Gone Fishin' (Season 19, Episode 1)
Premise: Fin brings a fugitive serial rapist back from Cuba, and his unorthodox arrest turns the prosecution into an international dispute.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 19, Episode 1
- Starring
- Lt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Det. Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino), ADA Rafael Barba (Raúl Esparza), DA Investigator Brian Cassidy (Dean Winters)
- Guest stars
- Will Chase as Byron Marks, Amy Smart as Karla Wyatt, Peter Jacobson as Randy Dworkin, Mariela Garriga as Elana Marks, Frank Rodriguez as Pedro Formosa
- Director
- Alex Chapple
- Writers
- Story: Brianna Yellen & Robert Brooks Cohen & Céline C. Robinson & Elizabeth Rinehart; Written by: Michael Chernuchin
Summary
“Gone Fishin’” opens with Fin back from a fishing vacation in Havana with Byron Marks in tow. Six years earlier Marks raped three women he met at farmers’ markets, threatening them with a knife, and left the country before the lab could match his DNA. Fin claims he simply spotted him on a pier and that Cuban police helped him bring Marks home. The victims want no part of a trial: Joyce Peterson and Keesha Johnson refuse to testify, and Karla Wyatt’s husband, Frank, forbids her to. Meanwhile, Noah’s school calls Benson in after he tells the nurse that his mother gave him a bruise on his arm.
Karla changes her mind, and Marks is arraigned and held without bail. His lawyer, Randy Dworkin, a former Scalia clerk who usually works in federal court, moves to dismiss on the grounds that Fin kidnapped his client. Benson, to whom Fin had already admitted privately that he had help, tells him the squad does things the legal way. At home, Noah reminds her that the bruise came from when she grabbed him out of a cab’s path. At the hearing, Marks says he was grabbed outside a Havana café and left in a sweltering van for four hours; Fin testifies that he tracked Marks through comments signed “B from Havana” on a jazz saxophonist’s website. The judge finds no torture, but a Cuban diplomat, Pedro Formosa, demands Marks’s return. When Marks’s wife, Elana, testifies about their four-year-old daughter, the judge releases him into Dworkin’s custody overnight.
Marks gives the detectives tailing him the slip and turns up at Karla’s apartment, where she holds him at gunpoint and makes him kneel and beg. Benson talks her down and takes the gun as a shot goes off. Marks says he came only to apologize and ask her not to testify, and he is held overnight for witness tampering. With Benson present, Karla tells Elana exactly what Marks did to her, and Elana says she wants to change her testimony.
Spoiler, the ending: Without Elana, Cuba no longer has standing and withdraws its claim, Elana flies home, and Dworkin opens plea talks, with Barba demanding a sentence of at least 20 years. That night Brian Cassidy, who had retired to Florida and is now an investigator for the DA’s office, appears at Benson’s door. He tells her SVU has recused itself from a child abuse case and that he is investigating her.
Why it stands out
- The Season 19 premiere and the first episode written by Michael Chernuchin, who took over as showrunner this season.
- Peter Jacobson plays Randy Dworkin, a defense attorney Chernuchin created for Law & Order; Jacobson had earlier appeared on SVU as the pimp Bart Ganzel.
- Dean Winters returns as Brian Cassidy, now a DA investigator, setting up the inquiry into Benson that continues in the next episode.