ICK. That was my initial reaction to the first half of this Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode, called "The Closet". It was tawdry, sleazy, and tasteless (which ordinarily I like), but it was so cliched and obvious, I was groaning before the first "dun-dun" stopped ringing in my ears. The second half of the show more or less redeemed the episode, and there were some bright spots throughout, but there was a lot of...ICK to wade through in the beginning.

The episode starts with a harried gay personal assistant discovering the body of his dead boss, Jeremy, and soon our favorite detectives, Olivia Benson (played by Mariska Hargitay), and Chris Keller Elliot Stabler, (played by Christopher Meloni) are on the case. The corpse is discovered in bed wearing pajamas and with mouth agape, and it's soon discovered why. A bag containing a red leather ball gag, satin restraints, and chaps is discovered. After some interrogation, the assistant admits to finding the body with ball gag attached, and removing it and dressing the body (I hope he got time and a half). Btw, the "corpse" in the show is played, in a strange bit of casting, by one of our favorite reality show stars, Jack Mackenroth from Project Runway!

"Designers...this week's challenge is to DIE for!"

After the break, meet the closeted quarterback, and find out whodunnit!

After a red herring involving a homeless gay teen, we get to the meat of the story, as it's discovered that Jeremy's lover was someone famous, but still in the closet, which leads to this statement from Elliot:

"So Jeremy and closet boy were playing Brokeback Mountain, things get a little rough, and Jeremy ends up dead."

Oh, Elliot.

I guess he doesn't realize how tired and dated a line like that is. Obviously, that line should be "So Jeremy and closet boy were playing Shelter, things get a little rough, and Jeremy ends up dead." It turns out that the famous closet case in question is the "best quarterback in pro football," Lincoln Haver (played by Bailey Chase)

Good God! It's the Casper Van Dien of Earth-Two!

Naturally, the guys in the squad room are astonished that Lincoln could be gay, but as Chester Lake (played by Adam Beach, who won't be returning next year) points out, there have been retired gay football players in the past, like Dave Kopay, Roy Simmons, and Esera Tuaolo. The guys are in agreement that an active player could never come out, so Olivia has to be the voice of reason, and ask "So a football player is gay, what's the big deal?", which leads to lots of "you're a girl, so you don't understand" looks. They bring Lincoln in, and he confesses to being lovers with Jeremy, but insists he didn't kill him, and doesn't remember what happened that night. They decide to question his pseudo-girlfriend, a very unappealing super model who throws around words like "homo", "fag", and "ass bandit" when Olivia accidentally spills the beans that Lincoln is gay (because being in the fashion industry, she's obviously never come across one before).

They next visit Lincoln's agent (a slime ball who will do anything to protect his client, hint, hint), and soon word gets out that Lincoln is gay, and he's bashed into a coma by street thugs. After lots and lots of filler involving the voice of Richard Lewis as shock jock Sportsman Larry, and Olivia and her new tabloid publisher boyfriend (played in a glorified cameo by Bill Pullman), the detectives are ordered to arrest and re-question Lincoln, who has awakened from his coma.

"I'll let you off easy if you let me call you 'Toby'"

He still says he doesn't really remember what happened that night, but confesses to the killing after Elliot "suggests" he may have done it. At his arraignment, his attorney (played by the still fabulous Beverly D'Angelo) presents a novel defense: years of being bashed in the head playing football has rendered him "confused". Assistant D.A. Casey Novak (played by Diane Neal, who also will not be returning next season), aptly retorts "Football made him do it! that's almost as good as the Twinkie defense!" Hmmm ... Sounds vaguely familiar.

There's lots of medical techno-babble about the condition that he suffers from, and of course, the jokes about "brain damaged football players" write themselves. Lincoln is found guilty, and is sent off to Statesville Prison. End of show.

Oh, wait. There's a shocking twist. Remember the slimy agent, the one who will do anything to protect his client? Turns out he killed Jeremy. He caught the two of them in a bathroom stall, and was so upset that Lincoln being gay would adversely affect his career, he went to Jeremy's apartment, killed him with a barbell, put the chaps, restraints, and ball gag on him, and made it look like it was rough sex gone bad. He would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for these meddling detectives. So how did they find all this out? Because they found the murder weapon, the bloody barbell, in the agent's apartment. Where he brought it after the murder.

So Lincoln is set free, and in the closing scene, tells the detectives that he can't go back to football, because the team doctors say he has permanent brain damage. He walks away from the camera, presumably to begin his career as a AfterElton editor FOX news anchor.