Nightmares in Drill City (Season 23, Episode 8)
Premise: A teenage girl who helped gunmen into a deadly robbery faces murder charges, and SVU sets out to prove she was a trafficking victim acting out of fear.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 23, Episode 8
- 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), Trial Division Chief Lorraine Maxwell (Betty Buckley), Bureau Chief Phillip Baptiste (Teagle F. Bougere), Judge D. Serani (Michael Mastro)
- Guest stars
- Alison Thornton as Victoria “Tori” Warshofsky, Annelise Cepero as Jasmine Castro, Quincy Giles as David “G” Graham, Khouri St. Surin as Chris Miller, Callie Thorne as Nikki Staines
- Director
- Norberto Barba
- Writers
- Story: Denis Hamill & Monet Hurst-Mendoza & Kathy Dobie & Micharne Cloughley; Written by: Bryan Goluboff
Summary
“Nightmares in Drill City” begins with a home invasion in Alphabet City: 17-year-old Tori Warshofsky texts Chris Miller to ask if she can come over, and when he opens the door, gunmen push in behind her and her friend Jasmine Castro (called Jasmine Cruz in the episode). Three people are killed, among them Chris’s brother Mike, a drill rapper known as Milly2K. Tori, shot in the leg, is left behind. Carisi, on his first case in the Homicide Bureau, calls in SVU because doctors found layers of old bruises and two sexually transmitted infections on Tori, an honor student with no record whose mother has been in Poland for a month.
Tori says a rapper called G made her do it. His crew’s YouTube videos, including a new one showing a gun and a victim’s chain, lead the squad to a Bushwick trap house and the arrest of David Graham, known as Gutta18, and Jasmine. Both say the robbery was Tori’s idea, and Chris agrees. With her lawyer present, Tori says G began having sex with her at 15, forced her to sell sex, beat her and once fractured her skull. Carisi notes that trafficking is no legal defense to murder, and Trial Division Chief Lorraine Maxwell and Bureau Chief Phillip Baptiste refuse any deal, unwilling to charge a Black man with murder while sparing the white girl who set the crime in motion. All three defendants are arraigned on felony murder and held without bail.
Benson and Carisi take Tori’s hospital records and a nurse who saw a G look-alike drag her out of the ER to their bosses, Benson warning that she would have to testify for the defense. The office offers a conspiracy plea carrying up to 25 years; Jasmine takes the same deal and agrees to testify, but Tori turns it down. Velasco tells Fin that at 14 in Juárez he lured a man to a gang that tortured him. At trial, Tori testifies to the abuse, and Carisi’s cross-examination pointedly lists the gifts, the parties and her never telling anyone. Rollins calls him a bully.
Spoiler, the ending: Confronted with her own ER records, Jasmine tells SVU how G abused her and what she saw him do to Tori. Carisi urges Maxwell and Baptiste to show compassion, and the office drops the murder charges against both young women, who plead to robbery for community service, counseling and ten years’ probation. Later Tori, who has skipped two counseling sessions, admits she sometimes misses the excitement and feels nothing, and is urged to be patient with herself and make the most of her chance.
Why it stands out
- Carisi’s first case as a homicide prosecutor, and the first appearances of Betty Buckley as Lorraine Maxwell and Teagle F. Bougere as Phillip Baptiste, his bosses in the DA’s office.
- The title refers to drill, a style of rap the squad links to Chicago’s Chief Keef; the case is built partly on the crews’ own videos.
- Velasco tells Fin about his teenage years with a gang in Juárez, Mexico, before he moved to New York.