Vigilantes & Revenge 68 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes
Victims and their allies who take justice into their own hands, and what the law does about it.
- Season 1 · Episode 1
Payback
A New York cab driver is stabbed and castrated, and the detectives discover he was a Serb war-crimes suspect living under a false name, which puts his former victims under suspicion.
- Season 1 · Episode 7
Uncivilized
When an eight-year-old boy is found murdered, a paroled child molester living nearby becomes the obvious suspect and a test case for locking up sex offenders indefinitely.
- Season 2 · Episode 3
Closure: Part 2
A new rape matching Kenneth Cleary’s method reunites the detectives with his first known victim, who has been following him herself.
- Season 2 · Episode 13
Victims
Someone is shooting paroled sex offenders named on a neighborhood watch flyer, and Stabler is assigned to find the killer of the man who maimed a child in one of his own cases.
- Season 3 · Episode 12
Protection
A boy shot in a drive-by is murdered in his hospital bed, and the detectives must protect his mother and brother, the only witnesses against a ruthless drug dealer.
- Season 4 · Episode 13
Rotten
An inmate’s death from a brutal sexual assault leads Benson and Fin back to the precinct where he was booked, and to two officers killing drug dealers.
- Season 4 · Episode 15
Pandora
The murder of a woman who posed online as a child to catch predators sends Stabler after a kidnapped teenager in Prague and a child-pornography network in New York.
- Season 4 · Episode 23
Grief
A waitress’s apparent murder turns out to be a suicide driven by her boss’s sexual abuse, and her grieving father takes revenge.
- Season 5 · Episode 9
Control
A man found castrated in a subway station proves to be a serial kidnapper who kept women as “brides” in a hidden dungeon, and one of his victims is a woman Benson once failed to believe.
- Season 6 · Episode 3
Obscene
The rape of a teenage TV star pits a decency crusader against a shock jock, until the culprit turns out to be the crusader’s own son.
- Season 6 · Episode 13
Quarry
The remains of a boy missing since 1980 point to a death-row child molester, but the truth lies with a boy he abused.
- Season 7 · Episode 5
Strain
Two gay men carrying a fast-killing strain of HIV are executed and labeled killers, and the hunt for their murderer draws in Fin’s own son.
- Season 7 · Episode 20
Fat
Stabler and a hot-headed temporary partner hunt the teens who maimed a schoolgirl, and uncover the beating that started it.
- Season 8 · Episode 1
Informed
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.
- Season 8 · Episode 4
Uncle
A silent homeless man found with clippings about sex crimes becomes the first suspect in a double murder, until Munch recognizes him as his own uncle.
- Season 9 · Episode 8
Fight
The murder of a teenage girl leads from a cage fighter to two brothers raised in foster care, and Lake refuses to accept the confession that closes the case.
- Season 9 · Episode 12
Signature
Benson and Lake team with an FBI profiler to hunt a serial sexual sadist, only to find he has already been executed, and that the shooter may be on their side.
- Season 9 · Episode 14
Inconceivable
The theft of 100 frozen embryos sends the squad through a fertility clinic’s most contentious clients, and the activists behind it set off a fatal act of revenge.
- Season 10 · Episode 2
Confession
A teenager asks SVU for help with his attraction to his little stepbrother, and the case widens to a website for pedophiles, a furious stepfather and a killing.
- Season 10 · Episode 6
Babes
The killing of a mentally ill homeless man uncovers a teenage pregnancy pact, and the apparent suicide of its ringleader leads to the mother who bullied her online.
- Season 10 · Episode 14
Transitions
The beating of a repo man outside a strip club draws the squad into his family’s fight over his transgender daughter’s medical care.
- Season 10 · Episode 16
Ballerina
When a landlord linked to a double murder falls from his Park Avenue window, suspicion turns to his wife, a retired dancer, and the younger man she calls her nephew.
- Season 10 · Episode 19
Selfish
A missing baby’s young mother looks guilty until the girl turns out to have died of measles, and Cabot puts the mother who refused to vaccinate her own son on trial.
- Season 10 · Episode 22
Zebras
A paranoid killer walks free after a CSU technician’s paperwork error, and new murders seem to target everyone who crossed him, until SVU learns who is really behind them.
