Undercover Blue (Season 14, Episode 17)
Premise: When a woman says Brian Cassidy raped her years ago while he was undercover, his defense drags Amaro’s own undercover past into court.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 14, Episode 17
- 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), Det. Brian Cassidy (Dean Winters), ADA Rafael Barba (Raúl Esparza)
- Guest stars
- Greg Germann as ADA Derek Strauss, Reg E. Cathey as Barry Querns, Robyn Rikoon as Heather Riggs, John Ventimiglia as Bobby Navarro, Andrea Navedo as Cynthia Mancheno
- Director
- Michael Smith
- Writers
- Story: John P. Roche; Written by: Ed Zuckerman & Aaron Tracy
Summary
“Undercover Blue” begins as Brian Cassidy, now a uniformed officer on night duty at a Bronx courthouse, prepares with Barba to testify against pimp Bart Ganzel, whose ring he infiltrated. Heather Riggs then walks into the squad room and says a police officer raped her four years earlier: Cassidy, recognized from news coverage of the Ganzel case. With Cragen away fishing, the claim goes to Internal Affairs. Detectives who go to warn Cassidy find Benson at his apartment, exposing their relationship, and Amaro, who took Heather’s statement, is openly hostile to him. Heather says pimp Andre Larouche trapped her in prostitution at 17 and told Cassidy, whom she knew as Rick, to break her in.
At the pole-dancing studio where Heather teaches, Fin learns that its manager, Bobby Navarro, is her boyfriend, a heavy gambler who visited Ganzel at Rikers under a false name shortly before she came forward. Barba says that creates doubt but proves nothing: a woman Larouche once prostituted saw Heather go into a bedroom with Cassidy for two hours, and Heather can describe a scar on his inner thigh. So the office will not seem to protect police, Westchester ADA Derek Strauss takes the case, and IAB arrests Cassidy for rape. Cassidy tells Benson they only talked in that room. At trial his lawyer, Barry Querns, ambushes Amaro with Cynthia Mancheno, whom Amaro romanced ten years earlier while undercover as “Carlos” to bring down her brother, a drug boss. Cassidy testifies that he claimed to be on antibiotics to avoid sex and kept Heather in the room to spare her a beating, but on cross-examination he agrees he knew she was likely coerced. He refuses Querns’s advice to admit the act and argue it was part of his job.
Spoiler, the ending: Cynthia then sues the city for child support, saying Amaro is the father of her nine-year-old son, Gil. Amaro takes a DNA test and learns that her boyfriend, dealer Roberto Chavez, uses the boy to carry drugs. Cassidy proposes that he and Amaro help each other. Posing as dealers, Cassidy and Rollins order a trunkload of stolen pills from Chavez, and Navarro, told his gambling debt now belongs to new collectors, is sent to collect the order with $10,000 in cash. Narcotics detectives arrest both men. Navarro then admits that he and Heather invented the rape to sue the city and that Ganzel told him about the scar, and Heather confirms that Cassidy only talked with her, about dogs. Strauss drops the charge. Cassidy, cleared but still in uniform, tells Benson he feels even she doubted him; asked if they are through, he says he does not know.
Why it stands out
- The episode reveals that Benson and Cassidy, her partner in the show’s first season, are now a couple, and puts Cassidy on trial after his undercover work in the Ganzel ring from the season premiere.
- It begins Amaro’s storyline with Cynthia Mancheno and her son, Gil, which continues two episodes later in “Born Psychopath.”
- Greg Germann plays Westchester prosecutor Derek Strauss, and Reg E. Cathey plays Cassidy’s lawyer, Barry Querns.