I'm Going to Make You a Star (Season 21, Episode 1)
Premise: A powerful media mogul is accused of sexually assaulting a young actress during a late-night audition, and his connections reach into the DA’s office.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 21, Episode 1
- Starring
- Lt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Sgt. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Officer Katriona “Kat” Tamin (Jamie Gray Hyder), Deputy Chief William Dodds (Peter Gallagher), ADA Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino), Bureau Chief Vanessa Hadid (Zuleikha Robinson), Defense Attorney Elana Barth (Jenna Stern)
- Guest stars
- Ian McShane as Sir Tobias Moore, Carmen Berkeley as Pilar Reyes, Elizabeth A. Davis as Gemma Brooks, Rachel Towne as Cindy Morrison
- Ripped from the headlines
- Inspired by the sexual misconduct allegations against Harvey Weinstein and the #MeToo movement.
- Director
- Norberto Barba
- Writers
- Warren Leight & Peter Blauner
Summary
“I’m Going to Make You a Star” opens with a farewell party for Carisi, who has handed in his gun to join the Manhattan DA’s Special Victims Bureau under its new chief, Vanessa Hadid. The same night Sir Tobias Moore, a British mogul who heads the streaming studio Picflix, holds a private audition in his office for Pilar Reyes, a 20-year-old actress from Venezuela. Pilar tells Benson he plied her with drinks, made her remove her blouse, groped her, shoved her onto a couch and blocked the door while he masturbated in front of her. Hadid, cautious about the case, makes Carisi the riding ADA and wants Pilar vetted first.
Moore sends Pilar a gift basket, and the squad arranges a recorded meeting in a hotel lounge, but Pilar confronts him and he accuses her of extortion, threatening to have her detained over her expired visa. Orders from the DA’s eighth floor call off an arrest planned for his premiere. Benson has a drink with Moore and keeps his glass. His lawyer turns out to be Elana Barth, who has left the bench for private practice after her divorce; she hands over tapes of his last five auditions, each cut before anything happens. Most women the squad finds have signed nondisclosure agreements or will not testify, but actress Gemma Brooks walks in and tells Fin that Moore raped her against a hotel window overlooking the High Line five years ago, and she still has the dress. When the DNA matches, Benson and Fin arrest Moore without the DA’s approval, infuriating Hadid.
The next day Gemma appears with Barth before reporters and calls her relationship with Moore a consensual four-year affair. Benson notices that Moore taped his own statement in the same office with different furniture; security video shows his assistant, Cindy Morrison, overseeing the swap of the couch and lamp and a cleaning crew, followed by visits from powerful lawyers and Hadid herself. Cindy agrees to cooperate. With Gemma gone to New Zealand to direct a Picflix film, the squad borrows Vice officer Kat Tamin, who poses as a young actress from LaGuardia High School at an audition in Moore’s Midtown hotel suite. When Moore pins her to the window and chokes her, Benson leads the team in without waiting for Tamin’s signal word, and Moore is arrested.
Spoiler, the ending: At the arraignment Carisi expects Moore to make bail, while Hadid tells reporters her office will pursue powerful offenders. Dodds then tells Benson he is being exiled to a Staten Island traffic safety task force as the cost of the case, and that he made her promotion to captain a condition of his transfer.
Why it stands out
- The Season 21 premiere; with this season the series became the longest-running prime-time drama in American television history.
- Ian McShane guest-stars as Sir Tobias Moore, and Jenna Stern and Peter Gallagher return as Elana Barth and Deputy Chief William Dodds.
- Carisi’s first episode as an assistant district attorney and the first appearance of Jamie Gray Hyder as Kat Tamin, who joins the main cast later in the season; Benson is promoted to captain at the end.