"In the criminal justice system, sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous." "In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit." "These are their stories." "Welcome to HappiBurger." "May I take your order?" "What you can take is a mop and a bucket to the ladies' room." "Poor kid's tossing her cookies in there." "Thank you for your excellent feedback, and you have a HappiBurger day." "Joel, we got a barfer in the bathroom." "Gee, thanks." "Highlight of my day." ""Joel, we got a barfer in the bathroom. "" "Welcome to HappiBurger." "Would you like E. Coli with your order or how about a supersize of salmonella?" "Please don't make me do it!" "Everything okay in there?" "Help me!" "Trini, is that you?" "The suspect and victim are barricaded in the manager's office." "The door's reinforced steel, so we're waiting for ESU to come boom it." "No one has keys?" "Just the manager, Dwight Lomax." "But he's MIA." "You have an ID on the victim?" "One female employee unaccounted for when we evacuated, Trini Martinez." "Any contact with the perp?" "Says he'll only open the door for Detective Milgram." "Did you reach out to him?" "One PP says there is no Milgram on the job." "Police." "Open up." "Detective Milgram, is that you?" "He's on his way." "I'm his partner." "Thank God you're here." "I did everything he told me to." "Ah." "Is Detective Milgram here yet?" "He's stuck in traffic." "He said to start without him." "That's all right." "He already knows what happened, anyway." "Yeah, I don't." "So why don't you fill me in?" "I was sitting at my desk working on our team-building program when Detective Milgram called." "What did he say?" "He said that one of my employees stole a wallet from a customer, and the woman was at the precinct filling out a complaint." "So I asked what I could do." "He said I should hold Trini until he got there so she couldn't hide any evidence." "So what did you do?" "I told her to get her thieving little butt into my office, pronto." "I showed him I didn't have nothing in my pockets but my lip gloss." "He got on the phone and he told someone." "Do you know who he was talking to?" "He said it was you, the police." "And then Mr. Lomax put the phone down, and he locked the door." "For what?" "To search her." "Detective Milgram said she must have hidden the cash in her clothes." "Or maybe she wasn't the thief." "Milgram said he had evidence that she had the money on her." "He told me to pat her down." "He touched me all over." "I told him this wasn't right, but he kept doing it." "Did he find anything?" "No, 'cause I didn't steal nothing." "Milgram said I had to strip-search her." "And you thought that was okay?" "Well, he said I was acting as an agent of the police, so it was legal." "I put on gloves." "He made me take my clothes off, and he put his hands on me." "Everywhere." "I begged him to stop, but he didn't." "I told the detective she was clean, but he said I must have missed something, that I should hold her in my office until he got there to do a proper search, and it took you guys a half an hour." "You strip-searched a teenage girl and kept her naked in your office for 30 minutes?" "No." "Detective Milgram said she could keep her apron on." "You're an idiot." "I resent that, Detective." "After all I've done to help the police department?" "You sexually-abused a girl because a voice on the phone told you to." "I was just following Detective Milgram's orders." "There is no Detective Milgram." "The whole thing was a scam." "Oh, my God." "Just following orders." "That's the preferred defense of every war criminal from Eichmann to Milosevic." "Dwight's so thick, he got punked by a phone call." "Well, he's a victim of corporate America." "Here we go." "You know, the franchise mentality mandates conformity." "Employees are lemmings." "You don't follow the manual, bye-bye, HappiBurger." "You can say bye-bye to Dwight." "He's looking at three-to-six." "What about this Detective Milgram?" "He's the one who pulled Dwight's strings." "Stanley Milgram?" "He's dead." "What?" "You knew him?" "Not personally." "But the real Milgram was a psychology professor who instructed volunteers to give electroshocks to screaming victims." "Sounds like a nutcase." "Well, the shocks weren't real." "The real nuts were the people frying their friends because somebody told them to." "So what do we have on this