth was merely going through a rebellious phase -- we had it under control." "Just how do you control a person's sexual orientation?" asks Benson. "Homosexuality is not natural, it is a crime against God," insists Langdon. "And AIDS is divine retribution?" snaps Stabler. And, uh, this is a good time to even have this discussion? Guys, leave the poor stupid Christian Conservative alone. Langdon gets all huffy, but Benson says gently that they're just trying to find his son's killer. "That's our only agenda here," she says. Yeah, now that you have "bait the bigot" checked off your to-do list, Benson. Langdon calms down and says that Seth was confused, and that he did everything he could to help him. "I got him into one of those sexual rehabilitation centers. They have an excellent success rate." Seth completed the program two months ago, Langdon says. "Meaning, he was cured," says Stabler. "Yes!" insists Langdon. Oh, the silly hatemonger.
Munch talks to the respectable gay hosts at the apartment where the party was held. "So -- the party get a little out of hand?" he asks. "Oh," says Respectable Host #1, "you hear 'gay' and 'party,' and naturally you think S&M orgy?" Well, probably, but then again, I have a horrible feeling that Munch is always thinking "S&M orgy" at any given moment. Anyway, from the looks of the Respectable Gay Apartment, it's clear that only the designer couch wears leather in this household. It turns out that the party-goers were all respectable and prominent members of the community, and the Respectable Hosts just knew Seth from the building's gym. He didn't hook up with anyone at the party -- "he unhooked, rather, from the good-looking blond gentleman he walked in the door with," says Respectable Host #2. They never got the name of Blond Gentleman, but he got upset when Seth started flirting with people (respectable people!) and they went out in the hall to talk. "Seth came back in, grabbed a beer, and then went out on the balcony -- we assume to cool off," says Respectable Host #1. "What happened on the roof was outside of our world," says Respectable Host #2. "This was a civilized gathering." Because gay people have the right to be boring, too.
Benson and Stabler are outside the building looking up at the balcony while the downstairs neighbor lady describes what she heard. "'Just stay out of my life!' he says, and then we hear a beer bottle smash right outside our window." Downstairs Lady (who has a downscale kind of accent) explains that her husband Jesse, who strongly resembles the Brawny Paper Towel Guy, is the weekend super. Mr. Brawny walks up and tells the detectives that he went up at 1:00 am to tell the party hosts to turn down the music, but he didn't see Seth. Okay, I know, so the real Brawny Guy would've been tall enough to peer into a third-story window, and the real Brawny Guy would have seen Seth because Brawny Guy sees all, and he would have handed the hosts a big beefy roll of paper towels for all their party spills. But we can't expect this to be like real life, okay? Mrs. Brawny tells them that after they heard the bottle smash they looked out and saw what had to be Blond Gentleman getting into a Lincoln Town Car -- "you know, the chauffeur-driven type?" Maybe Blond Gentleman is the Grey Poupon guy?
At the station, Benson is sitting at her desk when Munch sits down and apologizes about the father comment. "I didn't know he was a --" "Rapist," says Benson. "I know." "Ever catch the guy?" asks Munch. Benson says no; ditto about leads. "If you ever want to talk about this --" says Munch. Benson nods, and then Stabler comes up with a lead about Blond Gentleman from the car service: Blond Gentleman is named Steven Hale, which is a blond gentleman-y name if we ever heard one.
And now, a haiku:
Made from cast iron are
The windchimes of suspicion.
Hush! The breeze. Chung-chung!
And so Stabler and Benson arrive outside the home of Steven Hale. Hale comes out the door and -- hey! He's that stuffed shirt from Langdon's office! "What are you doing here?" he asks the detectives. "Your boss had no idea, did he?" says Stabler. "About what you did to his son?" Hale looks freaked out, and just then a kid's voice calls, "Daddy!" and a little boy runs up to him; the boy's mother comes out the door, too. Hale clutches the kid and glares at the detectives again, who just stand there and blink. An oddly lighthearted guitar riff plays on the soundtrack, as if to say, "Why, that wacky homicidal closet-case is a family man too!"
Hale glares out from the interview room window. Munch wonders aloud why a gay man would work for Langdon. "Hale's not exactly open about his sexuality," says Benson. "His wife and kid notice his uncanny ability to accessorize?" "Have you seen him?" asks Benson. "He doesn't accessorize all that well." Hmm-mmm, Miss Olivia Thing, snap-snap! "Maybe he thought that by working for Langdon he'd be cured," says Benson. "I don't know how smart people -- educated people -- think that way," says Stabler. "To think that you can just change the way that someone's wired," adds Benson. "Do you know anyone who would actually choose to be gay?" says Stabler, on a roll. "To risk family rejection, discrimination --" "All that heartache," says Benson. Uh, enough with the PSA, guys; I think you're preaching to the converted. I mean, to the converted who weren't "converted" but who are -- well, you know.
