Did You Believe in Miracles? (Season 23, Episode 20)
Premise: A teenage girl vanishes with a trusted church friend who has been living under a false name and grooming her family for years.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 23, Episode 20
- Starring
- Capt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Sgt. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), ADA Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino), Sgt. Hasim Khaldun (Ari’el Stachel)
- Guest stars
- Isabella Russo as Beth Lee, Alexander Koch as Nick Pearce, Virginia Kull as Claire Lee, Reggie Lee as Paul Lee, Ryan Buggle as Noah Porter-Benson
- Director
- Pratibha Parmar
- Writers
- Story: Candice Sanchez McFarlane & Denis Hamill & Monet Hurst-Mendoza & Kathy Dobie; Teleplay: Victoria Pollack; Story & teleplay: Micharne Cloughley
Summary
“Did You Believe in Miracles?” starts when a school reports that 14-year-old Beth Lee has been absent for a week and her little brother, Elijah, says she went somewhere far away with a grown-up named Luke. Her parents, Paul and Claire, say that family friend Luke Davis, a church worship leader and Beth’s guitar teacher, drove her to a church housing mission in Bloomingburg. The mission’s head says they never arrived, and Luke’s number is a switched-off burner. As Benson and Fin question the parents, Sgt. Hasim Khaldun joins the search. Pastor Daniel Adams and his wife, Molly, reveal that Luke is really Nick Pearce, from a wealthy Rhode Island family, who joined their church under a false name. Claire then admits that she and Nick have been having an affair for more than a year.
A payment from Nick’s old business account leads to Nadine Ramos, who dated him when her daughter, Eva, was 12 and remembers his family’s cabin near Tupper Lake. The squad finds Nick and Beth there and arrests him for kidnapping as Beth insists this is God’s will. She is unharmed but refuses a rape kit and a pregnancy test, and the hospital will not force her. Nick, represented by Richard Pace, describes a vision of founding a new church with Beth, and Beth tells Benson and Rollins that they are still pure and that his coming was foretold. At arraignment Pace accuses Paul of forcing Nick into sex, and the judge grants bail with an order of protection. Paul admits to a drunken sexual encounter with Nick and one or two more afterward, and the squad concludes Nick seduced both parents to gain leverage. In plea talks, Nick says the case could go away if the Lees let him marry Beth; Carisi refuses.
Spoiler, the ending: Beth slips away from a church supper in a white dress after passing Nick a Bible verse through Molly, and the squad finds the pair at the Brooklyn Bridge about to exchange vows. Nick is arrested for violating the order, and Beth cries out that she is carrying God’s baby. Since she turns 15 in a month, her parents tell her that with their consent and proof of pregnancy she could marry in Maryland, and she agrees to a test. The fetus’s DNA matches Nick, giving Carisi a second-degree rape case that does not need Beth’s testimony; the Lees plan to raise the baby as their own and work on their marriage. Noah gives Benson the Mother’s Day present he has been preparing, and later Noah is introduced to Stabler, whom he has never met.
Why it stands out
- Benson’s son, Noah, is introduced to Stabler for the first time.
- Begins a two-part crossover that concludes in Season 2, Episode 20 of Law & Order: Organized Crime.
- Reggie Lee and Virginia Kull play Beth’s parents, Paul and Claire Lee.