Man Down (Season 20, Episode 2)
Premise: After his father is acquitted of raping him, a teenager opens fire at his school, and Stone sets out to hold the father responsible.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 20, Episode 2
- 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), Judge Karyn Blake (Ami Brabson)
- Guest stars
- Dylan Walsh as John Conway, Bryce Romero as Sam Conway, Sally Murphy as Molly Conway, Richard Meehan as Brian Conway, Sandrine Holt as Lisa Abernathy
- Director
- Alex Chapple
- Writers
- Michael Chernuchin & Julie Martin
Summary
“Man Down” picks up after John Conway’s acquittal. Benson urges Molly to leave and take Sam with her, but Molly chooses to stand by her husband. The next morning Sam goes to school with Brian and opens fire with his father’s .22 hunting rifle, killing two students, Heather Lewis and Justin Cruz, and wounding five other people, among them a teacher. Brian says Sam pointed the gun at him, asked whether he was happy now, then dropped it and walked out. Carisi finds Sam alone with a second gun, begging to die, and talks him into giving up; Sam sobs that he should have just shot the rabbit. Both guns are registered to John.
Stone tells Benson he blames his own cross-examination for breaking the boy. A state psychologist, Lisa Abernathy, filling in for Dr. Olivet, finds Sam sane and remorseful; he describes his father belting him at age four, and she traces the shooting to a home where being a man meant killing animals, winning and never crying. John and Molly tell Stone that Sam will plead guilty, and Sam, who has fired his lawyer, tells a visitor that his father once said apologizing was for cowards and wondered aloud why he had bothered with him.
Stone decides to charge John with criminally negligent homicide for raising a son he should have seen was a danger to others. Molly refuses to help and blames herself for testifying, and Brian tells the detectives to blame themselves. Karey derides the case as a snowflake defense. On the stand John defends his parenting, and Stone baits him until the judge cuts him off. Called in rebuttal, Sam says that after the rabbit his father called him slurs, renamed him Samantha and threw one of his mother’s dresses at him, and that as he fired at school a voice in his head kept ordering him to be a man. Judge Karyn Blake blocks questions about the rape. In closing, Stone argues that John taught power over others, not strength.
Meanwhile Rollins admits to a colleague that she is unsure about having another baby; he points her to a moment saved on her phone that she once called the best of her life, while insisting the choice is hers alone.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury finds John Conway guilty of criminally negligent homicide, and he is taken into custody. At home, Benson shouts at Noah when he fights going to bed, then tells him she loves him.
Why it stands out
- The second hour of the two-hour Season 20 premiere, broadcast on September 27, 2018, right after “Man Up.”
- Sandrine Holt, who had guest-starred in Season 17 as a different character, begins a recurring role as a psychologist consulting for the DA’s office.
- The psychologist says she is covering for Dr. Olivet, the consulting psychiatrist from the show’s early seasons, who is away at a wedding in Tuscany.