phone freak?" "Phone call's a dead end." "They used a pre-paid card on a pay phone at the public library in Midtown." "So maybe the library has surveillance cameras." "Not a chance." "Librarians took on Big Brother so we wouldn't be able to monitor what you and I are reading." "Trace the guy who bought the airtime." "TARU tried." "The card was one of a batch sold at the ValueMart uptown." "They can't tell who bought the individual card." "He's either really lucky or damn good." "Well, my money's on good." "He's all over the web." "Check out this." "LhateHappiBurger." "Com." ""Un-HappiBurger." "Share your horror story here. "" "All the postings are from ex-employees." "It's the revenge of the corporate wage slaves." "Look at this." ""Beware of the HappiHoaxer. "" "He instructs HappiBurger employees to perform criminal acts under the guise of a police officer." "He's hit fast-food chains all over the country, a lot of them here in New York." "Why haven't we heard of this guy?" "I built a database of every hoax." "Your guy's got some predictable routines." "Yeah." "Every call came in on a weekday morning between 10:00 and 11:30." "After the breakfast rush, before lunch." "Managers would be less likely to blow him off when they weren't busy." "Did you dump the phones?" "Yeah." "He uses a pay phone and a fresh pre-paid calling card every time." "But Fin says you can't track the phone cards back to the purchaser." "No, but he bought them all at the same ValueMart." "Each card has to be activated by a cashier after it's sold, and the activation is logged by the computer." "So, we know when our guy was in the store." "ValueMarts have security cameras over the doors." "I took the tapes, ran them through facial recognition software looking for the same guy." "You find him?" "Yep." "Last six transactions." "Can you cross-reference with a credit card to get a name?" "I tried." "He must have paid cash." "Okay." "Freeze it." "Zoom in on that thing around his neck." "I'll enhance it." "The last three letters of his name are O-O-K." "Could be Cook." "At least we've got a company logo, Aerodax Labs." "We have several hundred employees, Detective." "We're only looking for one." "Merritt Rook?" "I can't believe he's done anything to warrant police attention." "Well, what can you tell us about him?" "Well, he's an audio engineer." "He works in the aerospace division." "He's in the lab." "Dr. Cheng, where's Merritt?" "Out sick." "Yesterday, too." "And we really need him here to run the high-frequency tests." "Well, we can make a house call." "We'll even bring him chicken soup." "Merritt Rook." "How can I help you?" "You don't look sick." "What, is it a crime to play hooky, Detective?" "Cuff me now." "Guilty." "We'll get to that soon enough." "May we come in?" "Well, certainly." "Have I done something wrong?" "You tell me, Detective Milgram." "Detective Milgram?" "I think you have me confused with someone else." "No, we don't." "You're the guy who buys all those phone cards from ValueMart." "Yes, I do." "But I give them to the homeless, so they can call their families." "I know what it's like to be alone." "Did you use one of those cards at the Midtown library yesterday?" "No." "I was out of town." "Where?" "Trout fishing on the Esopus River." "The season begins April 1st, but we've been working every weekend, so I took a little leave of absence, unauthorized, and yesterday and today I was gone, but I'm back." "Please don't tell my boss." "Can anybody verify your whereabouts?" "Wow." "If I need an alibi, this must be serious." "All right." "Fishing license." "Hotel bill." "Do you have any credit card receipts?" "No." "I never use credit cards." "Credit card companies gouge the working man with their interest rates." "I ate every meal at the Daffodil." "Margaretville." "You just happened to have this handy, huh?" "There was a waitress there who was kind of sweet on me." "She wrote her number on the back." "Why sure, hon." "I remember him." "Real cute, even in that silly fishing hat and waders." "And he was definitely there on Monday?" "Breakfast, lunch and dinner." "And I don't think he came just for the blue plate special, if you know what I mean." "Yeah." "Thanks." "Well, the alibi checks out so far." "Fish and Wildlife gave him the license on Monday morning." "So, what about the hotel?" "They're next." "Margaretville Lodge." "How can I help