Law and Order: Special Victims Unit: "Duty to Hope" (Dick Wolf Entertainment, Universal Television, NBC-TV, aired May 16, 2024)

by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2024 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved

The Law and Order: Special Victims Unit episode that followed the Law and Order May 16 was called “Duty to Hope” and seemed mainly to have been created so the season could go out literally with a bang – or quite a few bangs, since it ends with a big shoot-out that looked really exciting in the promos. The squad is looking for a serial rapist whose trademarks are that he’s white, in his 20’s, is able to break into their apartments and lie in wait for them, always uses a wire coat hanger to bind his victims’ wrists, wears work gloves so he doesn’t leave fingerprints and rapes his victims not with his dick, but with the barrel of a gun (how Phil Spector!). The script by veteran Law and Order hands David Graziano and Julie Martin introduces a new and thoroughly obnoxious character, Heidi Russell (Kate Loprest), who announces herself as the new head of the trial division of the district attorney’s office and proceeds to second-guess the investigation and demand a quick solution to the case whether it’s the right one or not. Eventually, on the strength of a photo identification from the latest victim, Ariel Bradford (Amber Stonebraker), and a single thumbprint on her sliding glass door, the cops arrest Billy Hedges (Spenser Granese). Only he turns out to be innocent – Ariel’s ID was wrong and Billy’s fingerprint had been on the glass door because he was part of the work crew that installed it – as the cops learn when another rape involving the same M.O. was committed the very next night, while Billy was still in custody. That doesn’t stop Billy’s 12-year-old son Toby (Max Malas) from pulling a gun on Sgt. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T) and shooting him in the shoulder while demanding that Tutuola let go of his father. Not wanting to arrest the kid that was only trying to help his dad, Fin covers up the incident and spends a few embarrassing days around the squad room trying to explain away the incident and lie about why he was injured in the shoulder.

The cops are surrounded not only by Heidi Russell, who’s disinclined to admit that Billy Hedges isn’t guilty even as the rapes keep happening while he’s in custody, but by an equally gung-ho team from a New York police subdivision called ESU (and no, I have no idea what that stands for, except they keep getting in the way and want to do Seventh Cavalry-style charges while the veterans of SVU want to keep things low-keyed) headed by Captain Sasso (Shawn T. Andrew). Ultimately the cops get the clue they need: a leather holster for a handgun marked with a Marine insignia that the real rapist left behind while he committed his latest assault. This enables them to trace the attacks to ex-Marine Glenn Duncan (Eric Olsson), who when the cops show up to arrest him brings out a high-powered rifle and starts shooting at them. He’s in his apartment with his girlfriend, Jane Emery (Katie Housley), whom he’s essentially holding hostage and he ultimately wants them both to die. Captain Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) calls him on her cell phone and tries to negotiate with him for a peaceful surrender that will save Jane’s life, but in the end the ESU team goes in, kills Duncan and rescue Jane. Ultimately she tells the cops that she’d been Glenn’s girlfriend since before he went into the military and previously he’d been normal, but once he got dishonorably discharged he freaked out and started committing crimes. That’s how the main part of this episode ends, but there’s an odd tag scene wrapping up the running story of Maddie Flynn (Allison Elaine), the 14-year-old girl who was kidnapped by a would-be human trafficker in the season’s opening episode. Benson witnessed Maddie and her abductor’s flight but did nothing to stop them and feels guilty about it even though there would have been no probable cause to pull him over. The scene takes place as Benson visits Maddie and her parents, Peter (Zack Robidas) and Eileen (Leslie Fray), who have gone through marital troubles over the incident but have reached a sort of modus vivendi, while Maddie herself has been seeing a therapist Benson recommended for her. The ending was a bit too cloying and too Law and Order: The Soap Opera-ish for my taste, and it took me a while to remember who these people were supposed to be and what was going on with them.