The Longest Night of Rain (Season 21, Episode 12)
Premise: When a former officer kills herself after accusing her old Vice captain of rape, SVU finds that Ed Tucker’s IAB inquiry let the case drop years earlier.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 21, Episode 12
- Starring
- Capt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Sgt. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Det. Katriona “Kat” Tamin (Jamie Gray Hyder), ADA Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino), Dr. Peter Lindstrom (Bill Irwin)
- Guest stars
- Robert John Burke as Ed Tucker, Michael Gaston as Gary Wald, Holly Robinson Peete as Rachel Wilson, Saul Stein as Ralphie Morris, Cora Vander Broek as Marie Morris
- Director
- Michael Smith
- Writers
- Story: Warren Leight; Story & teleplay: Peter Blauner
Summary
“The Longest Night of Rain” opens with Benson, newly a captain, telling Dr. Peter Lindstrom she dreads seeing Ed Tucker, whom she broke up with, at his retirement party. Hosted by Tucker’s old partner Gary Wald, now head of a security firm, the party introduces Patty, a nurse Tucker married a month earlier. Rachel Wilson, a former officer and old friend of Benson’s, arrives uninvited, needles Benson about her rise, throws a drink at Tucker and leaves. Minutes later she shoots herself in her car outside. Tucker says he can barely place her.
Lindstrom meets with the squad, and Fin doubts anything said to a department therapist stays private. Rachel’s phone holds a video recorded before she died: a superior raped her, and her sergeant and IAB protected him. Visiting Tucker at home, Benson tells him he lied to her face. Rachel’s minister, who let her sleep in his church basement, says the rape happened while she was in Vice, where she worked in 2004. Kat takes Benson to her old sergeant there, Ralph Morris, who calls Rachel promiscuous and names their captain, Wald. Wald calls her a fabricator and says Tucker looked into it. Brought in, Tucker admits Rachel accused Wald 15 years ago but chose not to file amid talk of her affairs. Then Morris shoots himself two hours after the visit. His widow, Marie, says she had begged the department to take his guns, and that his last call was to his therapist: Lindstrom.
Lindstrom refuses to reveal anything, and a judge denies Carisi’s motion, calling the evidence speculative. Lindstrom’s office is then burglarized, and his laptop and Morris’s file are taken; he says Wald visited him the night before and that Tucker knows what he knows. Records show Wald and Morris traded calls on burner phones before Morris died. Tucker finally tells Benson that his lung cancer has spread to his brain, leaving him six months to a year and lapses in memory, and that Wald once told him Rachel’s accusation was revenge for a breakup. Wearing a wire at a steakhouse dinner, Tucker hears Wald plan to pin the rape on Morris and admit he beat Rachel to silence her.
Spoiler, the ending: Wald is charged with sexual assault, witness tampering and the break-in at Lindstrom’s office and is denied bail as a flight risk. Benson apologizes to Tucker for how she ended their relationship. Soon after, Tucker shoots himself with his old .38, leaving Patty a letter saying he did not want her to spend her best years caring for a dying man. When a colleague offers to drive her home, Benson asks for a minute alone.
Why it stands out
- Ed Tucker’s final appearance: Robert John Burke had played him since Season 3, and here the character takes his own life.
- Holly Robinson Peete guest stars as Rachel Wilson.
- A suicide-prevention message with the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline’s number aired after the episode.