Pornstar's Requiem (Season 16, Episode 5)
Premise: A Hudson freshman who made porn videos to pay her tuition is raped by two classmates, and her past is put on trial alongside them.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 16, Episode 5
- Starring
- Sgt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Det. Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino), Deputy Chief William Dodds (Peter Gallagher), ADA Rafael Barba (Raúl Esparza)
- Guest stars
- Hannah Marks as Evie Barnes, Max Ehrich as Daniel Pryor, Casey Thomas Brown as Matt Cooper, Delaney Williams as John Buchanan, Kathleen Chalfant as President Roberts
- Ripped from the headlines
- Drawn from the story of Belle Knox, a Duke University student whose work in pornography became public in 2014.
- Director
- Jennifer Getzinger
- Writers
- Story: Kevin Fox & Warren Leight; Teleplay: Robert Brooks Cohen & Céline C. Robinson
Summary
“Pornstar’s Requiem” begins as Evie Barnes, from East Aurora, New York, films a porn audition on her 18th birthday to pay for college. Weeks into her freshman year at Hudson University, two dorm-mates, Daniel Pryor and Matt Cooper, recognize her from the video, invite her to a party and rape her in a bathroom. Her resident adviser, Justin Adams, calls the police. Evie tells Rollins she does not want to press charges, then admits the boys had seen her video and that Daniel filmed the assault on his phone. Daniel says the sex was consensual. Her hospital exam is consistent with force, and Carisi is told her past has no bearing on the assault.
Defense lawyer John Buchanan, representing both boys, hands over the phone video along with about a dozen more of Evie’s films, made under the name Roxxxanne Demay and mostly staged rape scenarios that she had not mentioned. Deputy Chief Dodds scolds Benson for the squad’s failure to vet her and for keeping Hudson out of the loop, and warns her against embarrassing the university. Barba worries the films will sink the case. Carisi works on Matt, whose family is not paying for the shared lawyer, suggesting Daniel may cut a deal first; told that Daniel blamed him, Matt fires Buchanan and confesses that Daniel set it up and coached him to lie. He takes a misdemeanor plea to testify. Evie’s father refuses to attend the trial.
On the stand Evie says her films were acting and the assault was not. Buchanan argues that her “no” meant yes when she was paid and is warned by the judge. Matt admits the two of them raped her, and Daniel, testifying in his own defense, concedes under Barba’s questioning that she said no, cried and begged him to stop. The jury convicts Daniel of first-degree rape. Hudson then expels Evie for violating its code of conduct, and Benson confronts President Roberts. At sentencing, Judge Oscar Briggs sets aside the verdict for lack of evidence, lectures Evie about respecting herself and frees Daniel; Barba vows to appeal. Dodds orders Benson to stay out of Hudson’s affairs.
Spoiler, the ending: Evie disappears, leaving a dorm door covered in slurs. The squad finds her on a porn set in New Hampshire, where she says she can never be Evie Barnes again and that on set, at least, people stop when she says stop. When the detectives urge her to come home, she refuses, and Rollins is told it is Evie’s choice; they walk away.
Why it stands out
- Peter Scanavino is a series regular from this episode, after recurring as Carisi in the season’s first three episodes.
- Barba cites real-life performers Belle Knox and Tasha Reign as women who turned to adult films to pay tuition.
- The judge’s ruling is a judgment notwithstanding the verdict, which Barba calls setting rape law back 50 years.