Steven Hale is still fuming at them. "He's been living a lie, and we just happened to catch him at it," says Munch. Everyone decides to have Munch to question Hale. Oh, nice move, guys -- you want your supposedly gay suspect to talk, so you send in the one detective who doesn't have a ton of male fans from Oz.
Munch comes in. "I am not a homosexual!" shouts Hale. Not even a hello? Munch is like, uh, okay -- Hale goes on to say that part of his job was to keep an eye on Seth because Langdon is looking to run for Congress, and can't afford the scandal of an openly gay son. "Look at the damage the lesbian sister caused Newt." "Actually, she was a half-sister," Munch points out. "She may have been a half-sister, but unfortunately for Newt she was all lesbian," says Hale. I wonder, do right-wingers consider this to be as damaging as having a full sister who is bisexual? And how many bisexual half-sisters would it take to equal one fully lesbian full sister? Maybe they have a pocket chart for this? Anyway, Munch gets his Munch on and starts ranting to Hale about how Newt's a pedantic megalomaniac, has committed ethics violations, served his cancer-stricken wife divorce papers, et cetera and so on, until the dead horse begins to smell and Cragen decides to bring Cassidy in instead.
Hale Interrogation, Take Two: Cassidy sits and listens while Hale tells him about how Langdon sent him to check up on Seth after he didn't show up at a fundraiser: "When I got to his floor, Seth brushed right by me. I followed, giving him a piece of my mind, and the thing I knew, I found myself at that -- party." He explains that he got upset at the flirting "because it was revolting," and he says that he tried to get Seth to leave before he ate any gay hors d'oeuvres, and when Seth yelled "stay out of my life," it was a message to Dad. "If only I tried harder to get away from there he'd still be alive." Uh, yeah, Hale: if only you weren't so freaked out at the thought of gay cooties.
Cragen and Benson and Stabler blather: Blah blah blah Hale has an alibi and blah blah blah he's not mentioned romantically in Seth's diary and blah blah blah blah red herring, which is to say, fishcakes.
The SVU decides to check out the Respectable Guest List from the Respectable Party. A man is in an auditorium, conducting what sounds like it might be the Kronos Quartet. Jeffries and Cassidy bust in on the fun to interview the conductor, Andre Lasnik, about Seth. Andre says he was briefly introduced to Seth, but he left the party a little after 1:00 a.m. "with my first chair bassoon and another couple." "First chair bassoon" is, I believe, one of those wacky gay slang terms. Anyway, Lasnik admits that he was flirting with Seth a little bit, but he excused himself to go to the bathroom to get some perspective, and when he came out, Seth was gone. "Was anyone else gone?" asks Cassidy. "Not that I noticed," says Lasnik. "Maybe you can tell from the tape." It turns out that one of the other guests had a camcorder -- "Assemblyman Rossi's boyfriend Joe," says Lasnik. "Joe Bandolini."
. . . who turns out to be Officer Bandolini, a beat cop, who reluctantly steps out of his squad car to speak to Stabler and Benson. "Your tape could show the events leading up to the murder," says Benson. "It doesn't," says Bandolini. "Do you mind if we judge that for ourselves?" Bandolini explains that he isn't out to anyone on the squad, not even his partner, and he'd like to keep it that way: "Tape goes into evidence and somehow finds itself circulating the precincts, I'm finished." Stabler tries to assure him that it's not going to happen. "Look," he says, "I've been on the cover of Out magazine, and it hasn't hurt my career." Okay, so he doesn't say that. Either way, Bandolini isn't convinced.
Chung-chung! 55th Precinct Vice Squad. Munch is talking to an old-timer cop about how they used to solve cases with "good old-fashioned shoe leather." Munch is asking Old Cop about the late Detective Conklin, who remembered everything but took lousy notes. "Didn't have much on the Benson case," says Munch, flipping through a notebook. "What does 'pull in C.K.' mean?" Old Cop thinks for a moment. "C.K. -- this is '68," he says, which means it can't be Calvin Klein, known child pornographer. Instead, Old Cop says, "That's got to be Carl Kudlac." The story is, the guy was suspected for a number of rapes, but his wife provided an alibi every time. "She killed herself in '72, or we never would've gotten him." Munch thanks Old Cop. Aww, Munch.
