In a boardroom, a bunch of suits are standing around harrumphing instead of sitting around the conference table. A younger suit, carrying a load of documents, comes in, and frantically e-mails (on his MockBerry) some guy named Jeremy. A suit comes over to chew the guy out because his boss isn't here yet, and he's the one responsible for this "dog and pony show."
The assistant lets himself into Jeremy's apartment, only to find out what we already know; he's dead. In bed.
Warner tells the detectives this guy was raped, and asphyxiated. Unsettlingly, his mouth is frozen open in either a laugh or a scream. His knuckles are banged up, which could mean he fought back, and for the mouth to stay open like that, something had to have been wedged open until rigor mortis set in. Also, the body was moved. A gym bag stuffed down a laundry chute carries the victim's name -- Jeremy Haines -- as well as a possible answer to the mouth mystery: A ball gag. Also, satin restraints and chaps. Olivia looks at the assistant and wonders about a potential "play date."
Back at the station, the detectives interview the assistant, who stonewalls but then confesses to finding Jeremy in the ball gag, chaps and restraints, and he pulled it all off and tossed the stuff in the trash. "I didn't want it to get in the papers that he was into kink," he says. The detectives are all, "You mean, you killed him, right?" The assistant denies it, but doesn't know of a boyfriend who might have been into violence and accidentally killed Jeremy. He says Jeremy volunteered at a shelter for homeless gay teens, one of whom beat him up so bad he had to miss work last week.
The guy who runs the place say the kids loved Jeremy, but under the withering questioning from Elliot and Olivia admits a "confused kid," Freddie Ramirez, had a beef with Jeremy.
Over at the Hell's Kitchen gym where Freddie Ramirez works, the manager, Candayce, an eight-foot tall post-op transsexual says she wants to fire Freddie because things are always disappearing from lockers, but she only has suspicions right now, plus the gym members love him. I think she's also making Stabler question a few things about himself. Stabler finds Freddie in the locker room stealing (so I'm not sure why it was so hard for Candayce to prove Freddie has sticky fingers, and Freddie bolts, necessitating a shower-room take-down from Elliot.
At the station, Freddie's alibi is that he and his friends went to a movie. The bruise on his face is from a fight with Jeremy Haines. "Bitch thought he was tough." "So you killed him?" asks Elliot. Freddie either didn't know or is pretending he didn't know Jeremy is dead. "You just admitted to beating the crap out of him," Elliot points out. Freddie says Jeremy boxed to stay in shape, and Freddie convinced him he hasn't fought until he's done it bare-knuckled.
Olivia's watching the interrogation, when Warner walks in, saying they found Ramirez's blood is all over the apartment (he was booked on assault charges six months ago). Olivia pops into the interrogation room to pass on the info, and Freddie explains it away by saying he had a raging nose bleed at Jeremy's apartment while watching the Knicks. Anyone who watched the Knicks this season can probably sympathize. He finally admits to being shot down by Jeremy, who told him he was too young, plus he was serious about someone else. "Jeremy said the guy was really famous and still in the closet."
Olivia and Elliot are tossing out theories, while Fin and Chester let them know Freddie's and the assistant's alibis check out. "Would you miss your boyfriend's funeral?" asks Elliot rhetorically. Olivia says she would, if she were gay and in the closet. Elliot thinks you'd find a way to visit the grave when no one could see you.
So, apparently the cops install a nightvision pole cam at the cemetery. Either that or the groundskeeper wants video evidence of the zombies rising up some day. Munch does the play by play, as he explains some mystery man jumped the fence at 3 a.m. In a stroke of amazing good fortune, the camera is positioned just right to see the guy's face when he stands at Jeremy's grave. Elliot's all "holy shit! No wonder he's in the closet." "You know him?" asks Olivia. Careful, Olivia. It's Lincoln Haver, says Elliot, the best quarterback in pro football. "Pro football"? I guess the NFL wasn't going to be too quick to sign off on this product placement, huh?
"Lincoln Haver is gay? Damn!" says Fin. "I thought he was dating Natasha Gorsky, that hot supermodel!" says Chester, Chester says there have been a bunch of football players who've come out, and then he lists the only three who have ever done so. And make of this what you will, but he didn't need to look up their names or anything. "My grandfather had sex with them," he explains. Oh. The guys talk about endorsement contracts. "So some football player is gay? What's the big deal?" asks Olivia, who I think may have seen enough people hurt or killed because they were gay not to ask why this would be a big deal in the hyper-masculine professional sports world. Then again, maybe she's confused about the homophobia surrounding a sport in which teams of guys wear tight pants, bend over every single play, rub up against each other, and shower together afterwards.
