Hardwired (Season 11, Episode 5)
Premise: A boy’s sexual abuse leads SVU from his wrestling coach to his stepfather and then to the leader of a group that campaigns for pedophiles’ “rights.”
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 11, Episode 5
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), ADA Alexandra Cabot (Stephanie March), Dr. George Huang (BD Wong), TARU Ruben Morales (Joel de la Fuente)
- Guest stars
- Rosie Perez as Eva Banks, Garret Dillahunt as Kevin O’Donnell, Jim True-Frost as Thomas Banks, Cruz St. James as Cory Banks, Jeri Ryan as Patrice Larue
- Director
- David Platt
- Writers
- Mick Betancourt
Summary
“Hardwired” opens outside a school, where Eva Banks rams Mary Sachowski’s car and brawls with her after Mary accuses Eva’s ten-year-old son, Cory, of molesting her son, Patrick. Cory admits to naked wrestling games, and Huang sees a child reenacting abuse he has suffered. A hospital exam finds chlamydia and signs of ongoing abuse. Cory’s wrestling coach, who gives boys massages at his apartment, turns out to be Tony Accardo, a convicted child rapist from Baltimore living under a new name. Stabler gets rough with him in interrogation, but Cory insists the coach never touched him, and Accardo is sent back to Maryland for failing to register as a sex offender.
Cory’s stepfather, Thomas Banks, cuts the questioning short. The detectives learn he met Eva and Cory while volunteering at the homeless shelter where they lived, and Eva tells Benson she sleeps through the night on pills he got for her. Once Eva understands, she persuades Cory to tell Benson that Thomas photographed and videotaped him, and Thomas is arrested. To make a deal, he offers Kevin O’Donnell, head of Our Special Love, a group that claims pedophilia is an inborn orientation; Huang, who is gay, calls its comparison to gay rights an insult. O’Donnell had made Thomas abuse and film Cory to prove he was not an FBI agent, and now wants to meet the boy. Alex Cabot, back from a stint in Appeals, approves a sting if Eva consents in writing.
At dinner in the Banks home, watched on hidden cameras, O’Donnell touches Cory while Thomas copies the group’s data onto a flash drive. As police move in, Eva stabs Thomas with a knife. Cabot orders her booked, but after the detectives object, Eva gets a desk appearance ticket so she can stay with Cory. TARU finds images and member records hidden inside three harmless-looking pictures, and the squad rounds up the members, locking them in a holding cell with O’Donnell, who is beaten there. At trial O’Donnell calls adult-child relationships a civil right, and a woman who was with him from age 11 to 14 testifies that she was no victim. The defense calls Eva and paints her as a violent, neglectful mother until Cory, brought by Huang, shouts that Thomas raped him and O’Donnell made him do it.
Spoiler, the ending: O’Donnell is convicted and gets ten years for accessory to rape plus two consecutive years for each image, about 3,000 years in all, and Thomas gets 20 years. Eva, now using her own surname, Santiago, sells the house and leaves for Florida with Cory, thanking Benson.
Why it stands out
- Stephanie March returns as ADA Alexandra Cabot, the first of nine episodes she plays this season while the show looks for a permanent ADA.
- The episode was widely noted for confirming that Huang is gay, which he says while denouncing the group’s claims.
- Rosie Perez, Garret Dillahunt and Jeri Ryan guest star as Eva, O’Donnell and his defense attorney, Patrice Larue.