Cap'n Cragen calls Stabler into his office, where Bandolini is sitting with another man, who Cragen introduces as Bandolini's GOAL representative. "Do we really need the Gay Officers Action League involved in all this?" asks Stabler. No, Stabler, we just needed you to spell out the acronym. Thanks. The GOALie explains that it is, because Stabler and Benson are harassing Bandolini. Stabler gets defensive. GOALie insists that Stabler and Benson were being big meanies. Cragen tries to mediate. GOALie assures them that they reviewed the tape and there's no compelling evidence, so they won't hand it over, nyah, nyah. GOALie also threatens a defamation suit if Bandolini is "accidentally on purpose" outed. GOALie and Bandolini leave. "Well, this is just great, they filed an injunction," says Cragen. "I think you better get Benson," he tells Stabler. Exit Stabler. Cragen sighs and thinks, "Why did it have to be the Gay Cop who videotaped the party? Why couldn't it have been the Construction Worker, or the Indian, or the Biker, or the Soldier?"
Benson is at her desk. Munch comes over and tells her that he looked up her case last night. "The Langdon case?" she asks. "No -- your mother's," he says. Benson gets a little freaked and thanks him but insists she's "on it" -- "I can't tell you how many times I've gone over the reports, listened to the statement -- I've pulled everything there is to pull." Munch hands her a folder: "I don't think this was pullable." Benson opens up the dossier while Munch tells her, "I don't know if this will come to anything, but from what I've heard, he's right for it." Just then Stabler comes up and gives Munch a half-joking half-nelson. "You bothering my partner?" Munch laughs, "No." They look at a clearly bothered Benson. "No." She quickly closes the folder with the information on Mr. Right For It.
Chung-chung! Forensics Lab. The ME (we'll call her ME Not Rogers) says she's still waiting for the official DNA results, but she ran a couple of the "quick test results" through the databank and she got a match. "What's the name?" asks Benson. "This isn't going to hold up in court, mind you," warns ME Not Rogers. She blathers something about "running the PCR and the mitochondrial" until Stabler finally gets her to spit out a name. "Ray Gunther," she says. Benson gets a big "huh?" face while Stabler wonders, "where do I know that name?" Benson realizes that he was a notorious predator from the early eighties. David Lee Roth? No -- some guy known as "the Parkway Rapist." "But they put him away," says Benson. "He's out," guesses Stabler. Well, not out out, but out of jail.
Brief scene in which everyone runs around the office freaking out that Ray Gunther's out of prison. Highlight: we get to see Little Briscoe, and he gets to say "Sing Sing."
Finally, Cap'n Cragen finds out that Gunther was paroled a month ago because he served fifteen years of his twenty-five-to-life sentence. He signed up with the Sex Offender Registry. And now he's picked out a nice Sex Offender china pattern. Oh, never mind. Anyway, the SVU has an address for Ray Gunther. It's in the same building where Seth Langdon was killed. Benson and Stabler go back to the apartment of Mr. and Mrs. Brawny, who at first say that no Ray Gunther is staying with them. "This is the address he gave his parole officer," says Stabler. "Any idea why he would've done that?" Mrs. Brawny looks at Brawny Guy. "He's my brother," says Brawny Guy. Later, during the interview at the station, Brawny Guy admits that he legally changed his last name from Gunther. "People gave you a hard time about it?" Stabler guesses. Brawny nods. "Don't let Ray cause you any more trouble than he already has," says Benson. "Just tell us where he is." Brawny says he doesn't know, and shuts his brawny mouth.
Meanwhile Munch and Cassidy interview Mrs. Brawny, who says she knows Brawny won't talk: "You don't know the psychological hold Ray has over him." She explains that when Brawny was fifteen and Ray was first put away, a reporter got Brawny to say he thought his brother should be put to death. "They ran it as a headline. Ray has been working that guilt ever since!" she cries. She says it's why Brawny let Ray stay with them after he got out of prison. Now she's worried that people will find out Brawny is a Gunther. "The whole family's bad. The father was in and out of jail his whole life -- the mother is a piece of garbage -- there is nothing but bad blood in that whole family." Finally, she admits that on the night of the murder Ray was in their apartment until 1:00 a.m. "Where is he now?" asks Munch. She says she doesn't know, but thinks for a minute and tells them that "there's a piece of white trash used to visit him in prison, a stripper named Cindy Stocklash. He might be shacked up with her." "The one time I met her, she was complaining about how she wanted to change motels. Apparently hers didn't get porn," scowls Mrs. Brawny.
