Exchange (Season 20, Episode 21)
Premise: An exchange student’s rape by a cabdriver leads the squad to discover that her host father groomed her and her sister into believing their own father had abused them.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 20, Episode 21
- 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
- Darren Goldstein as Richard Matthews, Anna Van Patten as Emilia Barassi, Isabella Pisacane as Lara Barassi, Erin Dilly as Mary Matthews, Mike McGowan as Alex Kay
- Director
- Michael Pressman
- Writers
- Michael Chernuchin & Jordan Barsky
Summary
“Exchange” begins after Emilia Barassi, a 15-year-old exchange student from Italy, walks out of a strip poker game at her friend Tommy Burke’s home and takes a cab that speeds past her stop. A neighbor sees her dumped in the street and calls 911, and doctors confirm she was raped. Her host parents, Richard and Mary Matthews, have taken in students for years; her older sister, Lara, once lived with them and now attends Hudson. Carisi, whose aunt was born on the sisters’ home island of Ischia, talks with the girls in Italian. Lara turns out to have Emilia’s missing phone, and its ride app, billed to Richard’s card, names the driver, Oscar Grove. Picked up by Fin, he all but confesses and pleads guilty.
TARU then finds a video on Emilia’s phone of her having sex with two men in their forties. Emilia tells Benson it happened once, at the Harper Hotel, after the men gave her alcohol, and begs her not to tell Richard. Facial recognition identifies one man as developer Alex Kay, who tells Fin and Rollins it is not him. The video was emailed to Emilia by Lara, who admits taking her sister to the party but says Emilia wanted to go. Mary confides that both girls were molested by their father in Italy, now in prison after Lara testified, and the detectives notice that no bedroom in the Matthews apartment has a door.
Emilia describes abuse that began when she was four, and Carisi finds the same phrases, word for word, in Lara’s testimony at the Italian trial. Lara credits Richard with helping her see what her father did, and he traveled with her to the trial. A former exchange student from Brazil recalls Richard showing her a homemade sex tape of himself with an earlier student. Benson shows Emilia old family photos and asks whether she truly remembers the abuse. Emilia admits that Lara and Richard told her about it, that Richard “proved” it by molesting her, and that he filmed the hotel encounter on Lara’s phone.
Richard is arrested, calling what he did with his girls beautiful. Mary admits he took off the doors so she could watch, and that she kept quiet for fear he would leave her. Lara then swallows Ambien and, as detectives keep her on her feet, screams that they took Richard from her and that she was the one he really loved.
Spoiler, the ending: Lara’s stomach is pumped and she is held for observation. The DA’s office asks Italy’s Ministry of Justice to work on freeing the sisters’ father, and their mother, Alessandra, arrives from Italy for a tearful reunion with her daughters.
Why it stands out
- Developer Alex Kay, identified here from the hotel video, returns in the season finale, “End Game,” where he places Rob Miller at a Hamptons party but refuses to testify against him.
- Carisi, who mentions an aunt born on Ischia, speaks Italian with the sisters and translates the record of their father’s trial in Italy.