And the Empire Strikes Back (Season 23, Episode 1)
Premise: SVU builds a sex-trafficking case against a congressman who used a nonprofit’s housing program to prey on homeless mothers and teenage girls.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 23, Episode 1
- Starring
- Capt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Sgt. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Det. Katriona “Kat” Tamin (Jamie Gray Hyder), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Deputy Chief Christian Garland (Demore Barnes), Chief Tommy McGrath (Terry Serpico), IAB Capt. Renee Curry (Aimé Donna Kelly), ADA Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino), Judge Colin McNamara (Stephen C. Bradbury)
- Guest stars
- Ben Rappaport as Congressman George Howard, Zabryna Guevara as Dr. Catalina Machado, Glenn Fleshler as Myron Gold, Isabelle Poloner as Jenna Evans, Octavio Pisano as Det. Joe Velasco
- Director
- Norberto Barba
- Writers
- Story: Denis Hamill & Monet Hurst-Mendoza & Kathy Dobie & Micharne Cloughley; Written by: Warren Leight & Julie Martin & Bryan Goluboff
Summary
“And the Empire Strikes Back” finds SVU closing in on Congressman George Justin Howard, the most powerful man tied to the Holt Tower case, in which homeless mothers were given subsidized apartments and then pressured into sex. On her way to a late-night courthouse meeting with Carisi and federal prosecutors, Benson is run off the road by a driver who had been tailing her with high beams on; Stabler, on the phone with her, reaches her at the scene. Dr. Catalina Machado, head of the nonprofit Proud Life, is now cooperating, as are Howard’s aide Ruben Ortiz and the building’s handyman, Paulie Banducci. Chief McGrath privately tells Benson he has an undercover officer going to Howard’s fundraiser and orders her to keep it from Deputy Chief Garland, whose past ties to Machado worry headquarters.
Fin and Tamin ask Rosa Estrada, one of the women Howard visited, to testify, but she fears for her son and says no. Benson is also questioned by Internal Affairs about a fatal hospital shooting in Stabler’s fight with Richard Wheatley, who she believes lured her there with a text sent in Stabler’s name and may have caused her crash. At the fundraiser, Machado introduces Howard, and Ortiz, wearing a wire, takes him and a young influencer called Q up to a hotel suite where Jenna Evans and Hayden Smith, two of his former interns, are waiting. Listening in, the squad hears Howard spike 16-year-old Jenna’s champagne, and officers burst in after he takes her to the bedroom. Q turns out to be the undercover, Det. Joe Velasco. Howard and his adviser, lawyer Myron Gold, call the arrest a political hit, and at arraignment the judge denies remand but takes his passport.
McGrath announces the arrests of Howard, Machado and Ortiz at a press conference Garland was never told about; Garland later says McGrath blamed a mix-up. Preparing for the grand jury, Ortiz says Howard asked him to find homeless mothers with teenage daughters, Jenna refuses to say what Howard did, and Rosa, now willing, describes Howard raping her while her son was in the next room. At a meeting, Gold says Howard will accuse Machado of offering him sex for political support. Carisi answers that any plea means prison and the sex offender registry, and Howard threatens Carisi’s and Benson’s careers until Gold orders him to stop talking.
Spoiler, the ending: The night before the grand jury, the case starts to come apart. Paulie is attacked in jail, Machado plunges to her death from her apartment in what witnesses describe as a jump, and Rosa, after repeated phone calls, wakes her son and runs. Benson orders the squad to find Rosa and Jenna.
Why it stands out
- The Season 23 premiere aired on September 23, 2021, the same night as “Never Turn Your Back on Them,” which continues the Howard story.
- Octavio Pisano makes his first appearance as Joe Velasco, credited as a guest star in early episodes before he joins the main cast with the season’s seventh episode.
- Christopher Meloni appears as Elliot Stabler, crossing over from Law & Order: Organized Crime.