you?" "This is Detective Munch of the NYPD." "I'd like to confirm if a Merritt Rook stayed there on Monday night." "Certainly." "Please hold." "Your call is important to us." "Please stay on the line." "One of our representatives will be with you shortly." "Where are we?" "Nowhere." "The guy we like was fishing in the Catskills." "For what?" "Trout." "Couldn't be." "Buddy of mine just went up there." "Couldn't get a permit." "EPA put a ban on angling after they found chemical runoff in the rivers." "Thanks for holding." "Mr. Rook stayed with us on Sunday and Monday nights." "Yeah, thanks." "Listen, I was thinking of going on a fishing trip myself." "How are the trout up there?" "They're biting up a storm." "We're in position." "Should be ringing." "Margaretville Lodge." "How can I help you?" "Please hold." "It's stupid, Detectives, to think that I could get away with lying to you about the fishing trip." "Well, then, why'd you do it?" "Well, Dr. Cheng called me and told me that you'd been by the lab to see me." "She knew that I'd called in sick, and I didn't want her to know the truth." "Which is?" "I'm ashamed to admit it." "I was with a prostitute." "Your hooker have a name?" "I didn't want to know it." "My wife died three years ago." "I miss her terribly." "Sometimes, when the pain gets really bad," "I go out and look for someone who looks like Juliet, and I bring her home." "You screw whores in your dead wife's bed." "We don't have sex." "We just sleep." "It's so comforting to have a warm, soft body laying next to me." "And if I close my eyes, for a little while, it's like Juliet's back." "So, the fake receipts, the business cards, that little funny voice that you do, this is all to make sure that you won't get caught playing house?" "When you say it like that, it sounds a little excessive." "I'm not buying your sob story." "I think you get your jollies calling the HappiBurgers posing as a cop, and getting innocent guys to molest young girls." "HappiBurger?" "Mmm." "The fast-food place?" "Don't tell me." "You've never even eaten there in your life, huh?" "No." "Not in 20 years." "I'm a locavore." "What the hell is that?" "It means I only buy organic, seasonal foods, grown by local farmers." "Agribusiness wants us to buy shrink-wrapped pre-ripened tomatoes flown in from Chile in January." "I wait and get my Jersey tomatoes ripe in July." "You must hate chain restaurants." "Don't you?" "I mean, all the processed foods and chemical additives, and the insidious advertising aimed at toddlers." "But, obviously, you didn't invite me here to talk about the geopolitics of food, did you?" "What do you think?" "We can hold him on obstruction for lying, but it's gonna look like sour grapes unless we can link him to the hoaxes." "We could try a voice ID with the HappiBurger manager." "He fooled Munch with his cast of characters." "Do you really think Merritt Rook sounds anything like Detective Milgram?" "What I need is proof that he made those calls." "I must be your fairy godmother." "What did you find?" "Bank surveillance camera caught a guy going into the public library right before the call to HappiBurger." "Morales cleaned it up." "It's not a glamour shot, but it's a decent likeness." "Lock him up." ""People v. Merritt Rook." ""One count Conspiracy to Commit" ""Sexual Abuse in the First Degree. "" "Where is the defense counsel?" "I don't have a lawyer, Your Honor." "I'd like to represent myself." "You know the old adage?" "Yes, that a man who represents himself has a fool for a client." "I do." "But I don't make enough money to afford a private attorney, and I make too much money to have a public defender, so that's how I find myself." "The court can find you a lawyer." "Some court-appointed hack?" "A mouthpiece who will sleepwalk through a trial of a client who won't make him rich, or he won't have the book rights for it?" "No." "Thank you." "Thank you, Your Honor." "Ms. Novak?" "If Mr. Rook wants to add lawyer to his repertoire of impersonations, the People have no objection." "Defendant will proceed pro se." "Bail?" "$250,000." "Okay." "You're supposed to make an argument, Mr. Rook." "Why, Your Honor?" "It sounds reasonable." "I thought you were broke." "I can put my apartment up as bond." "It's worth far more than that." "Fine." "Adjourned." "I'm really looking forward to working with you, Casey." "Yeah, should be fun." "Will