Smut (Season 10, Episode 10)
Premise: A woman raped under a memory-erasing drug cannot say what happened, so SVU hunts for other victims of a man who films his attacks.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 10, Episode 10
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), ADA Kim Greylek (Michaela McManus), Dr. George Huang (BD Wong), ME Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie), TARU Ruben Morales (Joel de la Fuente), Judge Barry Moredock (John Cullum)
- Guest stars
- Michael Trucco as Eric Lutz, Kelly Hu as Kelly Sun, Christy Pusz as Laurel Andrews, Christine Ebersole as Hilary Regnier, Christina Hogue as Shannon Browning
- Ripped from the headlines
- Partly inspired by the case of Andrew Luster, a Max Factor heir convicted in 2003 of drugging women with GHB, raping them and videotaping the assaults.
- Director
- Chris Eyre
- Writers
- Kam Miller
Summary
“Smut” opens when a dog walker finds Kelly Sun, a 25-year-old travel writer, beaten and wandering in Riverside Park. She has been raped but remembers nothing and thinks she is about to fly to Korea, though a day has passed. Kelly was working as a courier carrying $700,000 in uncut diamonds, and airport video shows her leaving a JFK bar with a man instead of boarding her flight. A taxi record leads to oil executive Eric Lutz, who calls the sex consensual; the sealed diamond pouch is in his home. Lutz then turns up at Kelly’s hospital bed claiming to be her boyfriend, and she accuses him of rape.
Blood on his sheets turns out to be menstrual, and the tox screen is clean until Warner, hearing that Lutz travels to Colombia, tests for scopolamine, known as Devil’s Breath, which leaves victims compliant and unable to form memories. A hidden partition on his computer holds videos of him attacking Kelly and four other women, forcing each to say she wants him. Lutz calls it role-play and goes free for now. Morales matches the videos’ dates to Lutz’s movements: an escort, Denise, says he paid her to act out a rape but could not perform, and gym records identify Laurel Andrews, a wife and mother who insists nothing happened. Stabler wants to spare her, but Benson shows the video to her husband.
Benson tells Laurel about her own assault while undercover, and Laurel begins to recall meeting Lutz at her gym’s juice bar and agrees to testify. Lutz is arrested on his way to the airport and charged with raping Kelly and Laurel. Judge Barry Moredock refuses to sever the cases and lets him plead insanity, arguing that pornography addiction warped him, a defense that divides the squad. Greylek counters the defense expert with studies tying wider access to pornography to fewer rapes, and when she plays one of his videos on cross-examination, Lutz shouts at her to turn it off. Then risqué animal images surface on Moredock’s personal file server; he recuses himself and declares a mistrial, and Laurel refuses to testify again.
Spoiler, the ending: Benson finds an $18,000 Tiffany receipt from a month before the first rape and guesses Lutz bought an engagement ring. She confronts him on the street, and he calls his former fiancée, Shannon Browning, to threaten her. Shannon tells Greylek and his lawyer, Hilary Regnier, that Lutz proposed to her two years ago and then raped her repeatedly. Lutz erupts, calling his victims sluts, and as Greylek offers a deal of at least 25 years, he keeps shouting that the women will never forget him; no plea or verdict is shown.
Why it stands out
- Michael Trucco plays Eric Lutz; the actor later said his message board filled with comments from Battlestar Galactica fans after the episode.
- Kelly Hu, often cast as a police officer, plays the victim, Kelly Sun, and Christine Ebersole plays defense attorney Hilary Regnier.
- John Cullum returns as Barry Moredock, a defense attorney in earlier seasons who now sits on the bench.