Dreams Deferred (Season 14, Episode 9)
Premise: When a gunman goes on a killing spree, the squad turns to the aging prostitute he has visited for 25 years and tries to pull her off the street once he is stopped.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 14, Episode 9
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Nick Amaro (Danny Pino), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek)
- Guest stars
- Patricia Arquette as Jeannie Kerns, P.J. Brown as Craig Rasmussen, Jason Gedrick as FBI Agent Cantwell, Anne Meara as Irene Kerns, Amanda Quaid as Angela Kerns
- Director
- Michael Smith
- Writers
- Story: John P. Roche; Written by: Julie Martin & Warren Leight
Summary
“Dreams Deferred” centers on a manhunt for Craig Rasmussen, a laid-off long-haul bus driver who kills his wife, her mother and two of the wife’s co-workers, then a gas station attendant. An FBI-led task force under Agent Cantwell asks SVU to find Jeannie Kerns, a Hunts Point prostitute Rasmussen has phoned almost weekly for decades; Benson, then on patrol, once broke up a fight between the two in 1992. The detectives find Jeannie, who says Rasmussen picked her up that night in a silver Honda and took her to a Bronx motel, but she walked out when he had only $20.
At the motel, they learn that after she left he shot three young people in the next room for being noisy, then fled in a stolen car. Cantwell wants his agents to question Jeannie, saying she is a prostitute, not a victim; Cragen insists his detectives already have her trust. Over a steak dinner Amaro fetches, Jeannie says Rasmussen has been a client since 1986 and once broke her wrist, and she remembers Benson from an old case involving a rapist who targeted women on the street. When Rasmussen calls, she keeps him on the line as he talks of a Vegas wedding, but he hangs up before the trace works and kills two more people at a bus depot.
The FBI wants to send her back out as a lure. Cragen signs her up as a paid informant, and the detectives trade her crucifix for one hiding a wire. Under watch, Jeannie takes her mother, Irene, grocery shopping, is kept from holding her granddaughter by her daughter, Angela, and makes her first confession in 34 years, accepting a five-day fast as penance. Her son, Johnny, a soldier at Fort Jackson, calls, unaware of how she earns her living. That night Rasmussen pulls up in a different car and forces her inside at gunpoint. Surrounded, he rambles about wanting everyone to stop yelling and is shot dead. Jeannie is unhurt.
Spoiler, the ending: There is no reward, only an offer of a few hundred dollars, and Jeannie turns down rehab and plans to return to work. The squad arrests her, using the cocaine and pills in her purse as leverage, and keeps her overnight even though the DA would settle for time served. In the morning Irene, Angela and Johnny are waiting. Irene says she can no longer live with the worry, Angela softens after hearing what her mother’s work paid for, and Johnny says he has known for years. Jeannie agrees to try treatment.
Why it stands out
- Patricia Arquette and Anne Meara play Jeannie and her mother, Irene, and Jason Gedrick plays FBI agent Cantwell.
- Hurricane Sandy hit New York while this episode and the previous one were in production; flooding kept the crew out of its studio and offices for weeks.