Forgiving Rollins (Season 16, Episode 10)
Premise: A visiting Atlanta detective says her deputy chief raped her during a New York conference, and the case forces Rollins to reveal what he did to her.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 16, Episode 10
- Starring
- Sgt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Nick Amaro (Danny Pino), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Deputy Chief William Dodds (Peter Gallagher), ADA Rafael Barba (Raúl Esparza), Judge Elana Barth (Jenna Stern)
- Guest stars
- Harry Hamlin as Deputy Chief Charles Patton, Dreama Walker as Detective Reese Taymor, Myk Watford as Captain Sam Reynolds, Delaney Williams as John Buchanan, Becky Ann Baker as Vivienne Patton
- Director
- Michael Slovis
- Writers
- Warren Leight & Julie Martin
Summary
“Forgiving Rollins” opens at a law enforcement conference in New York, where Atlanta Deputy Chief Charles Patton takes credit for solving the Pattern 17 case and introduces his new detective, Reese Taymor. Rollins avoids drinks with the Atlanta officers. The next morning a hotel maid finds Taymor unconscious on her bathroom floor with a head wound; her blood alcohol is 0.12, and she told a hospital nurse she had been raped. Taymor first says she fell, then describes a man who talked his way into her room, but she names Patton only after Rollins steps out, and she refuses to press charges or testify. Hotel video shows the two entering her room at 1 a.m. and Patton leaving his adjoining suite at 6.
Interviewed by Deputy Chief Dodds, Patton calls it a consensual affair that soured when he would not leave his wife, and claims Rollins holds a grudge, saying she once offered herself to him to help her sister. Fin finds Rollins at a bar in Long Island City, where she admits that Patton offered to make her sister’s fraud and drug charges disappear and that she went along. Off the record, she tells Barba she believes Taymor. Rollins then visits Taymor, who denies any affair and says Captain Sam Reynolds spread rumors after she rejected him; she agrees to testify. Patton is arrested quietly, without handcuffs, on a first-degree rape charge. Reynolds later tracks Rollins to her street and taunts her about Patton, and she strikes him.
Patton’s lawyer, John Buchanan, offers his client’s retirement in return for dropping the case, and talks collapse when Barba insists on at least third-degree sexual abuse. At trial, Benson testifies about Taymor’s injuries, and Taymor describes Patton using a broken key card as an excuse to come through her room, ordering champagne, then pinning her down and raping her. Buchanan hammers her drinking and her silence that night. Rollins prepares to testify that Patton raped her at a motel years earlier, but Judge Elana Barth rules her account more prejudicial than probative. On the stand Patton blames a spurned mistress until Barba asks how he knew the adjoining door would be unlocked; Patton collapses, though doctors find an anxiety attack, not a heart attack.
Spoiler, the ending: Benson urges Rollins to deal with what happened and gets her to agree to call her therapist for a referral. Patton then pleads guilty to third-degree sexual abuse: he will register as a sex offender and receive probation and community service with no jail time, resign as deputy chief and stay out of law enforcement, and he admits in court that Taymor did not consent. Afterward Rollins says she will take some time off.
Why it stands out
- Harry Hamlin returns as Patton, completing a two-episode arc that began in “Pattern Seventeen.”
- Dreama Walker guest stars as Detective Reese Taymor.
- Becky Ann Baker plays Patton’s wife, Vivienne, who sits behind him at the trial.