Off to "practice field" of the unnamed pro football team, where a couple of players get suggestive with Olivia as she walks across the field with Elliot. They catch up with Lincoln to ask him about Jeremy Haines, who Lincoln says was his business manager. "We know he handled more than your business," says Elliot, and they show him the cemetery camera photos, and Lincoln says, "I can't talk to you here."
Back at the station, Lincoln says he and Jeremy were going to go public, but it's not like they could just announce their engagement. Because you knew you'd get booted out of football, says Olivia. Lincoln says he wanted one more shot at a championship. The night of the murder, Lincoln went out for dinner with Jeremy, Natasha and his agent. Elliot thinks it's "ballsy" that he went on a date with his boyfriend and girlfriend. Lincoln glares at him, and says Jeremy was tired of the games. Afterwards, Lincoln says, he went with Natasha to some "hot new club" which is so hot that Lincoln can't remember its name. "I drank to much," he says, but he knows he went home with Natasha.
Natasha crabs that "Linc" is a hit-and-run kind of guy who never stays the night. And who never, um, plows the field, apparently, as he always has some sort of excuse, like team curfew or saving his strength. When Natasha says, "If he wants to screw around with boys," Olivia unfortunately takes her literally and says, "Oh, so you knew about him and Jeremy." As realization dawns on Natasha, she says it explains everything. Then she says "fag," calls her friend Sineade and says "homo," and "ass bandit," worries about AIDS, and in general displays the sexual maturity of a seventh grader in 1986. She also grabs her breasts and says, "There's nothing wrong with these girls! Just girls!" Emmy clip! As Olivia and Elliot leave, Natasha suggests they have a chat with Gary Leslie, Lincoln's agent, since her ex-boyfriend is gonna need a new job.
Gary is a minor Hey! It's That Guy Rick Hoffman, currently also on Samantha Who?, so I'm guessing he did it now. He says Natasha called him, in a rampage, but he shut her up by offering her the cover of the swimsuit issue, and got Sineade on The View. I know that if wanted to keep my client's homosexuality quiet, I'd get one of the few people who knows about it on a national talk show. He's skeptical that Lincoln even is gay, but the detectives say they got it straight from the man himself, and Olivia fesses up to spilling the beans to Natasha. Gary calls that a major mistake, but adds that damage control is his specialty. He also thinks that Lincoln couldn't have killed anybody, because as tough as he is on the field, off the field he's a teddy bear. And I'm more sure he did it, since there's no way this guy didn't know Lincoln was gay, especially since the whole Natasha-beard scenario was concocted by him and Natasha's publicist. And given how much an agent would have to lose if Lincoln lost his job and endorsement contracts.
At the forensics lab, Warner says there was fresh star-quarterback semen on Jeremy's body, so the detectives figure Lincoln fought with Natasha, then went to Jeremy's, where they had sex and then Lincoln killed him. Olivia asks if it's possible Jeremy choked on the ball gag, and Warner says that's what we're supposed to think, because the gag was inserted post-mortem. She says he was strangled with a cylindrical object with a diamond pattern (and a broken hyoid bone makes an appearance in a second straight episode), exactly like a dumbbell bar. Jeremy had a weight set in his apartment, which is one weight short. Elliot figures that's enough for a warrant.
Over at Lincoln's apartment, Olivia and Elliot are being stalled by the doorman, who says Lincoln's at home. Suddenly, a lobby window is shattered, and outside Lincoln's getting a mighty beatdown by a few guys. "Try running to Daddy, faggot!" yells one of them, and they all run off, with Elliot being too slow to catch them. Lincoln's bloody and barely conscious on the sidewalk. "His secret's out," says Olivia. Sure is. How'd that happen?
In the hospital, the detectives question Lincoln (who has a fractured skull -- "I've had a lot worse happen on the field," he says) about what happened. He says he heard a car, then someone yelled, "Get the faggot," and then something hit him in the head. He didn't see their faces, he says, and drifts off to sleep. Elliot gets off his cellphone (who answers their cellphone when visiting someone in the hospital? Rude!) and tells Olivia that the apartment search didn't turn up the murder weapon. Olivia thinks it's crazy that their perp is now a victim, like she's never seen this before. Elliot all matter-of-factly wants to hand off the gay bashing to bias crimes and focus on the homicide, but given that Olivia might be wondering if this is her fault, I can understand her being a little freaked out by it.
And this frame of mind wouldn't be helped by Lincoln's agent, strolling in, saying, "Good job, detectives," and announcing he's filing suit against them individually as well as against the NYPD for negligence, for outing Lincoln. Someone told shock jock "Sportsman Larry" who apparently told five million listeners that Lincoln Haver is a "big, flaming faggot," and Sineade and Natasha swear they weren't the ones who told Sportsman Larry. Since Sineade and Natasha are obviously moral pillars, Gary's pointing the finger of blame at the detectives. Just then, lights and sirens start going off on Lincoln's medical equipment, and a doctor runs in and starts yelling things.