At home, Benson plays an old tape of her mother giving a police statement: "Please state your name," says the cop on the tape. "Serena Benson," says Ma Benson. She gives her address and Benson mouths along, like she's heard this tape tons of times. "You were raped?" asks the cop. "Yes," says Serena softly. "Ya gotta speak up, honey," says the cop, and we're all flooded with a nostalgia for the old days before sensitivity training. Oh, did I say "nostalgia"? I meant "bile." On the tape, Serena's voice explains how she took a shortcut from the campus library after it closed at midnight. Meanwhile, Benson looks at the mug shots of Carl Kudlac, a mean-looking guy in sideburns. He's -- well, he's no Mr. Universe, but he looks like he could be Benson's father. The tape voice-over continues as Serena explains that it was dark and she was hit by something from behind. "You were knocked unconscious?" asks the cop. "Yes," says the voice-over, and a quick edit takes us to the crime scene where Benson is playing the tape again and pacing with the tape recorder to her ear. "When I came to, I was on a landing below street level," says the Serena voice-over, and we can see that even in the daylight it looks creepy. Serena goes on to say that a man was on top of her. "He pushed up my dress and --" She starts crying on the tape, and Benson tears up, too. Serena can only describe the attacker as having sideburns. "I don't know -- everything was distorted," she says, weeping. Just then a loud car horn blares in the real world, and Benson jumps. She switches off the tape and hurries out of the vestibule. Benson has Issues. Got it?
Munch and Cassidy are outside El Cheapo motel, looking for a room number. When they find the right door, they lean in and grin at the sounds of the people having sex inside. These sounds, to be precise, are "[rhythmic grunting]" and "[passionate moans]." Thanks, Closed Captioning! Through your magic, the hearing-impaired can enjoy the sleaze with the rest of us. At last, Munch and Cassidy knock: "Detectives, Miss Stocklash," says Munch, "we'd like to ask you a few questions." They hear vague thumps inside, as if somebody is panicking. "Everything okay in there?" grins Cassidy. Cut to the other side of the motel, where a guy is crawling out of the ground-floor bathroom window. But -- d'oh! -- Stabler and Benson are waiting for him. "Look what we have here -- Ray Gunther!" Stabler cuffs Ray; then he and Benson haul him off. Cindy Stock Trash sticks her frizzy head out the window, shrieking, "Ray! Did they hurt you, Ray? Don't you touch him!" Ray shouts, "SHUDDUP!" in a manner most apropos to his white sleeveless undershirt. "I didn't do nothin'!" shouts Cindy. "I said, SHUDDUP!" barks Ray. All of the feel-good family fun of COPS; none of the shoddy production values.
Stabler and Benson tell Ray that he's under arrest for Seth Langdon's murder. "You don't have jack," says Ray. "Yeah, you're right, all we have are witnesses that put you at the building that night," says Benson. "Oh yeah -- and you left a little evidence in the victim's mouth." They haul Ray out to the parking lot where Munch and Cassidy have hauled out Cindy Stock Trash. "Don't worry, they got the wrong guy," Ray tells her. Stabler razzes Ray with the old we-know-you-did-it routine: "One month out and you're back to your old tricks." Benson: "You had a little trouble adjusting back to civilian sex, didn't you, Ray?" "He didn't have no trouble!" bawls Cindy. Ma'am, do you have a license for that stereotype? Cassidy and Munch put her in the car, presumably to check, while Benson and Stabler start asking Ray about Seth. Ray admits that he saw Seth in the building gym sometimes, "trying to pump up that puny body of his." "So what happened, did he hit on you? Or was it you -- you start to like them puny like that?" asks Benson. "Now that you mention it, he reminded me of a bitch I had in prison," says Ray. Benson: "You're pathetic." Ray: "What's wrong -- you jealous, sweetheart?" Stabler pulls Ray's arms behind his back and pins him to the ground. Oh yeah -- if this were Oz, Ray would be his bitch. Stabler growls at Ray: "Not 'sweetheart' -- Detective Benson, all right?" He and Benson pull Ray up and slam him around. You know he loves it.
Back at the station, Cap'n Cragen calls Stabler and Benson into the office. "We got real problems here. We got the full DNA report back." "And?" asks Stabler. "And it ain't Ray's," says Cragen. Twangety-twang! goes the old Dukes of Hazzard Incidental Banjo of Conflict.
