Post-Mortem Blues (Season 15, Episode 21)
Premise: After William Lewis dies during a game of Russian roulette, Benson faces IAB and a Brooklyn grand jury that doubt her account that he shot himself.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 15, Episode 21
- Starring
- Sgt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Nick Amaro (Danny Pino), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Lt. Declan Murphy (Donal Logue), ME Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie), Defense Attorney Rita Calhoun (Elizabeth Marvel), Dr. Peter Lindstrom (Bill Irwin)
- Guest stars
- Pablo Schreiber as William Lewis, Greg Germann as ADA Derek Strauss, Robert John Burke as IAB Lt. Ed Tucker, Lily Pilblad as Amelia Cole, Sarah Storm as Bronwyn Freed
- Director
- Michael Slovis
- Writers
- Julie Martin & Warren Leight
Summary
“Post-Mortem Blues” opens in the granary where William Lewis is forcing Benson to play Russian roulette while 12-year-old Amelia Cole sits tied up nearby. The squad, listening over Benson’s radio, hears a single shot and arrives seconds later to find Lewis dead at the table. Benson says he turned the revolver on himself. IAB’s Lt. Ed Tucker shows up at the hospital while she is still being examined, and Lt. Declan Murphy, put in command of SVU after Lewis escaped, sends him off but tells the squad to give IAB the plain truth and nothing more.
Benson tells IAB that Lewis offered to rape either her or Amelia first and lost interest when she stopped resisting; he did not rape her. Defense attorney Rita Calhoun stops the interview and warns her that the televised confession she made hours earlier, admitting she beat the handcuffed Lewis and lied about it at his trial, exposes her to assault and perjury charges. Medical examiner Melinda Warner cannot rule the death a suicide: the right-handed Lewis was shot in the left temple, and both he and Benson carry gunshot residue and prints from the gun. Benson insists he switched hands on purpose. IAB signals it would accept a struggle for the gun, and Murphy urges her to play along, but she refuses. Amaro tells IAB that nobody saw the shot, and Murphy accuses him of undercutting his partner. IAB accepts Benson’s account, but the new Brooklyn DA sends her a target letter and convenes a grand jury.
Brooklyn ADA Derek Strauss questions Warner on the wound, has Benson’s protection detective, Carlson, describe how she tricked her guards to go after Lewis, implies the squad timed its arrival, and calls the forewoman of Lewis’s jury, who says jurors believed Benson used excessive force. Amelia says she heard a goodbye and one shot but never heard Benson say Lewis shot himself. Benson tells her therapist, Dr. Peter Lindstrom, that testifying means either confessing to the beating or lying again; he ties her willingness to risk her life for girls like Amelia to a childhood spent watching her father hurt her mother. She starts retirement paperwork to protect her pension and refuses to testify.
Spoiler, the ending: Called before the grand jury, Murphy is cut off by Strauss until a juror asks to hear him. He says the confession was false and that he ordered it as a tactic to draw Lewis out, then reminds the jurors of Lewis’s crimes. The grand jury declines to indict. Benson thanks Murphy, who says he told the “larger truth.” Asked by headquarters to stay on at SVU for a while, he asks Benson to remain his second-in-command, and she agrees.
Why it stands out
- William Lewis, the rapist introduced in the season 14 finale, dies in the opening minutes; the rest of the episode deals with the fallout for Benson.
- Greg Germann’s Derek Strauss, the special prosecutor from the season’s police-shooting case in “Amaro’s One-Eighty,” now leads the grand jury against Benson, with Elizabeth Marvel’s Rita Calhoun defending her.
- Murphy’s testimony reveals that Benson’s televised confession at the end of the previous episode was a ploy he ordered to lure Lewis.