Rook, Line and Sinker

S09E17

The freeze flash mob ends as Elliot's making his way over, and he suddenly proves incapable of making his way through the actually-rather-sparse crowd. And Olivia's not where she said she'd be. Instead of taking out his radio, Elliot stands there looking around.

A swat team followed by the detectives bash into Merritt's apartment. No one's there. Chester shows up with train station photos of Rook leading Olivia out of the station, with her dumping her gun and cellphone in the trash. Elliot figures Rook had a gun on her and she didn't want to risk him shooting civilians.

Desperate to find where Rook might have taken Olivia, Elliot heads over to Aerodax to question Dr. Chang, who was the co-worker Rook didn't want to find out about the prostitute. Turns out they went on a couple of dates, including one memorable one where Rook took her to a jazz club to watch a friend perform. Then, when the friend played "Lush Life," Rook burst out crying and left. The friend came over later and apologized, saying he forgot he'd recorded that song with Rook's wife. "Juliet was a singer," says Elliot, and Dr. Chang says they met when Rook produced one of her albums, which is what he did before he moved into aerospace, over at Tone Down Records in Brooklyn.

Elliot heads there, not with a SWAT team, not with the rest of the detectives, not with any single other law-enforcement official. He finds an abandoned record company, and sneaks around until he finds Rook seated in front of a mixing board. Rook's impressed Elliot found him so quickly. At gunpoint, Elliot frisks him and asks where his partner is. "Or what, you're going to shoot me? Then I don't think you'll ever find her." Elliot, after some consideration, lowers the gun, and Rook says Olivia's right door -- in a soundproof studio with a door that's wired with explosive (to which Rook also has a detonator). Wish you had some backup now, Elliot?

"What do you want?" asks Elliot. Rook says he wants to conduct an experiment, to see how far Elliot will go to save his partner. We can see now that Olivia has things clamped to her neck. Rook flicks a switch on the mixing board and tells Olivia that Elliot's there. She urges Elliot to do whatever Rook says. Elliot asks her if she's all right, and she says again for Elliot to do what Rook says, and Rook flicks the switch again.

Rook makes Elliot sit down, and then lays out the parameters of the experiment. Olivia's in a chair wired for electricity, and shocks can be delivered via the nifty little remote he has. "The Milgram experiment," says Elliot. "You've done your homework," says Rook approvingly. "Only this time, the shocks are real," he says. He then flicks off the light switch, so we can't see Olivia anymore, and pushes a button on the remote and Olivia screams. Well, I'm convinced. Especially since Rook said that was a soundproof room Olivia's in, so I'm not sure why we're hearing her scream. Elliot won't do it, so Rook does it again, and says if Elliot refuses again, he'll increase the length and dosage of the shock. And he launches into a tirade about cops abusing authority, and Elliot feigns sympathy for Rook loses his family. "I didn't lose them," says Rook. "They were taken from you," says Elliot, and Rook goes off the doctor who refused to be challenged, so he caved in, and lost his wife. "I sat there and held my wife's hand and watched her bleed to death!" he yells, and orders Elliot to push the button. Again, Elliot refuses, and Rook does it, and Olivia screams.

A little more digging on the Internet reveals that this isn't the first strip-search prank perpetrated at fast-food chains. There've been a bunch of them (and in real life there was a rash of them in the mid-'90s). But I guess we can't expect that detectives in sex crimes unit would be aware of a rash of crimes in which people are ordered to sexually abuse their victims. The TARU tech says all the calls have been made on phone cards bought at "Valu-Mart," and the cards need to be activated at point of purchase. A click of a mouse reveals the results of facial-recognition work done on security camera feed and comes up with the same guy activating all the cards. There's no mistaking Robin Williams in the security footage, but the detectives focus instead on the ID tag around his neck: Aerodax Labs, and the letters OOK, which could be part of his last name.

Over at Aerodax, we discover that "Merritt Rook" is an audio engineer, who's -- gosh darn it! -- sick today. "Well, we can make a house call. We'll even bring him some chicken soup."

The detectives head over to Rook's place, where an affable, glasses-wearing Robin Williams lets them in and jokes about being arrested for playing hooky. Elliot calls him "Detective Milgram," and Rook doesn't know what he's talking about. Elliot says Rook's the guy who buys all the phone cards at Valu-Mart, which Rook says he gives to homeless people. And when the call to Happiburger was coming in from a library payphone, Rook says he was trout fishing in the Catskills. Corroboration? Sure! Right at hand is a fishing license, hotel bill, and the business card of a diner where he ate his meals. Elliot's all, "Well, that's handy!" and Rook sheepishly says the waitress was sweet on him and wrote her number on the back.

