At Midnight in Manhattan (Season 21, Episode 5)
Premise: Over one weekend, the short-staffed squad and Carisi juggle three new cases: a battered wife, a woman attacked after a ride-hail pickup and a transgender sex worker assaulted by a wealthy client.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 21, Episode 5
- 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), Judge Colin McNamara (Stephen C. Bradbury)
- Guest stars
- Bea Cordelia as Lakira Baca, Afi Bijou as Joelle Fuller, Nicole Brydon Bloom as Chloe Cooper, Ben Davis as Paul Davies, Aby Moongamackel as Sanjay Patel
- Director
- Peter Werner
- Writers
- Story: Brianna Yellen; Teleplay: Kathy Dobie & Micharne Cloughley
Summary
“At Midnight in Manhattan” follows the squad through a weekend that begins just before midnight on a Friday, when three cases arrive at once. Fin takes a call from the projects, where Joelle Fuller has been beaten and raped by her estranged husband, Leon; their seven-year-old son, Andre, called 911. Rollins meets Chloe Cooper, whose mother is Hadid’s old schoolmate; Chloe says her HailMe driver, Mohammed Sayeed, faked a flat tire, climbed into the back seat and groped her before she ran off, leaving her shoes behind. Tamin, newly arrived from Vice, finds Lakira Baca, a homeless transgender woman she knows from the street, beaten at the piers and handcuffed by a guard. Lakira says a wealthy client who could not perform hit her and assaulted her with a flashlight; he drives an orange car with gull-wing doors.
Fin arrests Leon at the truck yard where he sleeps; Leon claims Joelle wanted it. Chloe picks Sayeed out of a photo array, but his lawyer, April Andrews, shows that his app logged the ride as canceled when Chloe never turned up. A parking ticket leads Tamin to Paul Davies, a corporate lawyer from Scarsdale, whom Lakira identifies; at a country club he tells Tamin and Carisi his car was stolen. Carisi, alone on complaint-room duty with three felonies to arraign, clashes with Rollins, who says he walked out on her and left the squad drowning. Joelle agrees to testify after hearing Andre’s 911 call.
Bar video shows Chloe getting into a different car, registered to Aadesh Patel, a former yellow-cab driver about to lose his Queens home. His son, Sanjay, runs, then confesses that he wanted to scare riders away from the apps that ruined his father; Chloe’s shoes are in the car, she identifies Sanjay, and Sayeed is freed after a day in holding. Other women at the piers tell Tamin that Davies beats them too. When Davies comes in with his lawyer, Lisa Turner, Benson and Carisi take over the interview from Tamin and arrest him. Then Joelle’s sister, Aleah, says Joelle is dropping the charges because she depends on Leon’s money, and Fin goes to see Leon.
Spoiler, the ending: Before Judge Colin McNamara, Sanjay pleads not guilty pending plea talks, and Leon offers to plead guilty to assault if the rape count is dismissed. Turner then produces Lakira’s sworn statement that she made up her accusation, and Davies is released pending a motion to dismiss. Joelle is told that if Leon came back she could end up dead and Andre alone. Tamin finds Lakira in a new place with gifts and rent money for her mother, and Lakira hints that the help came from Davies.
Why it stands out
- Tamin works her second SVU case after joining from Vice in the previous episode.
- Erin Anderson first appears as defense attorney April Andrews, a role she plays in several later seasons.