The Steps We Cannot Take (Season 24, Episode 4)
Premise: A gunman shoots a restaurant owner and his wife and abducts their daughter, and the search uncovers two women held captive for years in a house upstate.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 24, Episode 4
- Starring
- Capt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Sgt. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Det. Joe Velasco (Octavio Pisano), Det. Grace Muncy (Molly Burnett), Trial Division Chief Lorraine Maxwell (Betty Buckley), ME Dr. Abel Truman (Frank Wood)
- Guest stars
- Adam Petchel as Elias Olsen, Jess Gabor as Gillian Moore, Paola Sanchez Abreu as Nadine Chavez, Aditi Yadav as Priya Singh, Anjali Bhimani as Nisha Singh
- Director
- Juan J. Campanella
- Writers
- Story: Kathy Dobie & Nolan Dunbar; Written by: Brianna Yellen & Kathy Dobie
Summary
“The Steps We Cannot Take” begins as a masked gunman breaks into the unfinished Manhattan restaurant of Rav and Nisha Singh, shoots Rav in the kitchen and Nisha upstairs after she calls 911, and leaves with their 15-year-old daughter, Priya, and a bag of her clothes. Nisha, out of surgery, says the man hid his face under a helmet, wore boots with odd flaps and asked for Priya by name. A contractor the Singhs fired recalls Rav accusing one of his laborers, a welder named Elias, of watching his daughter. Union records trace Elias Olsen, 34, to his father Soren’s house in Fishkill, New York. Meanwhile Muncy, told by Benson to dress less like the Gang Unit, takes Velasco shopping for a blazer.
No one is home, but behind a padlocked door the squad finds Priya with two young women, Gillian and Nadine, and Gillian’s small daughter, Bella. Gillian Moore vanished on a Virginia Beach vacation 12 years earlier, and Nadine Chavez was taken off her bike in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, ten years ago; Nadine is three months pregnant. Their captors taught them that good girls get good things. Elias is caught at a supermarket, where Muncy hits him with her radio, and blames his father. Gillian says Soren kidnapped her and broke her bones to teach her the rules, while Elias never touched them. Bella’s DNA shows Elias is her brother, making Soren her father. At the house, Soren is found buried in the yard, killed weeks earlier by a bullet to the back of his head, and nearby lie the remains of a newborn boy whose neck was broken.
The bullet matches the gun Elias used on the Singhs, but he tearfully denies killing the father he wanted to impress, and the medical examiner’s finding of a low-angle shot points to someone much shorter. Gillian explains that Soren killed Nadine’s baby two years ago because he did not want another mouth to feed, and that the two women buried the child. Then Gillian and Nadine each confess to shooting Soren. Bella is gently asked yes-or-no questions, the last being whether she knew where Elias kept his gun; her answers go unspoken.
Spoiler, the ending: Benson tells Maxwell that whoever shot Soren most likely did it to protect Nadine’s unborn baby. Maxwell agrees not to pursue the homicide unless SVU does, though the case stays officially open. Fin tells Muncy to think more tactically after the radio incident. Elias pleads not guilty, so the women will have to testify. Gillian thanks Benson and leaves with Bella for her mother’s home.
Why it stands out
- Elias Olsen’s trial comes later in the season in “And a Trauma in a Pear Tree,” Kelli Giddish’s last episode as a series regular, where the defense accuses Muncy of police brutality.
- Anjali Bhimani and Rock Kohli, as Nisha and Rav Singh, and Adam Petchel, as Elias, return in later episodes of the season.