So back at the squadroom, Munch calls her up, and she confirms that he was there for breakfast, lunch and dinner that day. She also says he was after more than the blue-plate special. up is calling the hotel to confirm Rook stayed there, and the guy who answers the phone asks Munch to hold. Wondering why they're doing this on camera instead of just having Fin or Chester deliver the news to Olivia and Benson as usual? It's so Cragen can come in and drop some extremely fortuitous personal knowledge about how the EPA isn't allowing any fishing licenses up there for some reason or another (does it really matter?). As the Margaretville Lodge manager gets on the phone to confirm Rook stayed there, Elliot gets a look on his face. So did I, since the manager was clearly Robin Williams deepening his voice a few tones. Elliot whispers in Munch's ear, and Munch asks the manager how the trout are up that way. "They're biting up a storm."

So Elliot and Olivia ride back over to Rook's place and listen in as Cragen dials the lodge number again -- answered by Rook in his apartment, and the detectives swoop in. They note several rental phones. Rook, still on the phone: "Please hold."

Back at the station, Rook wants the detectives to believe that he'd rather his co-workers think he was just playing hooky rather than he was with a prostitute, which is what he's saying now. Here's a tip for the detectives: when you check his alibi with the hooker? Don't do it over the phone. He says he misses his dead wife terribly. Oh, so it's like Good Will Hunting! Elliot has a different take: "You screw whores in your dead wife's bed." Rook says they just sleep, which he finds comforting, and if he closes his eyes, it's like Juliet's back. Then, at the mention of Happiburger, Rook says he hasn't eaten there in twenty years, since he's a localvore, meaning he only eats local, organic seasonal food (optional: being insufferably smug about it).

Casey and Cragen are watching the questioning. Casey says they don't have him for anything other than obstruction for lying, and they need to prove he made those calls. That's Fin's cue: he strolls up with surveillance photos from a bank camera that happened to pick up Rook entering the library just before the call was made to Happiburger. "Lock him up," says Casey.

Rook's representing himself in court, and judges on Law & Order are contractually obligated to remind such defendants of the adage about the man representing himself has a fool for a client. Rook says he doesn't make enough to afford a private attorney but too much for a public defender. Isn't there something in Miranda about "if you can't afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you"? The judge says just that, and Rook shits all over court-appointed lawyers who will sleepwalk through the trial of a client who won't make him rich. He amiably agrees to $250,000 bail (he'll put up his apartment for it), and then tells Casey he's looking forward to working with her. He's smiling like he knows how often she loses cases. "Yeah, should be fun," she says.

During the trial, Rook asks Elliot (who says he has no doubts about Rook's guilt) if he's ever heard of someone strip-searching someone else on phoned-in orders, Elliot says "nothing surprises me" about what depraved people will do, and doesn't say anything about the RASH of cases the police know about. Rook asks if it doesn't make more sense that Lomax wanted to get his jollies and then concocted a cover story. And it kind of does make more sense -- except for all the other cases the cops know about. Which Elliot again doesn't mention. He says a phone call was made from the library to Happiburger that morning on a phone card Rook bought. Rook reminds him that he gives them to homeless people, who are known to hang out at the library, and also be crazy! Elliot says they have a photo of Rook entering the library. "Are you sure?" asks Rook.

Because up on the stand is TARU tech Morales, who testifies as to how he enhanced the picture of Rook entering the library. Rook calls it "manipulating," and puts up a huge print of the original picture, which is a wide shot of the library steps. And the pre-enhancement individual identified as Rook shows a figure whose face is entirely shaded. "It could be me, or it could be juror number four," he says, pointing and smiling at the jury. "It's not me," says the juror, practically blushing like the cute girl in class just winked at him. "Me either," says Rook, who then asks Morales how the computer enhancement works, and Morales starts in with the algorithms and whatnot, and Rook simplifies it down to guesses, and says guesses aren't the truth.

That night, Huang brings coffee to Casey, who's lamenting how good Rook would be if he had a law degree. "He's manipulative. He gets off on making people do things they don't want to do," says Huang. Casey reminisces about her school days where some jerk Dougie got kids to eat rabbit turds by pretending they were raisins. Not coincidentally, he now sells used cars. Huang suggests looking into Rook's childhood to try to explain his pathology. How about looking for actual hard evidence? Did you think of that?

Rook's now on the stand testifying, and fortunately not asking himself questions and answering questions in two distinct voices. He says he's never been in trouble with the law and spends his days working on technology to make people's lives better. Casey asks if he's ever been arrested, and Rook says no, and Casey whips out a forty-year-old newspaper article completely with picture of a young Merritt Rook arrested for arson after burning down a house. Fortunately this backwater little rag has the time and money to go back into its archives and scan all its articles and photographs just in case anybody needs to Google them. The judge rules it admissible over Rook's objections, and Casey points out that he just lied to the jury. Rook spins a story about older boys doing drugs in this old house, and raping a young girl, so he burned down their house. He says he didn't go to the cops over what was going on, because the son of the chief was the ringleader. "You can check," he says, because the guy is now in prison for raping three women. "I had to stop them; I didn't know what to do."

Casey stands there and furrows her brow at Rook for about five hours. I hope the court stenographer got it all.

