Blood Brothers (Season 13, Episode 3)
Premise: A 13-year-old’s pregnancy leads SVU to the son of a powerful political family, and his murder exposes his father’s secret.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 13, Episode 3
- 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), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), ADA Casey Novak (Diane Neal)
- Guest stars
- Kyle MacLachlan as Andrew Raines, Paige Turco as Kathleen Raines, Judy Reyes as Inez Rivera, Anthony Keyvan as Arturo Rivera, Piper Curda as Ella Mendez
- Ripped from the headlines
- Inspired by the 2011 revelation that Arnold Schwarzenegger had fathered a son with his family’s longtime housekeeper.
- Director
- Tom DiCillo
- Writers
- Warren Leight & Julie Martin
Summary
“Blood Brothers” begins when 13-year-old Ella Mendez faints in class at Blessed Savior and turns out to be pregnant. Cragen sends Amaro with Benson for his Spanish, since Ella lives with her grandmother, Rosa Mendez. A doctor finds no sign of abuse and an intact hymen, and Ella insists she never had sex and the baby is a miracle. Her estranged father shows little interest. Her classmate Arturo Rivera, who follows her everywhere, says he is only her best friend. Munch learns that science teacher Luis Cordova is really Diego Ramirez, on the sex offender registry for sleeping with his girlfriend just before her 17th birthday when he was 19, and working under a dead uncle’s name. Ella accuses him, but the story collapses: he cannot drive.
Roses sent to Ella with an unsigned card are traced through a Madison Avenue florist to the account of Ambassador Andrew Raines, who is about to run for his father’s old Senate seat. Raines and his wife, Kathleen, deflect, and their 13-year-old son, Tripp, brags about Ella. When a town car comes to take Ella to an abortion she does not want, Benson and Amaro stop it. Ella says that at a Fourth of July party at the Raines home, Tripp fed her spiked lemonade, led her to his room and raped her as she cried and said no. ADA Casey Novak doubts a jury would call it rape between two 13-year-olds, and she and Benson trade bitter accusations.
Tripp then disappears. A hustler named Jace is caught running a bar tab on his card and says he found the wallet in the Ramble, and a full search finds Tripp’s body in Central Park, his head battered. Raines says Arturo’s mother, Inez, stopped working for the family over immigration trouble, but she has been a citizen for 15 years, and Raines money has bought her a co-op and wired her $250,000. Her divorce papers say her ex-husband was not Arturo’s father. Arturo admits he brought Ella to meet Tripp in the park, where Tripp called her names, demanded she end the pregnancy, pushed Arturo’s face into the dirt and threw money at him. Arturo hit him with a rock, then struck him again.
Spoiler, the ending: Arturo also explains that after overhearing Raines with his mother, he mailed off a home paternity test using Raines’s toothbrush and learned Raines is his father; Raines reacted with fury, and the Riveras had to move. Facing the one-way mirror, Arturo asks why his father would never call him his son. Kathleen, who claimed the couple kept no secrets, recoils from her husband. What happens to Arturo is not shown.
Why it stands out
- Kyle MacLachlan and Paige Turco both played different characters on SVU before: MacLachlan was psychiatrist Dr. Brett Morton in Season 6’s “Conscience,” and Turco was Pam Adler in Season 3’s “Ridicule.”
- Diane Neal makes her first appearance of the season as ADA Casey Novak, one of two former SVU prosecutors, with Stephanie March’s Cabot, brought back for this season.