Psycho/Therapist (Season 15, Episode 10)
Premise: Benson must testify against William Lewis, who acts as his own lawyer and turns her account of her abduction, and her beating of him, against her.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 15, Episode 10
- Starring
- Sgt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Nick Amaro (Danny Pino), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Det. Brian Cassidy (Dean Winters), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), ADA Rafael Barba (Raúl Esparza), Dr. Peter Lindstrom (Bill Irwin)
- Guest stars
- Pablo Schreiber as William Lewis, Renée Elise Goldsberry as Martha Marron, Barbara Jimenez as Viva Nunez, Sarah Street as Dr. Janice Cole, John Rothman as Judge Edward Kofax
- Director
- Michael Slovis
- Writers
- Warren Leight & Julie Martin
Summary
“Psycho/Therapist” finds Benson seeing Dr. Lindstrom and rehearsing with Barba for the trial of William Lewis, who held her captive for four days. Barba plans to charge attempted murder and attempted rape, warning that Lewis will call those days consensual. A judge grants Lewis’s motion to try the Suffolk County crimes, including the rape of Mrs. Mayer, the murder of her husband and the killing of a Suffolk officer, separately. Lewis then offers to plead guilty to multiple counts of rape and sodomy, describing each act in open court. Benson refuses, insisting he never raped her. Barba warns her that Lewis will say she beat him while he was handcuffed and that any departure from her grand jury account could set him free.
Once a jury is seated, Lewis replaces his lawyer, Martha Marron, with himself, and the judge keeps Marron on to advise him. Barred from the courtroom as witnesses, the squad waits outside. Lewis suggests Fin had time to plant evidence, reminds Rollins that a judge dismissed the exposure charges she once brought against him, and gets Amaro to say Benson acted provocatively in his interrogation. Mrs. Mayer refuses to testify if Lewis questions her. Benson then admits to Barba that housekeeper Viva Nunez and her young daughter Luisa came to the beach house. Lewis calls Viva, who testifies that Benson sent them away by warning that immigration would take Luisa, and a doctor agrees that his injuries would have left him unable to fight back. Benson tells Lindstrom that once she started hitting Lewis she could not stop.
Treating Benson as a hostile witness, Lewis paints her as a lonely detective obsessed with him who let him in, drank and took drugs willingly and attacked him when he rejected her. Benson holds to her account that he had freed himself from the handcuffs. Fearing the jury now doubts her, she considers the plea deal, but Barba has 100 questions ready for Lewis. Instead Lewis rests without testifying and, in his closing, asks the jury who the real victim is.
Spoiler, the ending: The jurors put on the record their misgivings about Benson’s conduct, then acquit Lewis of attempted murder and attempted rape and convict him of kidnapping and assaulting a police officer. Barba plans to seek 25 years to life. Four months after the trial, Lewis fakes a medical emergency in prison as part of an escape; the episode ends as prison doctor Janice Cole promises to get him out.
Why it stands out
- Pablo Schreiber returns as William Lewis, who abducted Benson in the season’s opening episodes.
- Benson faces cross-examination from her own kidnapper, since Lewis represents himself after firing his lawyer.
- Renée Elise Goldsberry appears as Lewis’s attorney, Martha Marron.