Remember Me (Season 19, Episode 23)
Premise: A nanny holds a man she says trafficked and raped her at gunpoint in a Central Park West penthouse while a hidden camera streams the ordeal, and Benson becomes her hostage.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 19, Episode 23
- Starring
- Lt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Sgt. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Det. Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino)
- Guest stars
- Genesis Rodriguez as Lourdes Vega, Carlos Miranda as Miguel Lopez, Eddie Hargitay as Officer Montero, Gary Perez as Jorge Diaz, Kelly Deadmon as Stephanie Buckley
- Director
- Alex Chapple
- Writers
- Story: Brianna Yellen & Robert Brooks Cohen & Céline C. Robinson & Elizabeth Rinehart; Written by: Michael Chernuchin & Julie Martin
Summary
“Remember Me” follows Lourdes Vega, the live-in nanny for the Buckley family, who goes out dancing with a friend while the Buckleys leave for a weekend in Greenwich. At a Chelsea club she spots a man and goes home with him to a penthouse, then pulls a gun on him and ties him to a chair. The next morning a young man brings the precinct a phone he picked up at the club; it is streaming live video of the captive. TARU cannot trace the feed, which runs through the dark web, but the phone belongs to Miguel Lopez, who is not at his Bleecker Street apartment.
On the stream, the woman says Miguel burned and cut her when she was 18, and he insists that five years ago he was a software worker in Portland. A club employee knows Miguel but not her. She steps onto a terrace and a shot rings out, but she comes back unharmed, saying she nearly killed herself and that he deserves a fair trial first. To win his release, Miguel claims he did everything she says, adding that he cut her with a pocketknife and burned her with a cigar. The squad matches the gunshot to a race’s starter pistol in Central Park and searches the terraced buildings on Central Park West. The apartment’s owner, Jorge Diaz, comes home and is knocked unconscious, and the woman finds and disables the camera.
Benson and Officer Montero reach the penthouse, where she holds a gun to Montero until Benson gives up her weapon and both are handcuffed; she wants Benson as a witness. She says Miguel recruited her in Mexico with the promise of a nanny’s job in New York, smuggled her across the border in a cooler and, in Texas, beat, cut, burned and repeatedly raped her, and that he shot two friends, Estella and Lucita, after making her choose between them. Benson tells her she has the same nightmares, and the woman gives her name, Lourdes. Under the gun, Miguel sings the song she remembers and admits raping her. When Fin calls, Benson asks him to have Rollins collect a nonexistent child from school, and he realizes she is in trouble. Miguel then details the burns and the rapes, and Benson promises to arrest him and testify.
Spoiler, the ending: Lourdes forces Miguel onto the terrace ledge and tells him to jump or be shot. Benson convinces her that killing him would make him the victim, and Lourdes hands over the gun as Fin arrives. Benson has them both arrested, and Diaz is taken to the hospital. Worried about cartel retaliation, Benson has a patrol car sent to Noah’s school and phones him.
Why it stands out
- The first half of the two-part Season 19 finale; this episode and “Remember Me Too” both aired on May 23, 2018.
- Genesis Rodriguez guest stars as Lourdes Vega, and most of the hour unfolds as a live-streamed hostage situation.