Since Casey has a hard time with airtight cases, it's pretty clear she's not going to be able to win with doubtful evidence, and when Rook delivers an effective closing argument in which he urges the jury not to just blindly follow orders, Casey's done for. Not to mention you couldn't turn on NBC for the past week without seeing a maniacal Robin Williams with a captive Olivia Benson, so we're all just waiting for the last five minutes anyway, aren't we? Rook's found not guilty, thanks the jury, and hugs Casey ("back off!" snaps Elliot). He runs off, presumably to the cultural crimes against humanity court, where Man of the Year, RV, and License to Wed may be tipping the scales in favor of the death penalty.

So the day, Rook's all over some crappy morning talk show with his pet sheep (named Elliot, much to Stabler's consternation), since he's becoming a folk hero with his anti-authoritarian views, and his supporters are having a rally in Bryant Park. "Let's go crash his party," says Olivia, and this is where Cragen probably ought to say, "Instead of harassing people found innocent by the courts, maybe you could work on actual cases," but he doesn't say anything.

Shit, even Casey tags along (guess she's got nothing better to do either) to this improbable rally, where hundreds of people have mobilized in support of a guy who was charged with sexual assault, and Rook yells at everybody to embrace chaos. And apparently everyone knew to bring pillows, which they cut open and litter the air with down. Yes, nothing says "I embrace chaos" by participating in a planned, synchronized pillow-tearing. Elliot almost looks like he's enjoying himself. And -- there's Munch in the crowd, anti-sheep button pinned to his jacket, gleefully taking part in the pillow fight.

Back at the station, Munch (rolling a lint brush over his suit) tells the other detectives that they got Rook wrong; that his phone calls were not about sex but about the importance of questioning authority. "I don't condone what he did, but I understand where he's coming from."

More background from Munch, who spoke to Rook, who also hates managed care because his wife died in childbirth (and they lost the baby). Casey wonders why Rook never filed a medical malpractice suit, and Elliot doesn't figure a guy who's cool with making teenage girls suffer is going to let a doctor off the hook for killing his family.

Over to St. Mark's hospital, where we find that Dr. Slifkin died a few years ago in a freaky car accident, in which a semi took off his head. The official word was brake failure, but the nurse says she'd heard the doctor'd had one too many. She also remembers Rook, who insisted on a C-section, but the doctor overruled him but missed a complication that led to her death. The nurse says Rook threatened to kill Slifkin.

So the detectives delve into the case file; Elliot figures a smarty-pants engineer like Rook could easily tamper with brakes. Warner reviewed the autopsy and says the doctor's blood-alcohol level was .04, which wouldn't be enough to make the liver-cirrhotic doctor drunk. No sign of brake tampering either, and one of the forensics guys cues up the Pole Position-looking computer recreation, in which the doctor's car actually sped up before it hit the semi. So ... tampering with the gas? The death was ruled a suicide, since the doctor left a note and everything, saying he wanted to spare his wife: "Det. Milgram won't stop calling me. He says I'm going to prison for murder. I never meant to harm that woman and her baby. God forgive me."

In case everyone else is an idiot, Olivia says Rook pushed the doctor to suicide. So they'll dump his phone records, and that plus the note should be enough, right? Hold on, says the non-Warner forensics guy, who happens to be on Rook's website, which is exhorting the non-sheep to all go to Grand Central Station tonight for the most fun yet.

When Elliot and Olivia get there, there's no sign of anything going on, so they split up. Then, the leader of the Bryant Park rally yells over a megaphone "No sheep!" And several of the people in Grand Central freeze in place. Wow, consider my world sufficiently rocked, you guys. Way to make me question my conformist values. Olivia spots Rook, radios Elliot to come meet her, and tells him he's under arrest for the murder of Dr. Slifkin. Rook mournfully says he was a sheep and let the doctor slaughter his family.

Rook wants to know why Elliot won't push the button, and Elliot says it's because too many people have suffered already. At which point Rook congratulates him for being a man and flicks the switch to reveal Olivia unhurt (the screams were pre-recorded). So Elliot passed the Milgram test, did he? Except since the Milgram experiment was all about people capitulating to authority, and it's not like Elliot felt Rook was any kind of authority figure. Plus, ask any parent how "Do this or I'll do it myself" works as a way to get people to do anything.

But the preposterousness is not over: Elliot handcuffs Rook, then goes to free Olivia (the door's not actually wired), who says Rook told her he had a bomb he was going to detonate in Grand Central.

And as the detectives walk Rook to the car, he asks to tie his shoe. For some reason, Elliot says OK, which is when Rook uses an iTrigger to blow up Tone Down Records, sending the three of them flying through the air. Of course, the mid-50s Rook is up quicker than the cops and off running down the street, and ducks into some bushes, and the detectives lose him by the riverside. "He went into that water cuffed. He's dead," she says, as they stand by the completely undisturbed water from which we heard no splash.

Case closed, I guess. Nice work, detectives. Try to look shocked when Merritt Rook returns during sweeps.