- Season 11 · Episode 9
Perverted
A biker’s mutilation murder is pinned on Benson through her car and her DNA, and the squad races to prove the evidence against her was manufactured.
- Season 11 · Episode 11
Quickie
A teenager’s murder leads SVU to an anonymous-sex app and a stockbroker who knowingly spreads HIV, and then to the victim who takes revenge on him in court.
- Season 11 · Episode 15
Confidential
A woman’s murder in a Manhattan tower matches a 1987 killing, and the case turns on what the killer’s lawyer has kept secret ever since.
- Season 12 · Episode 2
Bullseye
When a starved girl is raped near a children’s club, a neighborhood anti-predator group and its eager volunteer push the squad toward a registered offender.
- Season 12 · Episode 6
Branded
Revenge attacks on three men by a gifted hacker uncover a gang rape at a summer camp 14 years earlier, and the unit’s new ADA must prosecute the victim.
- Season 12 · Episode 8
Penetration
An undercover FBI agent who was raped hides the attack to protect her militia case, then turns her pursuit of the rapist into a personal hunt.
- Season 12 · Episode 21
Reparations
A teacher’s rape accusation against a Black deliveryman uncovers a 1964 Klan attack on his mother in which her own grandfather took part.
- Season 12 · Episode 22
Bang
A baby left in an alley leads SVU to his adoptive mother’s fiancé, who secretly sabotages condoms to father children with as many women as he can.
- Season 13 · Episode 12
Official Story
A vigilante father’s assault on a military contractor’s CEO leads SVU and a new executive ADA to the gang rape of the man’s daughter in Iraq and the company’s cover-up.
- Season 13 · Episode 19
Street Revenge
As SVU hunts a serial rapist in West Soho, costumed vigilantes and a hostile reporter take the case into the streets.
- Season 13 · Episode 20
Father Dearest
A missing teenager’s search for her sperm-donor father exposes a man who poses as the donor to seduce the donor’s daughters as revenge on him.
- Season 13 · Episode 21
Learning Curve
A gang’s attack on Fin’s son’s fiancé and the beating of a teacher accused of abuse lead SVU into a private school where a student’s accusations keep shifting.
- Season 14 · Episode 10
Presumed Guilty
Fin’s ex-brother-in-law is jailed for beating a priest he says he rescued, and clearing him uncovers a parish secret kept under the seal of confession.
- Season 14 · Episode 22
Poisoned Motive
A sniper shoots Rollins and others tied to Fin’s old Narcotics unit, and the case leads to the family of the partner who was disabled saving Fin’s life.
- Season 15 · Episode 7
Dissonant Voices
A four-year-old’s claim that his music teacher, a TV singing coach, abused him snowballs into nine accusations before SVU learns who scripted the story.
- Season 16 · Episode 4
Holden's Manifesto
A socially isolated young man who blames women for his loneliness stabs women from his past, kills his neighbors and takes schoolgirls hostage.
- Season 16 · Episode 13
Decaying Morality
A girl’s rape accusation against a man already suing the NYPD ends with her father killing him, before the evidence turns toward her uncle, a respected dentist.
- Season 17 · Episode 10
Catfishing Teacher
A missing 15-year-old seems to have run off with a teacher who has been sleeping with students, but SVU finds he was lured away by his wrestling coach.
- Season 18 · Episode 12
No Surrender
An Army Ranger chosen as the face of a recruiting tour is beaten and raped after a night of underground fighting, and the man she identifies has an alibi.
- Season 19 · Episode 1
Gone Fishin'
Fin brings a fugitive serial rapist back from Cuba, and his unorthodox arrest turns the prosecution into an international dispute.
- Season 19 · Episode 3
Contrapasso
A man is castrated in a hotel room, and the trail leads to three former students he sexually exploited when he was their high school teacher.
- Season 19 · Episode 6
Unintended Consequences
A runaway from an exclusive rehab dies of a fentanyl overdose after being raped, and SVU finds the center and a sober house recycling addicted girls for insurance money.
- Season 19 · Episode 10
Pathological
A disabled teenager’s sexual encounter at school leads SVU to discover that her mother has been faking and causing her illnesses for years.
- Season 19 · Episode 14
Chasing Demons
After his courtroom outburst frees an accused child molester, Cassidy is suspected of killing him, and Benson risks her career to clear him.
