Contrapasso (Season 19, Episode 3)
Premise: A man is castrated in a hotel room, and the trail leads to three former students he sexually exploited when he was their high school teacher.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 19, Episode 3
- 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), Judge Karyn Blake (Ami Brabson), Defense Attorney Trevor Langan (Peter Hermann)
- Guest stars
- Paul Fitzgerald as Jason Karr, Kathleen Munroe as Evelyn Bundy, Annabeth Gish as Carolyn Rivers, Brooke Shields as Sheila Porter, Lauren Norvelle as Karen Karr
- Director
- Jean de Segonzac
- Writers
- Story: Brianna Yellen & Robert Brooks Cohen & Céline C. Robinson & Elizabeth Rinehart; Written by: Richard Sweren
Summary
“Contrapasso” opens in a Midtown hotel room, where a 911 call about screaming leads police to Jason Karr, 46, drugged and castrated but still alive. Benson gets word that the DA has closed the inquiry into Noah’s bruises. Karr says he met a woman called Angela at the hotel bar and remembers nothing after a drink in her room. The room was booked on Julie Wade’s credit card; she claims she was home in Yonkers, but hotel video and her E-ZPass say otherwise. Nora Galen, who called 911, and bartender Evelyn Bundy had dinner with Julie that night, and all three deny knowing Karr.
The link turns up in a 1995 yearbook: all three attended Packard Prep in Rye Brook and belonged to a literary club whose adviser was Karr. Karr and his much younger wife, Karen, refuse to help. At Carisi’s suggestion, the women are arrested for obstruction and put in one holding cell, and they soon talk. Evelyn says Karr began having sex with her when she was 16, and that at their 20th reunion the three learned he had done the same to each of them. They lured him to the hotel to confront him; when he said they had seduced him, Evelyn spiked his drink with her anxiety pills, sent the others away and used a steak knife she took from the restaurant. Meanwhile, Trevor Langan tells Benson that Noah’s late birth mother, Ellie Porter, lied about having no family: her mother, Sheila Porter, is alive and has petitioned to vacate the adoption. Benson blames Langan and asks him to leave.
Evelyn agrees to plead guilty to assault and serve four years, then says Karr once forced himself on her, threatening her with a corkscrew, when she tried to end it. A forcible rape has no statute of limitations, and Karr is charged. At trial his lawyer, Carolyn Rivers, attacks Evelyn on cross, and the conch shell Karr once gave her shatters in court. Karen then hands over a 1995 school literary journal from Karr’s papers. Karr admits a crush and an abuse of power but denies force, and Barba has him read Evelyn’s poem “Corkscrew.” Benson objects when Barba considers offering Karr four years. Rivers argues that Karr has suffered enough; Barba answers that such fairness would excuse revenge.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury convicts Karr of first-degree rape. That night, as Benson reads to Noah, a woman knocks at the door and introduces herself as Sheila Porter, Noah’s grandmother.
Why it stands out
- Brooke Shields first appears as Sheila Porter, Noah’s grandmother, a recurring role that runs through the first half of the season.
- Annabeth Gish guest stars as defense attorney Carolyn Rivers.
- The title comes from Dante’s Inferno, where contrapasso is a punishment that mirrors the sin, as Evelyn explains.