Learning Curve (Season 13, Episode 21)
Premise: A gang’s attack on Fin’s son’s fiancé and the beating of a teacher accused of abuse lead SVU into a private school where a student’s accusations keep shifting.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 13, Episode 21
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Sgt. John Munch (Richard Belzer), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Nick Amaro (Danny Pino), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), ADA Alexandra Cabot (Stephanie March)
- Guest stars
- Tony Hale as Rick Simms, Dylan Minnette as Luca Gabardelli, Jane Adams as Joanne Parsons, Betty Gilpin as Natalie Relais, Martha Stewart as Eleanor Hastings
- Director
- Jonathan Herron
- Writers
- Story: Warren Leight & Julie Martin; Teleplay: Robin Veith
Summary
“Learning Curve” begins with Fin’s son, Ken Randall, telling Munch that he is engaged to Alejandro Pavel and asking for help breaking the news to his father. After the dinner, Alejandro is grabbed by two teenagers, hooded, taken to an apartment and beaten and sodomized by men who know his name. At the hospital Ken tells Fin that Alejandro is his fiancé. The attack matches one on Barry Flaco in the Bronx, and a tattoo Flaco saw points to a Dominican gang, BX9. Cragen, away at a conference, orders Fin off the case, but Fin learns that Cesar, the boyfriend of Alejandro’s cousin Marisol, runs with BX9. Squeezed over a gun found in Marisol’s apartment, Cesar admits the gang made him give up a gay relative and agrees to testify, and both victims identify the attackers.
A third man, math teacher Rick Simms, is beaten with a bat and called gay slurs, though he says he is not gay and will not press charges. His estranged wife, Carole, says he abruptly quit a private Upper East Side school. Upper School head Joanne Parsons stonewalls, and Simms explains he resigned after an anonymous student complaint he was never shown. A van leads to Ray Gabardelli, a produce distributor from New Jersey, who admits having Simms beaten and says Simms molested his son, Luca. Luca says Simms propositioned him after class, and Simms is arrested. But Luca’s story changes with each telling, teacher Natalie Relais and Parsons give conflicting versions, and when Amaro presses Luca for details his mother orders the detectives out.
Luca then accuses Parsons, describing her Brooklyn bedroom, a book of Victorian erotica and a birthmark on her thigh, all of which a search confirms. Her old school says she left after a breakdown over a female colleague. After Parsons tries to drown herself, she tells Benson she caught Natalie with Luca in the rare book archive, that Luca blamed Simms right after she confronted Natalie, and that she stayed silent to shield Natalie. Natalie, with a lawyer, denies it, and the squad lacks the evidence to charge her. Alejandro falls into a coma after emergency surgery, and his estranged father has Ken removed from his room, and Fin steps in.
Spoiler, the ending: Luca takes Natalie hostage at knifepoint in a biology lab. He tells a detective he had bought them bus tickets to Montreal, but Natalie ended the affair, laughed at him and said she was marrying a man in Los Angeles; he is talked into surrendering the knife. Natalie’s fate is not shown. Fin later tells Alejandro, whom he calls his future son-in-law, that his attackers face federal hate crime charges.
Why it stands out
- Martha Stewart guest-stars as the head of a private school, alongside Tony Hale as Rick Simms and Jane Adams as Joanne Parsons.
- Ernest Waddell returns as Fin’s son, Ken Randall, a role he first played in Season 6; showrunner Warren Leight cited Ken’s return as one of the old threads the season picked up.