- Season 19 · Episode 15
In Loco Parentis
Carisi’s niece recants a campus rape claim to him, then says the student she accused raped her in revenge, putting Carisi’s honesty on trial.
- Season 19 · Episode 19
Sunk Cost Fallacy
A woman and her young daughter disappear after a frantic phone call, and the case against the husband collapses when Benson finds them alive under Alex Cabot’s protection.
- Season 19 · Episode 23
Remember Me
A nanny holds a man she says trafficked and raped her at gunpoint in a Central Park West penthouse while a hidden camera streams the ordeal, and Benson becomes her hostage.
- Season 20 · Episode 4
Revenge
A string of home-invasion rapes by a fake pizza deliveryman leads the squad into an online community of men who blame women for their loneliness.
- Season 20 · Episode 22
Diss
When a pop star is beaten in her home, suspicion falls on her rapper husband, Fin’s childhood friend, and the trail leads back to an old Harlem killing.
- Season 21 · Episode 9
Can't Be Held Accountable
A retired detective asks SVU to stop a billionaire he believes is grooming his teenage daughters, but the case collapses in court and the father takes matters into his own hands.
- Season 21 · Episode 10
Must Be Held Accountable
Enraged that a billionaire who abused his daughter walked free, a retired detective takes Rollins hostage while the squad works to put Getz behind bars.
- Season 22 · Episode 4
Sightless in a Savage Land
A 13-year-old foster child is found hemorrhaging after a forced abortion, and when her foster father is charged, her wounded veteran father shoots him outside court.
- Season 22 · Episode 10
Welcome to the Pedo Motel
When a teenage girl is murdered near a hotel housing sex offenders, suspicion of a parolee coworker spreads to the neighborhood with deadly results.
- Season 23 · Episode 11
Burning with Rage Forever
After a predator lures an eight-year-old from home through an online game, the boy’s uncle stabs the man and is hailed as a hero until SVU learns what he has hidden.
- Season 24 · Episode 21
Bad Things
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.
- Season 24 · Episode 22
All Pain Is One Malady
As SVU and Organized Crime close in on the revenge-for-hire site Shadowërk, a serial attacker unconnected to the site preys on strangers across the city.
- Season 25 · Episode 7
Probability of Doom
Two dismembered child predators lead SVU to a pair of sisters, and to a young woman who has spent years shielding her little sister from their father.
- Season 25 · Episode 10
Combat Fatigue
After a juror’s outburst forces a mistrial, Carisi retries Maddie Flynn’s kidnapper, who fires his lawyer, makes bail and defends himself.
- Season 26 · Episode 13
Extinguished
When a teenage girl is raped in a Washington Heights park near Velasco’s home, he has to win over neighbors who distrust the police, starting with the vigilante upstairs.
- Season 26 · Episode 18
The Accuser
A welding shop owner is found sexually assaulted with a date carved into his back, and the investigation uncovers his abuse of a teenage apprentice and a girl whose case against him failed two decades earlier.
- Season 27 · Episode 7
False Idols
When an author’s assistant stabs the author’s husband and accuses him of rape, SVU looks at how much his celebrated wife knew and enabled.
- Season 27 · Episode 11
Career Psychopath
After a gunman ambushes Rollins and Carisi at home, SVU finds a string of attacks on people who helped convict Henry Mesner.
- Season 27 · Episode 16
Vivid
A streamer’s memory of being raped, recovered during a psychedelic drug trial, points SVU not to her ex but to the therapists treating her.
- Season 27 · Episode 18
Gimmick
The murder of a former teenage fight fan leads SVU to the aging champion he said abused him, and to the agent who paid for his silence.
More themes: Crimes
- Blackmail & Extortion
- Child Abuse & Neglect
- Child Murders
- Child Sexual Abuse
- Con Artists
- Cults
- Date Rape & Consent
- Domestic Violence
- Gang Rape
- Grooming
- Gun Violence
- Hate Crimes
- Hostage Standoffs
- Human Trafficking
- Incest
- Kidnapping & Abduction
- Male Victims
- Murder for Hire
- Online Predators
- Prison Rape
- Prostitution & Sex Work
- Serial Killers
- Serial Rapists
- Stalking & Voyeurism
- Statutory Rape
- War Crimes