Olivia and Elliot listen to "Sportsman Larry" make jokes about queers not being satisfied with being hairdressers but also wanting to get their hands "on our balls." Arriving at the station, there's a throng of rainbow-colored protestors holding up signs denouncing the NYPD's outing of Lincoln Haver, and I'd think they'd be more likely to be protesting outside Sportsman Larry's building. I figure the fantasy football fans with Lincoln as their starting quarterback would be the ones protesting the outing.
"What the hell did you two do?" snaps Cragen when they walk in, and can't be arsed to listen to Olivia say they didn't tell Sportsman Larry, because "somebody did." And the brass wants a full investigation. IAB is waiting, and Olivia's up first.
IAB's dumped Olivia's phone records -- whoa! Already? -- and the investigating officer points out a phone number Olivia has called twelve times in the last five days -- it's the phone number of one Kurt Moss, who's an editor at the Ledger, which just happened to run a story on Big Gay Lincoln (under the headline, I swear to God, "Homo-cide") even before Sportsman Larry announced it. So what were you calling Kurt Moss about, asks Tucker. Olivia reluctantly says they've been dating. But when pressed, she admits no one knows about it. "So you're creating this fictional booty call to save your own ass," says the IAB. Well, presumably Kurt knows about it, right? "He's my boyfriend!" says Olivia. "And you're his source," snaps Tucker. Well, source of booty, maybe.
Out in the squad room, an angry Olivia snaps that Tucker took her gun and shield, and she stomps off. "What the hell for?" asks Cragen. Oh, so now he's mad at IAB? Make up your mind Cragen. Don't be a douchebag to everybody. Elliot calls Tucker a son of a bitch, and Tucker says Olivia's been sleeping with an editor at the Ledger for months. It's news to Elliot, and Tucker snaps that maybe he doesn't know his partner as well as he thinks. "I know she'd never torpedo a case," says Elliot, but Tucker doesn't think Elliot's judgment is worth anything since he didn't know she was "screwing the paperboy." So...Olivia's discretion is a mark against her?
Elliot stomps out himself. "Where the hell are you going?" snaps Cragen. Cragen never says anything. He snaps everything. "You know where I'm going," says Elliot. Judging from the glum look on his face, I don't think he does, Elliot. Cragen looks like he's thinking, I wish he were going to get me a ham and cheese.
No, Elliot's storming over to the offices of Kurt Moss, played by Bill Pullman, who's looking more and more like Martin Sheen everyday. Elliot tries to bully Moss into giving up the source of the Lincoln story, but Moss won't budge. "There must be a reason she hasn't told you about me," says Moss. And then Olivia walks in, and chews out the two men in her life, saying she doesn't need their help. Elliot stomps out, saying "Nice to meet you," ostensibly at Kurt, but actually very pointedly at Olivia, who rolls her eyes. Kurt says he'll swear an affidavit to the IAB that she wasn't the source, and then he wants to have a discussion about why she won't move in with him, but Olivia's not interested, and I have to say neither am I. And it turns out we won't have to worry about Kurt too much longer anyway.
Elliot's working at his desk when Olivia strolls in, saying her suspension's been lifted. "Your man came through," says Elliot, amiably. Olivia says she's sorry she didn't tell Elliot about him. "I'm just glad you have someone," he says. "You could have said something, you know."
Cragen comes out to announce that Haver's out of his coma and the brass wants him locked up, since the media has moved on the police can't seem to be giving special treatment to a murder suspect because he's gay or a football player.
In the hospital room, Lincoln reflects on all the years of living in fear of being found out. Olivia apologizes for outing him. "It was bound to happen," says Lincoln, who asks if they have any leads on his killer. "Well, you're never going to believe this," says Elliot, reaching for his handcuffs...
Back at the interrogation room, Lincoln sticks to his story of spending the night with Natasha, and the detectives line up the evidence against him.
"I remember going to his apartment. Then it's all a blur." Elliot creepily bends over and starts prompting Lincoln's story by whispering in his ear, and we get a cop-coached confession at the forty-five-minute mark of the episode. "Oh, god, what did I do?" says Lincoln. "I didn't want to hurt him. I loved him."
The judge is played by Peter Gerety, awesome, and Lurleen Lumpkin is representing Lincoln. She balks at Novak's request of two million dollars bail; she says Lincoln isn't a flight risk, having just awoken from a coma. Casey tries to argue the case right there in court, and Lurleen's defence is her brain-addled client did it because of football. "That's almost as good as the Twinkie defense," says Casey. "Nope. It's even better," says Lurleen.
In the judge's chambers, Lurleen says all the concussions Lincoln has suffered playing football means he has a dementia that prevents him from forming the necessary intent to commit murder. Casey's all "'fraid not!" but the judge orders a psychiatric evaluation anyway.
