Facing Demons (Season 20, Episode 16)
Premise: A young man’s suicide leads SVU to the magic-shop clerk who abused him as a boy and who once coached Brian Cassidy in youth baseball.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 20, Episode 16
- Starring
- Lt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Sgt. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Det. Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino), ADA Peter Stone (Philip Winchester), DA Investigator Brian Cassidy (Dean Winters)
- Guest stars
- William Sadler as Gary Dolan, PJ Marshall as Leo Berry, Selenis Leyva as Samantha Morgan, Jason Cottle as Rob Dennison, Jonathan Walker as Nathan Fuller
- Director
- Timothy Busfield
- Writers
- Richard Sweren & Allison Intrieri
Summary
“Facing Demons” begins when a neighbor finds 22-year-old bookstore clerk Micah Fuller dead in his apartment beside empty sleeping-pill bottles, a note of apology and Polaroids of a young, unclothed boy. The squad first takes Micah for a predator, and parents from the youth reading group he ran come in to view the pictures. Then his parents, Nathan and Amy Fuller, recognize every photo as Micah himself at about 11, taken in their home. His ex-girlfriend, Helen Schiller, says he told her a man had molested him as a boy and had him photograph himself. An email Micah sent his childhood friend Billy Ryan before he died points to “Gary,” the man who taught him magic, and an old video of Micah’s magic act shows a poster for the Gray Rabbit Magic Shop.
Gary Dolan, 63, a longtime clerk there, denies knowing Micah, though the shop takes Polaroid snapshots of customers. Stone needs a specific crime for a warrant until Amy reveals that in 2009, while her husband was away, Micah was treated for drain-cleaner burns to his genitals. In Dolan’s apartment Benson spots a 1985 Hudson youth league team photo that includes a young Brian Cassidy, now a DA investigator, who shrugs it off. When Stone tracks him down, Cassidy is armed and ready to go after Dolan; Stone wrestles him back, and Cassidy admits Dolan abused him but refuses to testify and makes Stone promise not to tell Benson.
Dolan rejects a plea offer. Cassidy and Stone drive to New England to find other boys from Dolan’s teams: Rob Dennison throws them out, while Leo Berry, a divorced father who drinks, first denies everything, then agrees to testify, thinking of his own son. Stone credits phone calls for finding Leo, but Benson works out the truth, arrests Dolan herself and tells him he will pay for what he did to Cassidy. Cassidy, about to leave town, rebuffs her, insisting he is a cop and not one of her survivors. At trial Leo describes a month of abuse after practice in 1985, but under cross-examination he admits drinking before court, and the judge strikes his testimony.
Spoiler, the ending: In the courthouse hallway Cassidy goes after Dolan, and Benson pulls him away. She tells him the case now depends on him and that testifying is his way to face what happened and forgive the boy in the team photo. Cassidy takes the stand and tells the jury that Dolan, his youth league coach, sexually assaulted him in 1985, when he was 12. The episode ends during his testimony, before any verdict.
Why it stands out
- A follow-up to last season’s “Chasing Demons,” in which Cassidy first told Stone that a youth baseball coach had abused him.
- Dean Winters returns as Brian Cassidy, a former SVU detective and Benson’s ex-boyfriend, now working as a DA investigator.
- Jasmine Batchelor, who later joins the squad as Det. Tonie Churlish, appears in a small role as Katie.