Deep Under (Season 27, Episode 17)
Premise: Former SVU detective Joe Velasco, now undercover for the DEA inside a cartel crew, secretly helps the squad find women being trafficked through New York.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 27, Episode 17
- Starring
- Capt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Sgt. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Joe Velasco (Octavio Pisano), Det. Terry Bruno (Kevin Kane), Det. Jake Griffin (Corey Cott)
- Guest stars
- Rigo Sanchez as Arturo Aguilar, Carmela Zumbado as Eliana Castillo, Jerrika Hinton as DEA Agent Maggie Weber, Abi Lieff as Madison Cleary, Emily Rose DeMartino as Brittany Cleary
- Director
- Juan José Campanella
- Writers
- Story: Nicholas Evangelista; Written by: Nicholas Evangelista
Summary
“Deep Under” opens with an anonymous tip that sends SVU and ESU to an abandoned train yard, where they free six women from a truck and arrest armed men. One man who bolts is Velasco, who left the squad six months ago and now works undercover for the DEA as muscle for a San Diego crew tied to a cartel, Los Sin Fe. With the cameras off, he tells Benson the tip was his: the crew came east to swap drugs for women, his DEA handler does not know he called, and a second exchange is planned. He goes back into custody under his cover name, Vicente Zavala, and is soon back with the crew.
Fin’s contacts in Narcotics name the cartel’s boss, El Chiquito, and Velasco’s crew leader, the boss’s unstable younger cousin Arturo Aguilar. A rescued woman, Madison Cleary, says her pimp sold her and her sister Brittany, who is still missing. DEA Agent Maggie Weber, Velasco’s handler, tells Benson her superiors refused to act so as not to endanger the operation, but she agrees to help quietly and identifies the scarred man Madison describes as Hector Lozano, the cartel’s trafficking contact in New York. He is found murdered. Velasco slips into Benson’s apartment at night with a lead to a textile wholesaler whose van the crew has taken, and Bruno and Griffin get its plate from the frightened owner. Velasco refuses to come out. Fin tails him and learns he is involved with Aguilar’s girlfriend, Eliana Castillo, who began as a source.
The van leads to an empty apartment. Weber warns that it was Aguilar’s test to flush out an informant and that Velasco has gone silent. Aguilar shoots one crew member, Benny, and turns his gun on Velasco until Eliana claims Velasco was guarding her. Velasco learns the boss has ordered the women killed; Eliana knows they are in a closed massage parlor on Avenue C, and he calls Benson on her phone, admitting to Eliana that he is a police officer. The squad rescues the women, Brittany among them. Aguilar then catches Eliana fleeing, and when Velasco declares himself the informant and a cop, Aguilar shoots him in the chest.
Spoiler, the ending: Velasco survives with a collapsed lung. Aguilar and Eliana are both in federal custody, and Carisi, called back from a week away with Rollins, is negotiating with the U.S. attorney so that Eliana can enter witness protection in exchange for what she knows about Los Sin Fe. Benson tells Velasco she understands why he lied to the squad but will not call it OK. He expects the DEA to let him go and says he needs time to decide who he wants to be.
Why it stands out
- Octavio Pisano returns as a special guest star, playing Velasco for the first time since his exit from the squad in “A Vicious Circle” earlier in the season.
- Velasco appears again in “Old Friends,” still recovering from the gunshot wound he suffers here.