you excuse me?" "I have to go post my bail." "Detective Stabler, do you have any doubts that I'm guilty?" "Nope." "And what qualifies you to make this assertion?" "I've been a detective for 16 years." "Have you ever heard of anyone strip-searching and fondling a young woman, all because a voice on the phone told him to do so?" "Nothing surprises me when it comes to what a depraved mind can dream up." "Isn't it a more probable explanation that Mr. Lomax had the hots for this young employee, so he dreamed up this story of a cop on the phone to basically justify him acting out his own sexual fantasies?" "Is that possible?" "We have records proving a call was made to the HappiBurger at that time from a phone card you purchased." "Which I told you I give out to the homeless." "And isn't it a known fact that the homeless hang out at the library?" "And given the mental stability of many of the homeless, couldn't it have been one of them that made this call?" "We have you on videotape entering the library to make that call." "Are you sure?" "Lieutenant Morales, how do you enhance this image from the original surveillance tape?" "I ran the photo through a number of computer matrices designed to boost contrast, eliminate shadow, and heighten resolution of the original image." "So, you manipulated the original image." "Yes." "Scientifically." "So, this is the original image you manipulated?" "Yes." "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury," "I don't know about you, but I can barely make out who that is under that baseball cap." "I don't know." "I mean, it could be me, or it could be juror number four." "It's not me." "Me, either." "Lieutenant Morales, how do the computer matrices that enhance a face work?" "The computer uses an algorithm of the physiology of the human face and makes choices." "By choices, you mean guesses?" "Educated guesses." "Right." "Well, I don't care how smart your computer is." "A guess is not the truth." "I mean, I guess it could be you or you." "Or you or you or you." "I heard what happened in court today." "You know, it's shocking to think how good Merritt Rook would be if he had a law degree." "I understand why people rape, why they kill, but I don't have a clue why Merritt Rook plays these games." "He's manipulative." "He gets off on making people do things they don't want to do." "I went to grade school with this kid, Doug Papillion." "He used to make other kids eat rabbit turds by telling them they were raisins." "Did he ever fool you?" "No." "Why not?" "Because I would never put something in my mouth just because Dougie told me to." "The kid was a sadist." "And where's Doug Papillion now?" "Last I heard, he was selling used cars in Toledo." "Still scamming people." "Sounds like he hasn't changed." "Dig into Merritt Rook's childhood, you might find an explanation for his pathology." "I'm a scientist." "I spend my days in the lab, solving problems, creating new technology, improving our lives," "but I have never been in trouble with the law in my life." "I hate what happened to that young girl in HappiBurger." "It's deplorable." "And, like you, I am outraged, and I want the perpetrator brought to justice, but it wasn't me." "Thank you, Your Honor." "That's all I have." "Ms. Novak, you may examine the witness." "You've never been in trouble with the law?" "No." "I want you to think carefully, because you are under oath." "Maybe an overdue parking ticket, but..." "Have you ever been arrested before this case?" "Never." "So, explain this article to me from the Hartford Tribune." ""Merritt Rook, age 13, arrested for malicious" ""mischief, trespassing, burglary and arson. "" "It says you burned down a house." "I object, Your Honor." "I was a minor." "That was expunged from my record." "You cannot expunge a newspaper or their Internet archives." "This has nothing to do with this trial." "Malicious mischief," "I'd say it has everything to do with this case." "I'll allow it." "So, Mr. Rook, you just lied to this jury when you said you'd never been in trouble with the law." "Well, I can explain." "I'm sure you can." "Where I grew up, there was this abandoned house." "The older boys used it to get drunk and do drugs." "They also raped a little girl there." "She was 11." "So, I broke in." "I set their clubhouse on fire, hoping that no more little children would get hurt." "If they were committing