Burning with Rage Forever (Season 23, Episode 11)
Premise: After a predator lures an eight-year-old from home through an online game, the boy’s uncle stabs the man and is hailed as a hero until SVU learns what he has hidden.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 23, Episode 11
- Starring
- Capt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Sgt. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Det. Joe Velasco (Octavio Pisano), ADA Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino), Judge Colin McNamara (Stephen C. Bradbury)
- Guest stars
- Christian Navarro as Carlos Guzmán, Sebastian Sozzi as Sebastian “Seby” Guzmán, Ryan Woodle as Theodore “Teddy” Murtaugh, Jamila Velazquez as Maya Jimenez, Mick Dempsey as Elvis Baktashi
- Director
- Mary Lambert
- Writers
- Story: Denis Hamill & Monet Hurst-Mendoza & Kathy Dobie & Micharne Cloughley; Written by: Brianna Yellen & Brendan Feeney
Summary
“Burning with Rage Forever” starts as Benson finds a red mark on her son Noah’s neck after a playdate where a boy named Hudson put a dog collar on him and shut him in a cage. Elsewhere, eight-year-old Tino Guzmán is left home alone by his uncle Carlos, and a man claiming to be the father of Tino’s online gaming friend SlayerKidd drives him to an apartment. Tino’s father, Seby, comes home to find him gone. Hours later, TARU traces the signal from Carlos’s missing laptop to a building, and Fin and Velasco find Tino zip-tied in a short-term rental. He has been drugged and sexually assaulted.
Through the unlicensed broker who rented out the apartment, the squad identifies SlayerKidd as Theodore “Teddy” Murtaugh, 39, but detectives find him in his apartment bleeding from stab wounds. Tino identifies him and his DNA matches. Seby and Carlos both deny attacking him, and Carlos’s girlfriend, Maya Jimenez, backs his alibi, but a street camera shows Carlos at the building. Carlos admits stabbing Murtaugh after finding him through a bill Tino had taken from his car, saying Murtaugh bragged about the assault and about filming it.
Charged with attempted murder, Carlos becomes a neighborhood hero, championed in the press by local figure Elvis Baktashi, and online donations cover his bail. Murtaugh, before Judge McNamara, refuses a deal, and Seby will not let Tino testify. Carlos then hands over the video he took from Murtaugh’s phone, and Murtaugh is sentenced to life on federal child pornography charges, while Carlos turns down Carisi’s offer of five years for assault.
Then Maya brings her young son, Andre, to SVU: he says Carlos touched him in the bathroom the day after Carlos made bail. Carlos climbs to a roof with a knife and threatens to jump. Benson talks him down, and he says a teacher, Tony Delgado, abused him from third grade into middle school. Delgado’s recent death in a fire, which Carlos denies having anything to do with, brought it all back.
Spoiler, the ending: Carlos pleads guilty to second-degree sexual abuse, a misdemeanor that still puts him on the sex offender registry, and with the assault he faces four years with counseling. At home, Noah tells Benson that Hudson went after a classmate who uses they/them pronouns, and that he became a target himself after saying he is bisexual. Benson tells him she is proud of him.
Why it stands out
- Noah Porter-Benson comes out to his mother as bisexual.
- Michael Dempsey appears as Elvis Baktashi, a recurring figure this season who turns Carlos into a local cause.