Gone Baby Gone (Season 19, Episode 9)
Premise: Noah is abducted from a Manhattan mall, and Benson discovers that his grandmother, Sheila Porter, planned the kidnapping.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 19, Episode 9
- Starring
- Lt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Det. Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino), Deputy Chief William Dodds (Peter Gallagher), ADA Rafael Barba (Raúl Esparza)
- Guest stars
- Brooke Shields as Sheila Porter, Frank Pando as Juan Ortoli, Maureen Mueller as Susan Janet, Kelvin McGrue as Raymond Green, Ryan Buggle as Noah Porter-Benson
- Director
- Jean de Segonzac
- Writers
- Story: Brianna Yellen & Robert Brooks Cohen & Céline C. Robinson & Elizabeth Rinehart; Written by: Lawrence Kaplow & Elizabeth Rinehart
Summary
“Gone Baby Gone” picks up as Sheila calls Benson from the Mall of Manhattan: Noah disappeared while she turned to get a coat with a hood. Benson has the mall sealed and searches with the squad. Deputy Chief Dodds orders her off the case because she is the victim’s mother; Fin passes on the order, and she refuses. A man with mutton chops Sheila remembers turns out to have spent an hour in a dressing room, but a shopper saw Noah leave with a Latino man. Security video shows them in the garage, with Noah in a blue hoodie he was not wearing, so the abduction was planned.
The car turns up at a bus station in Ridgewood, New Jersey. The man bought two tickets for a bus to Scranton, but when police stop the bus, he and Noah are not on it. The car was bought for cash by a man who brought his own new child seat. Benson tells Barba her son was targeted. The seat’s barcode leads to a Chelsea store, where the buyer was Sheila. By then Sheila has left the squad saying she was going home; her place in the city still holds clothes but not her photo of Ellie, she has emptied her bank account, and her house in Derry, New Hampshire, has stood empty for months. Elsewhere, Sheila buys Noah a burger and leaves Benson a cheerful voicemail.
Barba persuades Sheila’s lawyer, Susan Janet, to name the private investigator who referred Sheila, Raymond Green. Green says Sheila asked him for fake passports for herself and the boy, and his Boston office identifies the man in the video as Juan Ortoli, Sheila’s gardener of 14 years. Rollins and Carisi find him in Derry and arrest his daughter, Maria, to make him talk. Juan says Sheila told him Benson was abusing Noah, and that Sheila is waiting at his cabin. The cabin is empty.
Learning that Sheila’s late sister, Sara Cummings, owned land in Franconia, New Hampshire, Benson flies to Manchester rather than alert the FBI. At the cabin the two women struggle, and Sheila insists Noah is her blood and better off in the woods; Benson answers that she is legally his mother and the only mother he knows. Noah walks in, and as Benson takes him, Sheila tries to stop her, then breaks down in Benson’s arms.
Spoiler, the ending: Local police arrest Sheila pending extradition. Benson explains to Noah that Grandma Sheila is kind but did something very wrong, and Rollins and Carisi drive them home. Fin tells Dodds that Benson stayed home by the phone, and Barba visits Benson and Noah.
Why it stands out
- The episode concludes Brooke Shields’s arc as Sheila Porter, Noah’s grandmother, which began at the end of “Contrapasso” earlier in the season.
- The first episode of 2018, it aired on January 3 after a four-week break following the “Intent” cliffhanger.
- Peter Gallagher appears as Deputy Chief William Dodds, who orders Benson off her own son’s case.