rape, why didn't you go to the police?" "I did, but they didn't believe me." "Why am I not surprised?" "Maybe because the son of the police chief was the ringleader." "You know, you can check, and you'll find out that he's serving a prison term for raping three women." "I had to stop them." "I didn't know what else to do." "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, what evidence does Ms. Novak have against me?" "A doctored photograph and a phone card that I bought and gave away as an act of charity." "That's it." "Now, I don't blame Detectives Benson and Stabler for arresting me, or Ms. Novak for putting me on trial." "They're just following orders, like a sheep following a shepherd." "But we're all in danger of being sheep, blindly following the herd, never questioning authority." "It was the great American poet, Wendell Berry, who said it best when he was describing the perils of bowing at the altar of conformity." ""Your mind will be punched in a card" ""and put away in a little drawer." ""And when they want you to buy something, they will call you." ""When they want you to die for profit, they will let you know." ""So, friends, each day, do something that won't compute. "" "Ms. Novak will stand up here and tell you I am guilty." "You must convict me." "Don't be a sheep." "Think for yourselves." "Find the inner courage to act." "Find me not guilty." "Thank you." "That was actually a really pretty speech." "And some of you are probably moved by it, and I'm not surprised." "Because Merritt Rook, he's really good at convincing people to do things." "Merritt Rook burned down a house when he was a kid, and he claims it was to protect children, and yet he's responsible for the molestation and terrible suffering of a teenage girl." "Our evidence proves it." "He impersonated a police officer." "And right now, sitting in court, he's impersonating an innocent man." "You are smart." "Don't be fooled." "Merritt Rook is guilty." "Has the jury reached a verdict?" "We have, Your Honor." "On the sole count of the indictment, the Conspiracy to Commit Sexual Abuse, how do you find the defendant?" "Not guilty." "Thank you." "Thank you so much." "Quiet, Mr. Rook." "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you are excused with our thanks." "Great job, Casey." "Back off." "Sorry." "May I leave, Your Honor?" "You may." "It's been fun." "Merritt Rook's quickly becoming a folk hero for his anti-authoritarian views." "He joins us now, fresh off his successful self-defense in court." "Good morning." "Where the hell have you been?" "I got up a little late." "I was up all night with the baby." "Colic is a bitch." "You catch Morning Joe?" "No." "Well, the captain recorded it." "Merritt Rook's on." "You gotta see this." "Hey." "Thanks a lot for being with us." "Great to be here, Joe." "I'm gonna start by asking you the obvious question." "What's with the sheep?" "You mean Elliot here?" "You gotta admit, Elliot's pretty damn cute." "You gotta be kidding me." "I also have to admit you've inspired an awful lot of people by what you did in court." "Well, I believe we should stop acting like Elliot here, and start questioning authority." "I believe this button says it all." "Ah." "No sheep." "I like it." "And so, let me ask you, what's next for you, your sheep and your social revolution?" "Well, my supporters are putting together a rally." "Let me guess." "Sheep..." "Stop." "Stop." "Actually, Bryant Park." "This guy can't stop himself." "So, let's go crash his party." "Listen up!" "Listen up!" "We are here to celebrate the unexpected." "We refuse to conform." "We embrace chaos." "We are not sheep." "No!" "No!" "Pillows?" "Yeah!" "Is everybody having fun?" "Who wants to go back to work?" "No!" "No!" "All right!" "Play on!" "We could arrest Merritt for littering." "Yeah, and give him more attention?" "If a couple hundred idiots wanna spend their afternoon having a pillow fight, let them." "You've got Merritt all wrong." "You think he's innocent?" "No, he made those calls, but it was never about sex." "Well, what was it about, then?" "The danger of obedience." "If you don't question authority, you lose your humanity." "So, terrorizing those girls at the HappiBurger to push his agenda is okay?" "I don't condone what he did, but I understand where he's coming from." "I'm a child of the '60s." "We thought that LSD and free love was