Bad Things (Season 24, Episode 21)
Premise: A string of stranger rapes in which the attacker knows each woman’s name points to men paying for revenge, while Muncy pursues a captor who starves his victim in a cage.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 24, Episode 21
- Starring
- Capt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Sgt. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Joe Velasco (Octavio Pisano), Det. Grace Muncy (Molly Burnett), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), ADA Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino), ME Dr. Abel Truman (Frank Wood), Det. Tonie Churlish (Jasmine Batchelor)
- Guest stars
- Adam Petchel as Elias Olsen, Annalisa Chamberlin as Kate Wallace, Kim Maresca as Darlene Quinlan, Hamish Allan-Headley as Greg Sumpter, Tatiana Cruz as Maria Varga
- Director
- Juan J. Campanella
- Writers
- Story: Kathy Dobie & David Graziano & Nolan Dunbar; Teleplay: Julie Martin & Nicholas Evangelista
Summary
“Bad Things” opens with Kate Wallace, 32, a tourist from Columbus, Ohio, raped in her Times Square hotel room by a man who talked the desk clerk into a key by posing as her boyfriend. He used her name and took a selfie during the attack. Kate had come to see a Broadway show on tickets bought by her ex-boyfriend, Gil. Within hours a stranger rapes Evie Quinn in the West Village tea shop where she works, again calling her by name and taking a selfie, while her persistent admirer Billy Vitale watches through the window; Billy admits passing by but denies seeing anything. Both condoms carry the same DNA, and Fin learns of three earlier rapes with the same pattern in Queens, Staten Island and Brooklyn.
Meanwhile, a jogger’s dog leads to Mark Reed, held for weeks in a welded cage underground; he dies in the hospital. Truman finds he was fed nothing but candy, leaving a ball of licorice in his stomach. Muncy is sure the captor is Elias Olsen, whose earlier case collapsed when the Singh family went back to India, and Benson cautions her about her past outbursts at him. A baker saw Mark talking to a large man before he vanished, and a welding expert matches the cage to a door Elias made.
Driving to Staten Island with Benson, Carisi lets slip that Rollins is pregnant. Realtor Darlene Quinlan was raped at an open house after she skipped her own wedding; her ex-fiancé, Greg Sumpter, let her keep the ring. In Brooklyn, DNA from nanny Maria Varga’s rape points to Junior Suarez, an inmate at Green Haven prison, and her former employer, Derek Scully, admits a fling with her. Rose Bergman was raped after filing for divorce from Harvey, who has since won her back. Benson and Carisi suspect a market in revenge rapes, but there is little evidence. Muncy and Churlish find Elias living in a church basement with Mark’s wallet. Muncy apologizes for having hurt him and talks him into putting down a hammer, and he later admits torturing Mark. Afterward, shouting for Muncy, he crashes through glass and chokes her before he is pulled away.
Spoiler, the ending: Carisi expects Elias to get life. Fin tells Muncy she does not have to be all right, and she thanks him for steadying her. The lab ties Maria Varga’s rape to two murders Organized Crime is working, and Benson meets Stabler, who explains that Green Haven inmates are being let out to carry out paid hits. They agree they are working the same revenge-for-hire case from opposite ends.
Why it stands out
- Begins a four-episode crossover with Law & Order: Organized Crime that continues in that show’s “Shadowërk,” returns for this season’s finale and concludes on Organized Crime.
- Carisi reveals to Benson that Rollins is expecting a baby, before she can tell Benson herself.
- Adam Petchel returns as Elias Olsen, a recurring figure this season whose earlier run-in with Muncy left him needing stitches.