Jumped In (Season 24, Episode 10)
Premise: After surviving a gang attack, Benson takes her squad to the Bronx and reopens a closed serial rape case against deaf schoolgirls.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 24, Episode 10
- Starring
- Capt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Sgt. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Joe Velasco (Octavio Pisano), Det. Grace Muncy (Molly Burnett), Det. Terry Bruno (Kevin Kane), Chief Tommy McGrath (Terry Serpico), Lt. Kate Dixon (Camryn Manheim)
- Guest stars
- Maurice Compte as Mike Duarte, Omar Evans as Pup Peters, Michael Vincent Berry as Ronnie Samuels, Jackie Roth as Cleo Samuels, Robert Ray Manning Jr. as AUSA Ingram Wise
- Director
- Martha Mitchell
- Writers
- Story: Kadia Saraf & Terry Serpico & Kathy Dobie & Nolan Dunbar; Teleplay: Brendan Feeney & Monet Hurst-Mendoza
Summary
“Jumped In” begins just after Rollins’s departure. Chief McGrath tells Benson that the Justice Department has opened a civil rights investigation into Bronx SVU, set off by the wrongful termination suit of whistleblower Det. Terry Bruno, and asks her to help clear its cases. Walking home with Noah, she is knocked down by teenagers from the Tremont clique of the BX9 gang, who come at her with a machete. She sends Noah inside and shoots one attacker in the knee before they flee. Gang Unit Capt. Mike Duarte tells her that Sabo and Pretty Ricky, the BX9 rapists she hoped to flip, were killed in prison by members of the rival 19th Street gang, hinting that this is why she was targeted. Benson sends Noah to stay with his half-brother’s family in Woodstock and persuades McGrath to let her work in the Bronx.
At Bronx SVU, Bruno, who won $11 million in his suit, steers Benson and Fin to a closed one: six girls from St. Genevieve’s, a school for the deaf, were knocked out and raped over two years, and Pup Peters was convicted on a confession he signed while in drug withdrawal. Lt. Kate Dixon interprets in sign language as the squad re-interviews a victim, who says an officer drew his gun when she signed for help and that she never learned her rape kit results. The fired lieutenant who ran the case defends it, and after the federal team complains, McGrath orders Benson to drop it. Then Renee Perry, a 14-year-old St. Genevieve’s student, is found raped and killed, and AUSA Ingram Wise lets the squad stay on the case.
A lab supervisor will not rush the DNA until Bruno offers him his expensive watch. The sample matches several of the old rapes, and a genealogy search finds a half-brother, Parkchester accountant Alan Little, who insists he has none. His wife, Marie, admits she read his ancestry results and learned that his birth mother had given him up after an affair. That mother, Cleo Samuels, describes years of conflict with her other son, Ronnie.
Spoiler, the ending: Ronnie draws a gun when detectives find him but surrenders. Faced with DNA and identifications from three victims, he confesses, saying he attacked deaf girls because he wanted to hurt his deaf mother and calling Renee’s death an accident. He faces seven counts of first-degree rape and one of second-degree murder, and Peters’s conviction is expected to be overturned. Benson leaves Fin, Bruno and Tonie Churlish to work through Bronx SVU’s backlog and vet new detectives while she goes after BX9 leader Oscar Papa. She then visits the teenager she shot, now out of surgery.
Why it stands out
- Kevin Kane makes his first appearance as Det. Terry Bruno, who later joins the main cast; he had played four other characters in earlier seasons.
- Camryn Manheim appears as Lt. Kate Dixon, her character from the revived Law & Order.
- The first episode after Kelli Giddish’s departure; the squad packs up Rollins’s desk in the opening scene.