Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Season 17 Episode Guide
Plot summaries for the seventeenth season of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, which aired on NBC from September 2015 to May 2016, featuring Olivia Benson, Det. Amanda Rollins, Det. Fin Tutuola, Det. Sonny Carisi and ADA Rafael Barba.
- 1
Devil's Dissections
A dismembered woman found near Greg Yates’s old burial ground leads the squad, through Yates himself, to a second body hidden in a wall and to the city’s deputy chief medical examiner.
- 2
Criminal Pathology
After Greg Yates’s fiancée is found dismembered, the squad tracks the fugitive medical examiner Carl Rudnick and tries to convict him despite his claim of self-defense.
- 3
Transgender Bridge
When a transgender teenager dies after a 15-year-old boy pushes her off a park footbridge, the DA’s office takes the case from family court and tries him as an adult for a hate crime.
- 4
Institutional Fail
After a neglected toddler wanders into a precinct, SVU finds his sister starving in a cage and Barba goes after the Child Services caseworker and bosses who faked their home visits.
- 5
Community Policing
Hunting a pattern rapist, three detectives shoot and kill an unarmed young man, and Barba asks a grand jury to indict them while Benson defends the officers.
- 6
Maternal Instincts
A celebrated flautist accused of rape blames an escort he says drugged him, and Rollins recognizes the escort as her fugitive sister.
- 7
Patrimonial Burden
When the 13-year-old daughter of a famous religious reality-TV family turns up pregnant, SVU uncovers abuse that her family and church have kept hidden.
- 8
Melancholy Pursuit
When a 15-year-old girl vanishes after swim practice and is found dead, a partial DNA match leads SVU through the secret children of a dead man.
- 9
Depravity Standard
When Lewis Hodda recants his confession, Barba tries him for a 1999 child murder and Benson’s interrogation tactics go on trial with him.
- 10
Catfishing Teacher
A missing 15-year-old seems to have run off with a teacher who has been sleeping with students, but SVU finds he was lured away by his wrestling coach.
- 11
Townhouse Incident
Checking on a family for her nanny, Benson walks into a violent home invasion and is taken hostage while the squad and IAB’s Ed Tucker try to get her out.
- 12
A Misunderstanding
A 15-year-old says a senior assaulted her in a school darkroom, and SVU must prove a case built on what neither teenager said aloud.
- 13
Forty-One Witnesses
A woman is assaulted in her building’s courtyard in view of many neighbors, none of whom called for help, and SVU needs one of them to testify.
- 14
Nationwide Manhunt
When Greg Yates and Carl Rudnick escape from prison, SVU and Chicago detectives join a manhunt across upstate New York.
- 15
Collateral Damages
A sting on a celebrity boxer leads SVU to a child pornography ring and to the NYPD’s own deputy commissioner for public information.
- 16
Star-Struck Victims
When a vlogger says a TV star and his friend assaulted her at his club and the DA declines to charge, Rollins goes undercover to catch the pair in the act.
- 17
Manhattan Transfer
A raid on a party where underage girls are trafficked to powerful men leads SVU to two Vice detectives, a nun who infiltrated the ring and a Catholic school tied to Tucker’s family.
- 18
Unholiest Alliance
With Benson removed from SVU and Tucker accused of running a trafficking ring, the squad pursues the clergy behind it after the nun who exposed the ring is murdered.
- 19
Sheltered Outcasts
Carisi lives undercover in a shelter for sex offenders to find a serial rapist, but the attacks point to more than one man and a killer outside the shelter.
- 20
Fashionable Crimes
A teenage model accuses a celebrated fashion photographer of rape, but she backs out under pressure, and then the photographer is shot dead at his family’s runway show.
- 21
Assaulting Reality
A reality-show contestant sees on live television that she was sexually assaulted while unconscious, and SVU finds the producers hid who did it to protect their storyline.
- 22
Intersecting Lives
A former inmate accuses a Rikers corrections officer of raping her inside and outside the jail, and SVU builds a case while his union closes ranks.
- 23
Heartfelt Passages
Benson and Sgt. Dodds help the wife of an accused corrections officer leave him, and the visit becomes a hostage standoff that costs Dodds his life.