Can't Be Held Accountable (Season 21, Episode 9)
Premise: A retired detective asks SVU to stop a billionaire he believes is grooming his teenage daughters, but the case collapses in court and the father takes matters into his own hands.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 21, Episode 9
- 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), Bureau Chief Vanessa Hadid (Zuleikha Robinson), Judge Felicia Catano (Aida Turturro)
- Guest stars
- Nicholas Turturro as Frank Bucci, Vincent Kartheiser as Steve Getz, Grace Narducci as Ivy Bucci, Bree Turner as Granya Marcil, Paul Ben-Victor as Peter Abrams
- Director
- Norberto Barba
- Writers
- Story: Julie Martin & Warren Leight; Teleplay: Brianna Yellen
Summary
“Can’t Be Held Accountable” opens as Granya Marcil, a scout for billionaire Steve Getz, recruits 15-year-old Ivy Bucci to model for his fitness brand, GimmieThatBody. The shoots turn into nude photos paid in extra cash, and Getz’s circle wants Ivy’s sister, Milly, 12, at a party at Getz’s townhouse. In a therapy session, Rollins talks about Carisi leaving the squad for the DA’s office and about a call from her father, whom she has not spoken to in 15 years. The girls’ father, retired detective Frank Bucci, who once flirted with Rollins in a courthouse waiting room, asks for her help. He is separated from their mother, Donna, who is in rehab, and has found $4,000, Adderall and birth control pills in Ivy’s room. Milly says Ivy is starving herself and seeing men.
Sent to talk to Ivy, Kat instead poses as her aunt, “Kitty Bucci,” and tells Granya she wants a cut. She is warned against improvising, but at the townhouse Granya offers her a one-time $10,000 fee to step aside. Other girls refuse to testify, Ivy sides with Getz, and Carisi says there is no case without a complaining witness. The squad brings Getz in for questioning; he calls his gifts generosity, and his lawyer, Peter Abrams, calls Frank a drunk. Soon after, two men rear-end Frank’s car, beat him with a pipe and tell him to make his “little sister” back off. At the hospital Frank demands his gun and threatens to go after Getz himself, and to stop him Ivy agrees to testify.
Getz is charged with rape, forcible touching and patronizing a prostitute, and Judge Felicia Catano orders him held without bail. Abrams offers a plea to a criminal sexual act carrying four years, sparing Ivy a trial, and the DA’s office accepts. Frank is furious. Then Abrams has Catano removed for bias over a lawsuit against one of Getz’s gyms, and the case goes to Judge Joe Ellery. At sentencing Ellery calls the relationship consensual, dismisses the rape and forcible touching charges, accepts a guilty plea to the prostitution count and sentences Getz to time served. That night Ivy and Milly go missing. Benson finds them aboard Getz’s yacht for his victory party, with Donna there giving her permission, and the yacht sails off.
Spoiler, the ending: Rollins tells her therapist, Dr. Alexis Hanover, that her father is remarrying and wants her daughters at the wedding, and that she said no. Frank, who has followed her, walks in, draws his gun on both women and demands that Getz go to jail. The episode ends there, to be continued in “Must Be Held Accountable.”
Why it stands out
- Nicholas Turturro returns as Frank Bucci, the detective first seen in Season 20’s “Part 33.”
- Vincent Kartheiser guest-stars as billionaire Steve Getz in the first half of a two-part story.
- This episode aired on November 21, 2019; the conclusion, “Must Be Held Accountable,” followed on January 9, 2020.