gonna change the world." "I spoke to Merritt today." "He just wants to wake people up." "With pillow fights?" "Well, we helped end the Vietnam War with sit-ins." "And what war exactly is Merritt fighting, here?" "The battle against fast foods?" "That's nothing." "You should hear his tirade against managed care." "So, he has a problem with his HMO." "Who doesn't?" "Olivia, his wife died in childbirth and the baby, too." "Was it medical malpractice?" "Well, Merritt thinks so." "Then why didn't he sue?" "I checked during his trial." "He's never filed any lawsuits." "A guy who doesn't think twice about making people suffer is gonna let the doctor who killed his family off the hook?" "No way." "Dr. Slifkin?" "Oh." "He's dead." "When?" "Couple years ago." "How did he die?" "Freaky car accident." "T- boned a semi." "Trailer took off the roof and the doc's head." "I think he had one too many, but the official word was brake failure." "Come on over here." "Do you remember one of his patients?" "A Juliet Rook?" "Oh, that was so sad." "What happened?" "Eighteen hours of heavy labor, and the husband insisted on a C-section, but Dr. Slifkin thought he knew better than a first-time dad." "So, he blew Mr. Rook off." "Yeah, and then things went bad." "Juliet had a placental abruption and Dr. Slifkin missed it." "She bled out, and the baby, too." "Pretty big mistake." "Yeah." "It was horrible." "Mr. Rook lost it." "Said he'd kill Dr. Slifkin." "We had to call security to escort him out." "I gotta run." "Premature labor on the way." "Now I know why Merritt hates authority." "Do you buy that Dr. Slifkin's car had brake failure?" "Well, Merritt's an engineer." "He'd know how to sabotage it." "Unless the doctor was just drunk." "Crash with a semi?" "Have to be an investigation." "I reviewed the autopsy." "Dr. Slifkin's BAC was. 04." "Well, it's tipsy, but not over the limit." "But his liver was cirrhotic." "Your doc was an alcoholic, so a drink or two wouldn't have impaired him much." "So, what about the car?" "Any sign of tampering?" "Nothing." "The investigation was pretty thorough." "Even reconstructed the crash." "Dr. Slifkin's car approached the intersection at 30 miles an hour." "He accelerated to 60 and blew through the stop sign just as the semi entered the intersection." "Maybe he saw the truck coming and thought he could beat it." "Well, that's what the police thought." "Ruled it accidental." "Closed the case." "But I see a lot of suspicious MVAs like this, so I checked with the doctor's insurance company." "They never paid out." "What was the reason?" "Suicide." "He left a note for his wife, saying he was killing himself to spare her." "Listen to this." ""Detective 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. "" "Merritt pushed Slifkin to suicide." "Justice for killing his wife and baby." "We dump the doc's phones, we tie the calls to Merritt." "That plus a suicide note, we got him." "Let's go pick him up." "He won't be at home." "I'm on his website." ""Join us tonight at 10:00 at Grand Central for the most fun yet. "" "9:12." "We hurry, we can make it." "Doesn't look like anyone's being disobedient tonight." "You see Merritt?" "There's no sign of him." "You take the east side." "I'll go west." "Yep." "No sheep!" "No sheep!" "Elliot, meet me at the west staircase." "Got it." "Merritt Rook, you're under arrest for the murder of Dr. Francis Slifkin." "Only this time, you're not walking away." "I was a sheep." "I let him slaughter my wife." "That doesn't give you the right to destroy his life." "Police." "Get out of the way." "Police!" "Search warrant!" "Clear!" "Clear!" "The place is clear." "No sign of Rook or your detective." "All right, where the hell did he take her?" "Got these photos off the security cameras at Grand Central." "She's not resisting." "Why not just take him down?" "Check out the next one." "She dumped her gun and cell phone." "Fin's got them." "Meet him at TARU." "Have them go through Olivia's cell phone, in case there's something on it." "Olivia disarmed herself and went with this fruitcake." "He must have had a gun on her." "She didn't want to risk Merritt shooting civilians." "Merritt have a second home?" "Someplace he could take her?" "This place is it." "Well, what about friends, family?" "The guy's a loner." "He just keeps to himself since his wife died." "He close with anyone at work?" "Dr. Cheng." "He