Dissonant Voices (Season 15, Episode 7)
Premise: A four-year-old’s claim that his music teacher, a TV singing coach, abused him snowballs into nine accusations before SVU learns who scripted the story.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 15, Episode 7
- Starring
- Sgt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Nick Amaro (Danny Pino), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), ADA Rafael Barba (Raúl Esparza), Dr. Peter Lindstrom (Bill Irwin)
- Guest stars
- Billy Porter as Jackie Walker, Hana Hayes as Brooke Allen, Kara Hayward as Rachel Burns, Jennifer Roszell as Allison Burns, Carly Rose Sonenclar as Grace Belsey
- Director
- Alex Chapple
- Writers
- John P. Roche
Summary
“Dissonant Voices” opens on the singing contest American Diva, where vocal coach Jackie Walker sends his 14-year-old protégée, Grace Belsey, onstage. Watching at home, four-year-old Jonah Allen says he does not like Walker, his music teacher at the elite Margaret Fuller school, because Walker follows him into the bathroom and makes him play doctor. Jonah’s parents, Steven and Mrs. Allen, are fighting through a separation, but neither seems to have coached him, and his 15-year-old sister, Brooke, says he told her two weeks earlier. Jonah describes a bathroom decorated with bluebirds and flowers and purple “magic eggs” Walker tickles him with. Rollins worries that accusing an openly gay celebrity teacher will stain him even if the charges fall apart.
A search finds the bathroom and, in Walker’s rhythm-instrument bin, purple sex toys. Walker denies everything and calls for a lawyer. Barba believes Jonah but says no judge will let a four-year-old testify. Cooper Burns, another preschooler, then tells of the same eggs and a secret game, though he places a window above a bathtub in a school bathroom that has no tub. The lab finds Jonah’s saliva on the toys, plus a second, unknown sample. Walker now admits he was alone with Cooper after the boy fell into a toilet and says he lied out of fear. Charged with two counts of aggravated sexual abuse, he cannot raise $1 million bail and has no one to call. Rollins questions whether Benson, still recovering, is pushing too hard.
Benson tells Dr. Lindstrom she feels compelled to save every child, and he points out she has never mentioned her parents. The allegations reach nine preschoolers, all too young to testify. Brooke then says Walker abused her from the age of four, and Cooper’s older sister, Rachel, makes the same claim. At the Burns home, Rollins sees a stained-glass window of pink flowers and bluebirds above Cooper’s tub, and Cooper admits Brooke taught him the story. Walker reveals he dropped both girls as students when he chose Grace for the show. Faced with a search of her phone and computer, Rachel says Brooke planned everything and told her and Cooper what to say; Brooke insists Walker ruined her life.
Spoiler, the ending: Prosecutors drop the charges, release Walker and apologize, but he says his reputation is destroyed and he will never teach again. Brooke and Rachel are allowed to plead to misdemeanor obstruction and get a year’s probation, because a trial would mean putting their little brothers on the stand against them. Walker storms off, and the squad is left arguing over whether it simply did its job or should have seen the lie.
Why it stands out
- Billy Porter guest-stars as Jackie Walker; Ashanti, Clay Aiken and Taylor Hicks are credited as themselves.
- Discussing how many victims there could be, the squad points to the Jimmy Savile scandal in Britain, where abuse of hundreds of children went unreported for decades.
- Benson’s therapy sessions with Dr. Lindstrom, begun after her abduction earlier in the season, turn for the first time to her childhood.