Informed (Season 8, Episode 1)
Premise: A rape victim who refuses all help turns out to be an FBI informant inside an eco-terror cell, and the case ends with Benson pulled into the bureau’s undercover work.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 8, Episode 1
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Det. John Munch (Richard Belzer), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), ADA Casey Novak (Diane Neal), ME Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie)
- Guest stars
- Marcia Gay Harden as FBI Agent Dana Lewis, Kristen Bush as Haley Kerns, Alan Campbell as Mitchell Hissam, Joanna Adler as Persephone James, Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Justin
- Director
- Peter Leto
- Writers
- Dawn DeNoon
Summary
“Informed” begins in an emergency room, where a battered young woman whose head has been shaved asks only for emergency contraception and turns down a rape kit. Benson tracks her home through the taxi she took, learns that her name is Haley Kerns, and leaves with Haley’s underwear for DNA testing. At the food co-op where Haley works, the detectives are pointed to her boyfriend, Justin, who runs the local chapter of an activist group called Cause and will not give a DNA sample. When Benson goes back to Haley’s apartment, the furniture has been slashed, Haley has given away her dogs and disappeared, and FBI agent Dana Lewis, whom Benson knew undercover as Star, is waiting inside.
Lewis reveals that Haley is her informant inside the Earth Defenders Group, a radical environmental network, and has been since being caught wrecking a research lab. Haley then complains that Benson harassed her, Warner refuses to share the DNA result, and Cragen pulls Benson off the case because the underwear was taken without a warrant. A recorder hidden in Haley’s apartment leads to Mitchell Hissam, a suspected EDG member with a statutory rape conviction. At his cabin near Pawling, Benson, Lewis and Stabler find unstable dynamite in the freezer and run, and the blast leaves Stabler with a concussion. Mitchell’s girlfriend, Persephone James, tells them where he will be, and after his arrest he boasts that something big is coming. Warner then reveals that the DNA belongs to Zander Owens, a dealer found shot dead two weeks after his release from federal prison. Haley informed on him five years earlier.
Agent Lockwood, Haley’s handler in the drug case, confirms that Owens was her boyfriend at the time. Arrested for his murder, Haley says Owens tortured her to get back $500,000 in drug money that she took and gave to charities. She offers to lead the FBI to the EDG target, and Novak agrees to let her go with Benson posing as Persephone. The cell, guided by founder Andy Dell, who has been working as a security guard, plans a fertilizer and diesel bomb at the Gen-Eng Foods headquarters. Inside, Haley turns on Benson and Lewis with a gun and will not surrender, and Lewis shoots her dead.
Spoiler, the ending: Dell escapes. To protect Benson’s cover she is held with the arrested cell members, and Lewis then asks her to take Persephone’s place, make bail and follow Dell to Oregon. Benson replies that she already has a job. Stabler later finds her desk cleared. Cragen says only that she has been temporarily reassigned and that the desk is needed for Stabler’s new partner, and when Stabler calls Benson, her number has been disconnected.
Why it stands out
- Marcia Gay Harden returns as FBI agent Dana Lewis, first seen in season 7’s “Raw”; the role brought her an Emmy nomination.
- Kristen Bush shaved her head to play Haley.
- Filmed late in Mariska Hargitay’s pregnancy, the episode uses desks, folders and headshots to hide it; the ending begins Benson’s absence from the squad.