Never Turn Your Back on Them (Season 23, Episode 2)
Premise: Witnesses against Congressman Howard begin turning up dead, and a raid to find a missing teenage witness leaves Tamin badly wounded.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 23, Episode 2
- 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), Chief Tommy McGrath (Terry Serpico), ADA Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino)
- Guest stars
- Ben Rappaport as Congressman George Howard, Glenn Fleshler as Myron Gold, Isabelle Poloner as Jenna Evans, Maddie Corman as Laura Evans, Octavio Pisano as Det. Joe Velasco
- Director
- Norberto Barba
- Writers
- Story: Denis Hamill & Warren Leight & Monet Hurst-Mendoza & Kathy Dobie & Micharne Cloughley; Teleplay: Julie Martin & Bryan Goluboff
Summary
“Never Turn Your Back on Them” opens with Congressman Howard’s case in ruins. Catalina Machado is dead after a fall from her balcony, Ruben Ortiz is found in his bathtub with his wrists cut, and Paulie Banducci dies of a fractured skull after an attack at Rikers. Garland doubts Machado would kill herself, and the squad suspects someone is silencing Howard’s witnesses. Tamin finds Rosa Estrada about to leave for Buffalo after threats against her son, and talks her into staying at a motel under police guard. At the Evans home in Bayonne, Rollins and Velasco find blood in the hallway and Jenna’s window open: she has fled on her bike after someone broke in.
Howard tells reporters the deaths are the fault of prosecutors and police. Jenna messages Velasco’s undercover persona, Q, from a burner phone, and the number leads the squad to a Brooklyn marijuana dealer. As the team surrounds his house, a gunman opens fire, and a bullet slips under Tamin’s vest; the man says he didn’t know they were police and thought he was protecting Jenna from someone who wanted her dead. Velasco talks a frantic Jenna down by describing a father who beat him with a belt. Tamin’s heart stops in the ambulance, but she survives surgery.
Jenna’s father, Ray, insists nothing happened with Howard, and she backs him. Her mother, Laura, secretly brings the squad a stained dress she hid after Howard threw Jenna a 15th birthday party, and says Jenna became pregnant and was driven to a clinic weeks later. Confronted with the dress and his driver’s records, Howard learns of the abortion, throws Gold out and blames him for arranging it and for the attacks on the witnesses. Gold, now with his own lawyer, offers to give up a former president, royalty and billionaires for a deal, but officials above the DA’s office turn him down and leave his case open, while Howard agrees to plead guilty.
Spoiler, the ending: Tamin tells Benson she is resigning because she no longer believes the department will change, and Garland, frozen out at headquarters after arguing against the Gold decision, puts in his papers. McGrath then tells Benson to focus on “real rapes” rather than acquaintance cases and says she will report directly to him until Garland is replaced. Rollins and Carisi agree to keep their relationship to themselves for now.
Why it stands out
- The final episode for Jamie Gray Hyder as Kat Tamin and the last regular appearance of Demore Barnes as Deputy Chief Christian Garland, who returns as a guest later in the season.
- Aired on September 23, 2021, the same night as the season premiere, “And the Empire Strikes Back.”