Huang asks some questions ("When you were in the coma, do you remember your brain getting damaged?"), hooks up some diodes, asks him to perform some simple tasks. Conclusion? All the concussions mean Lincoln shows signs of a possible seizure disorder (and potentially blackouts, although those generally happen within forty-eight hours of the concussion, and Lincoln's last one was too long ago to be used as a defence here), and repeated head trauma can cause memory loss, depression and Alzheimer's-like dementia. It's not uncommon in football players, hockey players and boxers. "So you're saying there is a chance Lincoln isn't responsible for his actions. Yep, says Huang.
So I guess you're going to offer a plea, huh Case -- oh, "Trial part 44," huh? OK.
Lurleen questions Lincoln about the headaches he gets after he gets his bell rung on the field, and Lincoln talks about the blackouts, including one time when he called up his mom and yelled at her not to come at a game because she's a jinx. Only he doesn't remember doing that. That's enough questioning from Lurleen? Really? Well done, counselor. Casey strolls up and says since he confessed to the murder, he must remember something about that night. Lincoln says the cops confused him; he remembers fighting with Jeremy, not killing him. "What was your last fight about?" asks Casey. "Coming out of the closet," he says, after a moment.
"You'd lose your career if you came out, right?" says Casey. Lincoln says he didn't care: "We were in love." "But you loved football more." "Jeremy came first. That's why I married him." In Canada! Woo!
Casey bitches at the detectives for missing Lincoln's "big fat gay wedding," and Elliot wants to know what the big deal is, since straight guys kill their wives all the time. Casey says Lincoln's sympathetic, since he was gay-bashed and almost died, and the marriage license means he can play the grieving widower. Plus, as Olivia notes, he does look good in a suit and tie. "How am I supposed to rebut that?" "Good question," says Cragen, strolling in to announce that Elliot's been called as a defense witness. And defense asked Cragen to deliver the news?
Back to the trial. Lurleen asks Elliot if Lincoln was confused or disoriented when they interviewed him. Elliot says no. Lurleen says most of the details in the confession came from Elliot, since Lincoln didn't remember what happened. "At first; then he got his memory back," says Elliot. Yeah, Elliot, that sounds kinda like "confused" to me. Lurleen goes on about Elliot questioned a brain-injured man in a suggestible state, and then veers wildly off course to say that the moment Lincoln Haver's name came up, he was Elliot's prime suspect because he's a "violent" (using Elliot's word) football player. "He's a victim of your stereotype," says Lurleen.
Casey steps up to request a recess to show some video footage of Lincoln playing football, which she luckily has at the ready now that Lurleen's "opened the door" with her suggestion of anti-football-player bias on Elliot's part.
The videotape is of Lincoln losing his shit on a rookie teammate during practice, after the rookie accidentally jostled Lincoln's arm. Lincoln throws him to the ground, kicks him, and throws his helmet at him. "That is the real Lincoln Haver," says Casey proudly. The verdict? Guilty.
Elliot and Olivia are having beers at a bar, and we learn that Olivia has just broken up with Kurt. So much for Bill Pullman, I guess. Maybe he was just in the neighborhood and asked for a quick cameo. The bartender's all, "Hey, Olivia! Your case is on TV!" Except it's not; it's Gary, announcing his new client, who is Lincoln's replacement (I guess teams let agents do this sort of thing in SVU's world). "Just don't let me catch you making out with your boyfriend in a restaurant bathroom!" he jokes with the guy.
While I would have taken that as just a sad fag joke, Olivia (again) takes it literally, and says Gary told them he didn't know Lincoln was gay until after the murder. "Then how could he have caught him in the bathroom?" asks Elliot, also taking it literally.
In this case, he did mean it literally, and the detectives are now interrogating Gary, who's still saying he found out Lincoln was gay when Natasha called him. At this point, Olivia dumps the murder weapon onto the table, which was found in Gary's apartment and it comes out that Gary saw Lincoln and Jeremy making out in the bathroom. Jeremy saw Gary, but Lincoln didn't, so Gary went to Jeremy's place that night to try to talk some sense into him, but Jeremy told him they were getting married ("getting"?) and that Gary would have to find a new cash cow. "Hell yeah I lost it! The stupid little fairy's ruining everything!" yells Gary. He calms down. "I didn't mean to kill him." It was all Gary. The sex toys, the media leak, everything. He rants about all the work he's done, and the boyfriend was going to take it all away. Blah blah blah diatribe blah blah. I find it very hard to believe that Gary KEPT THE MURDER WEAPON ALL THIS TIME.
So the detectives free Lincoln from prison. He says he confessed because he remembered fighting with Jeremy and thinking he must have done it. He won't be playing football again, though, what with his permanent brain damage. Fortunately, he's been hired to write SVU episodes, so he's got that going for him.