Down at the lab, ME Not Rogers reminds Benson and Stabler that she ran the DNA match-up against the quickie tests -- you know, the kind you get at Walgreen's that just show a blue plus sign or a minus sign? Or something. ME Not Rogers says that the match came from the results of the mitochondrial, which only narrows things down to bloodline. "So while it's definitely not Ray, you are still looking for somebody from that family -- a father, a son --" "Or a brother," realizes Benson and the whole universe.
Brother Jesse -- a.k.a. Brawny -- wearing yet another plaid flannel shirt, sits in the interview room again. Stabler and Benson tell him that the DNA test lets his brother off the hook but puts him in the hot seat. "Which really doesn't make any sense to us," says Stabler. "We know your brother's bad, but you've been clean all your life." "Can you explain this?" asks Benson. Wheels turn sloowwwly in Brawny's head: "No." Stabler says that a blood test would clear things up, but Brawny is reluctant. "Maybe -- I should -- call a lawyer," says Brawny. Benson tells him he's free to go, and he lumbers out.
Back in the office, Jeffries and Cassidy tell Munch what they've found in the old L & O Backstory Files: back when Ray Gunther was arrested, he copped a sympathy plea, saying that he and his brother were raped by their dad growing up. "Could explain a few things about Jesse, huh?" says Cassidy. "Except the prosecution put Jesse on the stand," explains Jeffries, "and he said that Ray completely fabricated the story." "So how do we know which one is lying?" wonders Cassidy. Cap'n Cragen and Benson and Stabler come in and join the discussion about the Gunthers' "piss-poor gene pool." "You think Jesse was just born bad?" says Benson. "That's bull," says Stabler. "Destiny isn't predetermined." Everyone opens their mouths and recites whole paragraphs about the nature-vs.-nurture debate from my college psych textbook. Benson stalks off. "Is something wrong?" Stabler asks, following her. What -- could it be that one of our detectives is Taking It Personally? "The only way that Jesse makes sense in all this," says Benson, "is that they're fruit from the same poisoned tree." "You don't really believe that, do you?" says Stabler. Benson just looks at him and walks off.
Law & Order: Original Flavor sends over -- Abby! Kick some butt, Abby! Toss that hair! "I understand your DNA test pulled a little Arkansas two-step," she says to Cap'n Cragen and Stabler. Benson is standing in the back of the room, scribbling something in her notebook -- probably "I hate Abby. She is not all that!" Stabler explains to Abby the snafu with the bloodline test. "Jesse's lawyer is already waving the old A.C.L.U. banner, asking where does it stop -- are we going to test every relative of Ray Gunther's?" "No," says Benson. "Just the one that lives in the victim's building." Abby pretty much ignores her and asks them what else they have beside the DNA. "Only lawyers sandbagging us at every turn." Cap'n Cragen explains that there's the video of Seth at the party, but it's tied up in litigation. "Any way of getting it untied?" asks Abby. Cragen says, "Let me see if I can make an end run of my own," as if acting like a football player would impress Abby or something.
Cap'n Cragen meets Officer Bandolini on a park bench. "I know I'm bending procedure here," says Cragen. "You know we need that tape." "You know what it can do to me," says Bandolini. Cragen nods. Then he tells this long boring story about how Bobby Jones was winning the U.S. Open in 1926 and he accidentally moved the ball and even though nobody saw it he declared the penalty and he lost by a stroke but he never lost sleep over it -- and I guess the moral of this story is: do the right thing, even when you have The Golf Ball That Dare Not Speak Its Name. Cragen swears that he will do everything in his power to protect the tape. Then Bandolini fishes the tape right out of his pocket and gives it to Cragen. "You planned on handing this over all along, didn't you," says Cragen. "Yeah," says Bandolini. "But I enjoyed your golf story." Heh.
Munch and Benson and Stabler and a video tech are reviewing the video, which shows Brawny appearing at the door of the apartment and talking to the host briefly before the door shuts again. "Damn, he doesn't come in," says Benson. Munch, since he's such a conspiracy theory buff, knows more about video analyzing than the tech, and tells him to "enhance section A6," and eventually they concentrate on one little area that is in the corner of the screen which shows the mirror reflection of the hallway in the split second that Seth opens the door to leave the party, and it just so happens that standing there in that brief interval which happened to get reflected in the mirror and which was captured in just the corner of the video frame is -- the second gunman on the grassy knoll! Oops, no -- just Ray Gunther. They decide they'd better talk to Mrs. Brawny again.
