What Can Happen In the Dark (Season 22, Episode 15)
Premise: Garland’s neighbor turns up badly hurt, and the squad comes to suspect his wife sexually assaulted him, a case few will believe.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 22, Episode 15
- Starring
- Capt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Sgt. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Det. Katriona “Kat” Tamin (Jamie Gray Hyder), Deputy Chief Christian Garland (Demore Barnes), ADA Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino), Judge Karyn Blake (Ami Brabson)
- Guest stars
- Michael Gladis as Andy Richards, Anna Wood as Diana Richards, Lee Tergesen as Erik Garrison, Greta Quispe as Joy Mercado, Stephen Wallem as Rudy Syndergaard
- Director
- Jean de Segonzac
- Writers
- Story: Brendan Feeney & Denis Hamill & Monet Hurst-Mendoza & Melody Cooper; Written by: Micharne Cloughley
Summary
“What Can Happen In the Dark” begins when eight-year-old Charlie Richards knocks on the door of his neighbor, Deputy Chief Garland, because his father, Andy, has collapsed in their kitchen. Andy, a former theater worker now on a construction crew, had scuffled with a coworker that morning. At the hospital he has a black eye, blood loss and a torn perineum, refuses a rape kit and blames a fight at work, while his wife, Diana Richards (called Diana Orsini-Fowler in the episode), a gallery owner, calls it hazing. Site cameras show only a brief shoving match. At home, Andy lets slip that “she” would not do it again, then orders Benson out when she asks if he means his wife.
Carisi refuses to seek a warrant on a retracted remark. Garland’s wife, Lamai, says Charlie clings to his father, and the nanny, Joy Mercado, describes Diana as the boss and Andy as gentle, and recalls seeing him in tears. Visited at her gallery by Rollins, Diana suggests Andy hurt himself, citing his drinking, depression and rough sexual habits. The next night Diana calls 911 claiming Andy held a knife to her throat; Andy says only that he did it and is arrested. At Garland’s home, though, Charlie says his mother cut herself in the kitchen while his father was upstairs. Told this, Andy admits Diana sexually assaulted him and threatened to take Charlie.
At trial, Diana’s lawyer, Erik Garrison, questions Joy about her immigration status and leads Benson to concede that Andy first lied. Nurse Rudy Syndergaard testifies that such injuries are rarely self-inflicted. Andy goes missing, and Garland finds him at a bar and brings him back. Andy testifies that Diana penetrated him with a vibrator while he was drunk and ignored his pleas to stop. Under cross-examination about their sex life, his size and his drinking that day, he breaks down and addresses Diana from the stand, forcing a recess; Carisi is angry that Garland never told him Andy had been at a bar. Recalled, Andy explains he feared hurting her and feared her rage, then reveals she has just texted him despite a no-contact order. He reads her insults and her threat that he will never see Charlie again.
Spoiler, the ending: Garrison offers a misdemeanor plea in which Diana gives up any custody fight, and Carisi insists on the sex offender registry. Diana pleads guilty to misdemeanor sexual assault and third-degree assault and gets a year’s probation and registration until Charlie turns 18. When she suggests reconciling, Andy tells her she can still see Charlie, but the two of them are finished.
Why it stands out
- An unusual case for the unit: a male victim sexually abused by his wife, with Garland’s own neighbors at the center.
- Garland’s wife, Lamai (Trian Long-Smith), and daughter, Abby (Uschi Umscheid), appear as the case unfolds next door.
- Lee Tergesen guest-stars as defense attorney Erik Garrison.