Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Season 1 Episode Guide
Plot summaries for every episode of the first season of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, which aired on NBC from September 1999 to May 2000, featuring Det. Elliot Stabler, Det. Olivia Benson, Det. John Munch, Det. Monique Jeffries and Capt. Donald Cragen.
- 1
Payback
A New York cab driver is stabbed and castrated, and the detectives discover he was a Serb war-crimes suspect living under a false name, which puts his former victims under suspicion.
- 2
A Single Life
A writer’s fatal fall from her apartment window leads the detectives to her psychologist, a TV anchor and a father whose abuse she spent her adult life escaping.
- 3
...Or Just Look Like One
A 16-year-old model is found beaten and in a coma outside a hospital, and the case pulls the detectives into the drugs, abuse and grudges behind New York’s fashion business.
- 4
Hysteria
The murder of a college student dressed for a night out is folded into a string of attacks on prostitutes, until the detectives catch a serial killer who insists she was not his victim.
- 5
Wanderlust
A travel writer is found dead in the room he rents from a lonely landlady, and suspicion moves between her, her secretive boyfriend and her teenage daughter.
- 6
Sophomore Jinx
A college sophomore is found dead after a party for her school’s basketball team, and the detectives push past a university protecting its players to find out what happened to her.
- 7
Uncivilized
When an eight-year-old boy is found murdered, a paroled child molester living nearby becomes the obvious suspect and a test case for locking up sex offenders indefinitely.
- 8
Stalked
When a prosecutor is raped and killed in Central Park, the detectives focus on a realtor she once took to court, who then fixes his attention on Benson.
- 9
Stocks & Bondage
When a Wall Street analyst with a secret bondage life is found hanged, a whip full of diamonds pulls the detectives into her boss’s money-laundering scheme.
- 10
Closure: Part 1
A rape victim gives Benson a near-perfect account of her attack but never sees the man’s face, and months later a similar case forces the detectives to ask her for help again.
- 11
Bad Blood
When the gay son of an anti-gay activist is beaten to death, a DNA match to a paroled serial rapist points the detectives toward his brother.
- 12
Russian Love Poem
A wealthy bisexual businessman is found strangled in a leather harness, and his long list of lovers leads the detectives to a pair of Russian women and the man who loves one of them.
- 13
Disrobed
When a judge celebrated for protecting women is shot dead in his car, the detectives uncover a scheme trading parole decisions for money and sex.
- 14
Limitations
DNA links three five-year-old rapes to one unidentified man days before the statute of limitations expires, and the only victim who knows his name refuses to give it up.
- 15
Entitled
The shooting of a salesman in his parked car leads SVU to the youngest daughter of a revered political family, until a second killing links the case to unsolved shootings from years earlier.
- 16
The Third Guy
Two teenage burglars are charged after an elderly widow dies following a rape, and a plea deal steers SVU to a delivery man whose mental capacity becomes the center of the case.
- 17
Misleader
When a conservative Christian college president’s pregnant daughter-in-law is found strangled in a Manhattan hotel, a burglar’s trail gives way to an affair inside the family.
- 18
Chat Room
A teenager’s invented chat-room rape leads SVU to a real online predator, and a deal with him opens the door to a ring of men who prey on girls.
- 19
Contact
A box-cutter rapist preys on women riding the subway, and when tainted lineup identifications sink the case, the squad turns to a pregnant victim who never reported her attack.
- 20
Remorse
A reporter who goes public about her rape helps police catch one of her attackers, then is killed by a bomb, leaving the squad to save the rape case and find her killer.
- 21
Nocturne
A respected neighborhood piano teacher is exposed by his own photographs, and the case rests on a former student whose abuse was taped for years and who has begun to repeat it.
- 22
Slaves
A Romanian woman’s plea for help leads to her murdered aunt and a wealthy couple holding her captive, while the squad undergoes psychological evaluations.