Brawny's wife repeats her story: that Brawny came right back down after he went up to the party, but Ray stayed upstairs. Stabler doesn't buy it. "It's insane you have my husband accused of his brother's crime," she says. "Ray has been hell-bent on destroying Brawny his whole life," she explains, and tells them about how Jesse would get depressed after visiting Ray in prison and go on drinking binges. "Jesse's a good man. It's his brother that's poison," she says. Stabler explains the deal with the DNA test -- that it was Brawny's seminal fluid that they found in Seth's mouth. "You're lying," says Mrs. Jesse. "Why do you think Jesse won't give us the blood test?" says Benson. Mrs. Brawny finally admits that Brawny and Ray went up at 1:00 am to complain about the music; Brawny came down -- but then Ray came back and dragged Brawny upstairs again. "Jesse didn't come home until after two," she says, crying.
Benson and Stabler talk to Ray. "It was a joke," he says. "When we'd see that little fag Seth in the gym, I used to rib to Jesse that he was his girlfriend." He says he used to catch Seth's eye, nod over to Jesse and wink, and Seth would blush "like a little schoolgirl." He explains he did the same routine the night of the party. Brawny got mad at Ray's joking about "his girlfriend," tried to punch Ray, and staggered off downstairs. "Then out prances Seth," he says, "I told him, 'Go up on the roof. Jesse will be right up.'" Then Ray went to get Jesse. Benson asks him why he did all this. "Sibling rivalry," says Ray. He pauses. "Our daddy did everything I said he did. Jesse should've been a man and stood up for me at my trial." He insists that he could've gotten five years instead of fifteen. "You got fifteen years because of what you did," says Benson. "Not because of Jesse." Ray takes a drag off his cigarette. "I think it's horrible that my baby brother killed a man -- but he did -- and I had nothing to do with it." "You set it up," says Benson. "I set up a practical joke," says Ray. "Is there a law against that?" He walks off. Dick.
In the interview room once again, Brawny admits that he'd lied about their father's abuse at Ray's trial: "I tried to forget, but Ray wouldn't let me." He says that he'd visit Ray at Sing Sing and Ray would tell him, "Just you wait, you'll end up here sooner or later, it's your legacy." He starts talking about what happened on the roof. "I don't remember -- I was wasted. All I remember is Ray's voice drawing me up there -- it didn't seem real. Someone was on their knees and my pants were down -- and -- (he starts weeping) I killed him -- I killed him." Abby and Cragen are outside listening to the confession. "I'll go file charges for man one," says Abby. She goes to leave, but Cragen calls her back because Benson and Stabler are asking Brawny about whether Ray was on the roof. "I could hear him laughing at me," says Brawny. "That's because he was there, wasn't he," asks Benson. Brawny says he remembers coming out of a fog and seeing Ray standing in the doorway laughing, and then he looked down and saw what Seth was doing. "And Ray said, 'I told you.'" "What, that you were gay?" asks Stabler. Brawny nods. "I wanted to kill him -- not Seth, Ray! I wanted to kill Ray -- I started lashing out at him, because in my mind, I was hitting Ray. But he just kept laughing, and laughing -- and I had to shut him up. I took his head and started bashing, and I just bashed it and bashed it as hard as I could. Then it was finally quiet -- but it wasn't Ray -- it was Seth." "Where was Ray?" asks Stabler. "He was still in the doorway," says Brawny. "And he said, 'Welcome to the family.'" He continues to weep. "Tell me we can charge Ray," Cragen says to Abby. Abby nods. "Inciting a murder, depraved indifference, acccessory." She is pissed. "With Ray's priors, he'll wind up serving more time than Jesse." "Make sure he does, Abby," says Cragen. Abby gives him a look like, "Watch me kick ass."
Stabler and Benson are walking down the hallway. "You heard him," Stabler is saying to her. "Ray was screwing with his brother's mind his whole life. It had nothing to do with blood -- you know that, right?" Benson just says, "There's something I'm going to need to do," and heads for the door. "Olivia, what good is it going to do you to know?" asks Stabler. Benson doesn't say anything.
Out on a street somewhere, Benson walks up to a building (the Rapist Retirement home?) and looks up at the windows. She takes out the mug shot of the sideburned guy and looks at it, then looks up at an sad-looking old man who is leaning out of an upstairs window -- apparently, the same guy. Benson stares a little while, thinking, then walks over to the car where Stabler is waiting and gets in. "He's not my father," says Benson. "You sure?" asks Stabler. "Positive," she whispers. She looks really depressed.