Shock Collar (Season 26, Episode 20)
Premise: An eight-year-old is taken with her mother’s car during a food delivery, and the squad races to find her after she appears on a website that streams her torture for paying subscribers.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 26, Episode 20
- Starring
- Capt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Sgt. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Det. Joe Velasco (Octavio Pisano), Det. Kate Silva (Juliana Aidén Martinez), Capt. Renee Curry (Aimé Donna Kelly), ADA Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino)
- Guest stars
- Lea Zawada as Cady Greene, Aislin Echo Wood as Haley Greene, J.J. Pyle as Nicole Carwood, Skylar T. Adams as Dennis Carwood, Joshua Bess as Dylan Reed
- Director
- Norberto Barba
- Writers
- Story: David Graziano & Julie Martin & Gabriel Vallejo & Nicholas Evangelista; Teleplay: Kathy Dobie & Candice Sanchez McFarlane
Summary
“Shock Collar” opens as Cady Greene, a food delivery driver, leaves her sick eight-year-old daughter, Haley, in her idling, unlocked car while she drops off a breakfast order on West 88th Street, and the car is driven away while the customer fetches a tip. Benson, walking the children to school with Sgt. Amanda Rollins, whose daughters she helped place in a gifted program, gets the call from Chief of Detectives Mark Barone, and Rollins brings in the Intelligence Bureau. Cady, raising Haley alone, says she cannot afford child care, and Haley’s father, musician Dylan Reed, is not answering his phone.
Doorbell footage shows a woman driving, apparently waving to Haley, and a witness saw a white van trailing the car. The car is found burned near an overpass on Riverside Drive, lit with nail polish remover, with no sign of Haley. Dylan returns from a 24-hour recording session with ten witnesses. Then child-exploitation monitors spot Haley on Missy Mayhem, a pay site where a woman fits her with a shock collar and hurts her for subscribers, which the squad calls delegated sadism. Subscribers are rounded up, and one, Jeff Kauffman, hands over saved videos of the site’s earlier girl, trained with a clicker like a dog.
Barking in the videos is narrowed to three guard breeds, and Curry, Velasco and Silva canvass breeders upstate. One couple recognizes the earlier girl as Ashlynn, daughter of Rottweiler breeders Dennis and Nicole Carwood of Ellenville. As Benson, Rollins and Curry close in on the farm with state troopers, Nicole shoots Dennis in the stomach before surrendering her gun. A police dog finds Ashlynn buried in the yard, about 12, malnourished and with multiple fractures; she is the couple’s own child. Dennis says Nicole pushed Ashlynn during a fight, and Nicole blames Dennis, saying he liked watching her discipline the dogs and that they took Haley to replace Ashlynn. Offered a deal for whoever reveals Haley’s location first, Nicole talks, and Velasco finds Haley alive inside a locked unit.
Spoiler, the ending: At arraignment both Carwoods plead not guilty, and the prosecution asks for $2 million bail for each; the judge sets it for Nicole. Nicole’s lawyer, Brian Bell, presses for the promised deal; Nicole asks Carisi about her dogs, then agrees to plead guilty in exchange for his help with pending federal charges. Both Carwoods take deals expected to bring 25 years to life, with the manslaughter and assault charges in Ulster County. Cady says Haley has no serious injuries and that they will move in with her parents in Vermont. Rollins asks how parents can do this to their own child, and Benson has no answer.
Why it stands out
- Kelli Giddish returns as Sgt. Amanda Rollins, now with the Intelligence Bureau, in her fifth guest appearance of the season.
- Rollins’s daughters, Jesse and Billie (Charlotte Cabell and Beatrice Mallow), and Benson’s son, Noah (Ryan Buggle), appear in the opening walk to school.