Written By Ken Storer
Directed By Peter Leto
A money manager is found murdered in his loft and a hidden video camera leads detectives to a closeted gay, star football player whose agent may have also had role.
Tropes present in this episode
- Armored Closet Gay: Lincoln.
- The Beard: Natasha is this to Lincoln, who was secretly married to someone else. She is not pleased when she finds out the truth.
- Bittersweet Ending: Lincoln Haver's name might be cleared of murder, and the real killer is finally brought to justice, but Lincoln's career is ruined by the scandal and the injuries he sustained, and his husband is dead. It might as well not have made a difference if he was in jail.
- Bury Your Gays: What kickstarts this episode's plot.
- Career-Ending Injury: If the scandal didn't kill it, then the permanent brain damage he sustained over the years and during his assault certainly ended his career.Lincoln Haver: I had it all. Career, someone I loved. Football gave me everything. Then took it all away.
- I Never Said It Was Poison: Gary accidentally reveals himself as the actual murderer when he makes a joke in national television to Lincoln's replacement Dwayne Fitzgerald to promise not to catch him kissing another man in a restaurant bathroom. Olivia notices that Gary claimed he didn't know Lincoln was gay, but the comment seems to suggest he walked in on Lincoln and the victim prior to the murder, which in turn suggests he did know and lied about it.
- Heteronormative Crusader: Lincoln Haver gets his football career destroyed because he was surrounded by homophobes and Olivia accidentally outed him although it turns out Olivia's accidental reveal of the suspect's orientation wasn't the problem; the person who outed Haver was the real murderer, his agent, who had caught Haver kissing his boyfriend a while before. And Haver's career ended up ruined partly because the investigation revealed he had permanent brain damage as a result of the many concussions he suffered on the field.
- Homophobic Hate Crime: Lincoln himself is on the receiving end of this by an group of thugs shortly after he gets outed.
- Jerkass: Natasha immediately establishes herself as vapid and homophobic after finding out that her boyfriend is gay, the first thing she does is out him to one of her friends just to spite him.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Homophobic slurs aside, Lincoln did use Natasha as an unwitting beard on top of not even disclosing to her that he was married. She had every right to be upset about that.
- Thought They Knew Already: Olivia assumed Natasha knew about Lincoln being gay when she sarcastically says it's fine with her if Lincoln screws around with other boys. This causes her to unintentionally reveal the truth to Natasha.Natasha Gorsky: If he'd rather screw around with boys, that's fine with me.Det. Olivia Benson: So you knew about him and Jeremy.Natasha Gorsky: Knew what?
