Law and Order: Special Victims Unit: "Waiver of Consent" (Dick Wolf Entertainment, Universal Television, NBC-TV, aired October 2, 2025)

by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2025 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved

The Law and Order: Special Victims Unit episode that followed Law and Order’s “Hindsight” on October 2 was also a pretty chilling one: “A Waiver of Consent,” dealing with a high-end sex club called “Sensate” run by a thorough scumbag named Derek Simpson (Michael Cassidy). Derek has tried to start several other clubs in New York City before scoring big with Sensate, which is disguised as a New Age health spa but secretly runs hookup parties. The episode’s title refers to a bizarre consent form Sensate’s members all have to sign in which they literally give up the right to say no; the form claims to set up a legal contract that means every woman there has to submit to whatever sort of sex to which any man there wants to subject her. The existence of Sensate comes to the attention of the Manhattan Special Victims Unit after one of its members, a successful stockbroker named Maya Moretti (Molly Griggs), is found wandering the streets obviously drugged out of her mind. Fortunately she’s rescued in time before an accident can happen to her, and she’s taken to a hospital, where she tests positive for what one doctor calls the “alphabet soup” of drugs: GHB, MDMA, and LSD. Captain Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and the SVU’s newest member, a quite sexy young man named Jake Griffin (Corey Cott, who’s frankly the sexiest man on the SVU cast since Christopher Meloni left), interrogate her. Griffin, a go-it-alone cop who on his previous assignment to a robbery detail got nicknamed “Batman,” notices a QR code tattooed on her wrist which links to the Sensate Web page – he secretly photographs it and finds the link – though even after Maya becomes coherent enough to talk, she doesn’t want to give the police any information because the knowledge that she was a member of a private club that charges $50,000 per year to give its members the opportunity to have anonymous sex with each other would kill her career.

Benson sets up an undercover operation in which she and Griffin pose as would-be Sensate members, though after they’ve left the club Griffin goes in there alone and locates another woman (Emilia Suárez) who works there. This woman recalls that she went to New York at the urging of her sister, who said well-paying jobs for young, attractive females would be easy to come by in the city. The woman tells the SVU detectives that she got an above-board job at Sensate and Derek and the other people running it gave her all the drugs she wanted – until the moment of truth arrived. Once she was well and truly addicted, they cut off her supply and ordered her to turn tricks with the male customers if she wanted any more. Based on her information, the police raid Sensate but all the customers, by prearrangement with the management, give the arresting officers the name and business card of attorney Dan Olin (Glenn Fleshler). Derek has arranged for Olin to represent anyone who’s arrested or contacted by the police. Olin is also Derek’s personal attorney, and prosecutor Dominick Carisi, Jr. (Peter Scanavino) tries to have him thrown off the case due to his obvious conflicts of interest, but fails. Ultimately Captain Benson talks Maya into testifying at Derek’s trial and he’s convicted of soliciting for prostitution, facilitating rape, and dealing drugs. Along the way we get Benson lecturing Griffin about the need for the SVU detectives to work together as a team instead of showboating, and some stern talk from Carisi about how that so-called “waiver of consent” form was actually illegal.