was worried she'd find out he was with a hooker." "Why would she care?" "We both like to work late when no one's around to bug us." "Have you two ever gone out on a date?" "A couple of years ago." "One date." "He took me to a jazz club where some friend was playing piano." "Halfway through the night, he played Lush Life, and Merritt started sobbing." "Why?" "He didn't say." "He just ran out of the club and left me there alone." "His friend came up after the set and apologized." "Said he forgot he'd recorded the song with Merritt's wife." "Juliet was a singer?" "Yeah." "They met when he produced one of her albums." "How did he get from the music business into aerospace?" "He quit after his wife died, and he came to work at Aerodax." "Audio engineering's pretty much the same wherever you do it." "Do you know where he used to work?" "Tone Down Records in Brooklyn." "Well, that's very impressive." "I didn't think you'd make it here so quick." "Where is she?" "I'm unarmed." "Put your hands on your head." "Yes, sir." "Stand up." "Over there." "Get over there." "That gun is very persuasive." "Right." "Don't move." "All right, where's my partner?" "Wouldn't you like to know?" "No more games." "Or what?" "You're gonna shoot me?" "Then I don't think you'll ever find her." "That's better." "She's in there." "Let me show you." "Liv!" "She can't hear you." "Soundproof." "Also, it has one-way glass." "She can't see you." "And that door is wired with an explosive device, so if you open it, it'll blow us all to hell." "Go ahead if you don't believe me." "Or I could use the detonator." "All right." "What do you want?" "What do you want?" "To conduct a little experiment and see how far you'll go to save your partner." "Liv?" "Elliot's here." "Do as he says, El." "Liv, are you all right?" "Elliot, please." "Just do what he says." "Liv!" "Shut up!" "I'm in charge now, so sit down and listen." "Sit down!" "These are the parameters of the experiment." "Olivia is sitting in a chair, and as you can see, it's wired for electricity." "Two-hundred and fifty volts, to be specific, delivered by this device." "Old Sparky could give out 2,450 volts to fry a convict, so this won't kill her, but it'll hurt." "The Milgram experiment." "You've done your homework." "Except this time, the shock's for real." "Now press the button." "I won't do it." "Then I will." "Stop." "That was two seconds." "If you refuse again, it goes up to four seconds and I double the voltage." "Why are you doing this?" "To teach you a little lesson about power and authority." "You cops with your guns and your badges, you think you can do anything you want." "You think you own the streets." "I don't abuse my authority." "Every cop abuses his authority." "Like the ones who didn't believe you when you were a kid." "Oh, yeah." "Yeah, I was too scared to stand up to them." "Were you scared of Dr. Slifkin, too?" "No." "This isn't about authority." "It's not about obedience or sheep." "You just want me to suffer the way you've suffered." "You have no idea what I suffered!" "I have no idea what you've been through." "To lose your family." "I didn't lose them." "They were taken from me." "I knew something was wrong with Juliet." "I told him, "We gotta get the baby out. "" "And he said, "Everything's gonna be okay. "" "Yeah." "He was the well-respected doctor." "Who am I to challenge his authority?" "So I didn't." "I caved in." "You know?" "And I sat there, and I held my wife's hand, and I watched her bleed to death." "I put my faith in a little god in a white coat, and he killed my wife and son!" "Push the button!" "No." "Push the button!" "I can't do it." "No?" "Why?" "Too many people have suffered already." "Then you, Elliot Stabler, are a human being." "Congratulations." "You're not a sheep like I was." "You're a man." "Thank you." "Don't worry about your partner." "The screams are pre-recorded." "And this is just a garage-door opener, Elliot." "The door's not wired." "He said that he had a bomb and if I didn't go with him, he would detonate it in Grand Central." "It was all a fake." "He faked it." "You okay?" "Yeah." "Where are you taking me?" "Central booking." "Sorry." "May I tie my shoe?" "Yeah, sure." "Go ahead." "Thank you." "Where's Merritt?" "There's no sign of him." "Merritt's smart." "He blew that building." "He had a plan." "He went into that water cuffed." "He's dead."