A Misunderstanding (Season 17, Episode 12)
Premise: 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.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 17, Episode 12
- Starring
- Lt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Det. Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino), Sgt. Mike Dodds (Andy Karl), ADA Rafael Barba (Raúl Esparza), Dr. Peter Lindstrom (Bill Irwin), Judge Felicia Catano (Aida Turturro), Defense Attorney Rita Calhoun (Elizabeth Marvel)
- Guest stars
- Charlotte Ray Rosenberg as Abby Stewart, Sean Grandillo as Chris Roberts, Delaney Williams as John Buchanan, Pamela Gray as Laura Stewart, Olivia Birkelund as Ellen Roberts
- Ripped from the headlines
- Loosely based on the case of Owen Labrie, a New Hampshire prep-school graduate tried in 2015 for sexually assaulting a younger student.
- Director
- Mariska Hargitay
- Writers
- Story: Brianna Yellen; Written by: Céline C. Robinson
Summary
“A Misunderstanding” opens with Benson telling her therapist that she is ready to return to work after the townhouse siege, nightmares and all. Rita Calhoun, now working without pay as an advocate for a family she knows, brings Benson the case of Abby Stewart, a 15-year-old Dowland School freshman. Abby says that at a dance Chris Roberts, an 18-year-old senior who had been sexting her, led her to the school darkroom, a known hookup spot, and kept going after she asked him to slow down; she froze when he tried to have sex with her. Her local precinct turned the family away, and her mother learned of it only after the housekeeper found Abby’s stained dress in the trash.
Chris, a straight-A student hoping for Stanford, denies any sexual contact until the lab matches semen on the dress to him, and he had bragged on Instagram about taking her virginity. His lawyer, John Buchanan, calls it a nervous first encounter that ended early and produces friendly texts Abby sent Chris afterward. Two classmates reveal a senior secret society, the Cherry Pickers Club, whose members write the names of the virgins they claim on a wall hidden behind a library portrait; Abby is the only name under Chris’s. Dodds doubts the case, and Barba offers a plea to misdemeanor sexual misconduct, which would put Chris on the sex offender registry. The Stewarts agree, the Robertses refuse, and Chris is charged with attempted rape, sexual misconduct and forcible touching.
At trial Buchanan accuses Benson of blaming shy victims, gets Carisi to agree that teenage boys brag about conquests they never made, and leads Abby to concede she never actually said no. Before Abby testifies, Chris’s mother corners her in the restroom and blames her for Stanford’s request that Chris withdraw. Chris testifies that he kept checking whether Abby was comfortable, but Barba gets him to admit he never asked and never heard her agree. Afterward Benson and Barba talk about the need for clearer consent rules, noting California’s new affirmative consent law.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury acquits Chris of attempted rape and forcible touching but convicts him of first-degree sexual misconduct, a misdemeanor that puts him on the registry. Outside the courtroom Abby and Chris try to speak, and the two mothers trade insults until the families are pulled apart.
Why it stands out
- Mariska Hargitay directed the episode, one of two she directed this season, along with “Sheltered Outcasts.”
- Defense lawyer Rita Calhoun switches sides for once, taking the victim’s family as an unpaid advocate.