One More Tale of Two Victims (Season 23, Episode 4)
Premise: A man posing as a repairman rapes single mothers in front of their young children, and the brass decide which victim’s case gets prosecuted.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 23, Episode 4
- Starring
- Capt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Sgt. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Chief Tommy McGrath (Terry Serpico), ADA Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino), Judge D. Serani (Michael Mastro)
- Guest stars
- Johnny Pemberton as Travis Hilsdale, Jade Fernandez as Crystal Nuñez, Liz Holtan as Peggy Grogan, Boris McGiver as Deputy Inspector Dermott Grogan, Octavio Pisano as Det. Joe Velasco
- Director
- Michael Pressman
- Writers
- Story: Bryan Goluboff & Kathy Dobie & Micharne Cloughley; Story & teleplay: Denis Hamill & Monet Hurst-Mendoza
Summary
“One More Tale of Two Victims” brings Det. Joe Velasco into the squad room, where Fin suspects Chief McGrath, now overseeing SVU himself, has planted him to report back, and McGrath begins reviewing Benson’s cases one by one. Crystal Nuñez, a single mother, is raped in her apartment by a man posing as a Con Ed worker, who forces her to act as if she wants it and threatens to kill her three-year-old son, Manny, who is in the bed. She never saw his face clearly. She is also in a custody fight with her ex, Eduardo Sosa.
A fingerprint by the door belongs to Travis Hilsdale, who sells ice cream from a truck and served Crystal and Manny that afternoon. He says he once returned Manny’s sippy cup, and Crystal does not pick him out of a lineup. Her rape kit and bedding hold semen from three men she was with that week, Sosa, a man from a rooftop party and her downstairs neighbor, Arlo James, all of whom are cleared, and Travis’s DNA is not a match. McGrath suggests Crystal invented the attack to hide her sex life from her ex and tells Benson to slow down. An NYPD doctor, meanwhile, urges Benson to take a disability pension over her ankle.
Then Peggy Grogan, daughter of Deputy Inspector Dermott Grogan, is raped in front of her baby by a man who uses the same threat. She scratched him, and he took her gun. Peggy buys ice cream from the same truck, and when Fin and Velasco approach Travis, he pulls her pistol in a park full of children before Velasco tackles him and handles him roughly. Peggy identifies him, and his DNA is under her fingernails. McGrath wants Travis charged only with Peggy’s rape. At Velasco’s suggestion the squad tests Manny’s blanket, which carries Travis’s DNA, but at the arraignment, where Travis appears badly beaten, Carisi is told to drop the charges in Crystal’s case.
Spoiler, the ending: Travis faces at least 15 years for Peggy’s rape. Crystal, told her case could create reasonable doubt, says she is on her own. Benson confronts McGrath, asking whether he learned about Crystal’s custody fight from Velasco, and tells him Crystal matters as much as a commander’s daughter; if he stands between her and a victim again, he can have her shield and gun. McGrath says they understand each other.
Why it stands out
- Joe Velasco’s first day as a member of the squad; Octavio Pisano is still credited as a guest star until the season’s seventh episode, “They’d Already Disappeared.”
- The first episode after the departures of Kat Tamin and Deputy Chief Christian Garland, with Chief Tommy McGrath (Terry Serpico) now overseeing SVU.