SVU' 500th Episode Dives Into Benson's Previous

Spoiler alert: This story accommodates particulars from the Oct. 21 episode of “Law & Order: SVU.”

Olivia Benson has reported for responsibility 500 occasions. This time she has to suppose much more about herself.

NBC’s “Law & Order: SVU,” TV’s longest-running drama, aired its 500th episode Thursday, an infinite milestone for the crime collection in its twenty third season. The current marked the occasion with an episode targeted on star Mariska Hargitay’s Olivia Benson, forcing her to reckon with a troubling a part of her past.

“The 5 Hundredth Episode” finds Benson and the remainder of the SVU crew trying into a chilly case after former detective Nick Amaro (Dany Pino) brings it to their consideration. He’s now working for an organization that focuses on analyzing chilly-case DNA with new applied sciences.

Nick was contacted by a journalist and podcaster investigating the 1996 case of a teen woman who was sexually assaulted and strangled. Her boyfriend confessed to the crime and was convicted, nevertheless he later recanted, and Nick and his affiliate imagine he's honest.

When Nick brings his associate in to fulfill the crew, Benson is shocked speechless. She calls the person, Burton Lowe (Aidan Quinn), an outdated pal, nonetheless by means of a collection of flashbacks the viewers discovers that he was better than that: He was her boyfriend as a young person. She was 16, he was 21. He requested her to marry him, she acknowledged positive, however in the end she ended issues at her mom’s urging. Seeing him so a few years later is unnerving, forcing her to relive painful reminiscences together together with her mom and to mirror on her first relationship. In engaged on the case, she and Burton reconnect romantically.

Benson remembers the case: It was one in every of Cragen’s (Dann Florek) again in 1996, and he or she agrees to let Nick, Burton and the squad look into it. Cragen affords his insights, showing through video chat to convey a contact of nostalgia to the 500th episode.

Due to a small DNA pattern that Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie, moreover making a return look) finds on the outdated proof, Nick’s agency proves that the boyfriend was wrongfully convicted. The actual killer - a trainer from the woman’s school - is rapidly discovered, and he confesses out of long-held guilt.

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But simply whilst you suppose the thriller is solved, a girl confronts Benson and Burton exterior the courtroom the place the model new killer has merely confessed, asking the captain of SVU why she would work with a predator.

The lady comes all the best way all the way down to the station and tells her story: A decade previously, she labored with Burton and that he groomed her and raped her one evening time when she was too drunk to consent. Her story of grooming, from fancy dinners to sending her music like “The Woman from Ipanema,” stirs Benson’s reminiscence. In her home she searches by means of an outdated subject of cassette tapes. Finds one Burton made for her when she was a teen with the an identical monitor on it.

After Burton’s accuser posts her expertise on social media, totally different girls come forward. They describe a predatory pattern in Burton’s habits, sexual harassment and manipulation of ladies. None of their allegations rise to the extent of a rechargeable prison offense, so SVU is pressured to simply switch on. But Benson cannot: She goes once more to Burton’s resort room, the place solely some nights earlier than she was a cheerful visitor, and confronts him about their relationship. She was too youthful to consent to have intercourse with him as a young particular person, she tells him, and their relationship was inappropriate. She wants Burton to acknowledge his wrongdoing, however he refuses.

The episode ends with Benson strolling away from Burton’s resort room nonetheless stopping to throw the outdated mixtape he made her into a pond.

The return of Nick, Melinda and Cragen was a deal with for viewers who’ve caught by the present as a result of it made its debut in 1999, nonetheless there wasn’t a lot in the best way of fan service or nostalgia in the episode, aside from Burton’s resort room amount (500). It was a darkish, crucial outing for an already darkish, critical current, reminding viewers that even 500 episodes in, the writers and actors aren’t slowing down or getting lazy in creating surprising and dramatic storytelling.

“SVU” can have one other cousin again on Television when NBC brings again the unique “Law & Order” subsequent yr. However even when that revival works, it most probably is not going to have any individual like Olivia Benson as a grounding character.