Assumptions (Season 20, Episode 23)
Premise: When a Muslim councilwoman is raped in a synagogue, early assumptions point to Jewish teens, but her secret life leads the squad to her ex-husband.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 20, Episode 23
- Starring
- Lt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Sgt. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Det. Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino), Deputy Chief William Dodds (Peter Gallagher), ADA Peter Stone (Philip Winchester), Judge Karyn Blake (Ami Brabson)
- Guest stars
- Nazneen Contractor as Nahla Nasar, Hadi Tabbal as Masud Faraj, Titus Welliver as Rob Miller, Ted Sutherland as Ari Kaplan, Meredith Holzman as Naomi Zeigler
- Director
- Fred Berner
- Writers
- Story: Michael Chernuchin; Teleplay: Julie Martin & Richard Sweren
Summary
“Assumptions” opens as a woman, Esther Meyer, sees two teenage boys run from a synagogue, one in what she takes for a MAGA hat, and hears what she takes for an anti-Semitic slur. Inside, police find City Councilwoman Nahla Nasar, known for remarks many call anti-Semitic, unconscious with her hijab torn off. She tells Carisi and Rollins she was set up, and later says a man struck her from behind and raped her without her seeing his face. A synagogue official who invited her to tour an exhibit says she never came to their meeting. Benson learns from the news that Rob Miller, the former NYPD attorney accused of raping defense attorney Nikki Staines, is out on bail.
Fin and Carisi bring in Ari Kaplan, who with Michael Schwartz was there for a meeting about a trip to Israel; the witness may have mistaken a school cap and misheard the name “Mike.” Ari says Nasar was already unconscious. Nasar then identifies both as students who protested outside her office that afternoon, and the news site MetroBuzz posts video of the clash with a false report that SVU has arrested two Jewish teens. Her office phoned MetroBuzz before the confrontation. Nasar refuses to hand over her phone records and accuses the police of calling her a liar, and the full footage shows her goading the boys. Benson tells Dodds that Miller is harassing her, even having a state trooper pull her over with Noah in the car.
Her call log leads to Tracy Larson, owner of a lesbian bar, where Nasar asks detectives not to reveal that she and Tracy have been together for a year. Her parents say she took up the hijab after meeting her ex-husband, Masud Faraj, a florist who claims he was at his shop all day, but he appears in the MetroBuzz crowd. Her chief of staff admits he came to the office three times, and once a witness puts him outside the synagogue, Masud is arrested.
At trial, Nasar says she knew Masud by the way the rapist pulled her hair, and defense attorney Naomi Zeigler attacks her over the staged protest and her hidden life. Stone presses Masud on his religious views of divorce and homosexuality until he declares he should have killed her, because she is his wife. In closings, Zeigler warns jurors against assumptions, and Stone argues the facts point to one.
Spoiler, the ending: Masud is found guilty of second-degree rape. Nasar’s parents tell her they are still proud of her, as someone nearby screams that she is a disgrace. Later, at dinner with Noah, Benson is approached by Rob Miller, who calls himself her friend and introduces himself to her son.
Why it stands out
- Titus Welliver returns as Rob Miller, the NYPD attorney first seen in “Blackout,” setting up his part in the season finale.
- Peter Gallagher appears as Deputy Chief William Dodds, fielding press questions about a possible hate crime.