LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT {LAW AND ORDER: SVU}: SOMETHING HAPPENED (TV)
Summary
One in this series of police dramas—a spin-off of "Law & Order"—about the sexual crimes investigated by the elite Special Victims Unit of the New York Police Department. In this episode, one Laurel Linwood is found in a disheveled and traumatized state at the Natural History Museum. Under Olivia's questioning, she reveals that she was raped, declaring that they will "never catch him" and that she often feels preyed upon by strange men. The detectives learn that Laurel's father has recently died, and she explains that she and her father often visited the museum together during her childhood, adding that the man in question wore cologne and a watch similar to her dad's. Her sister Leah, a lawyer, is shocked to hear of her sister's plight, and as Fin and Carisi retrace Laurel's steps of the previous day and learn that she left a bar with one Greg Harvey, she grows enraged as she describes her long-simmering sense of "pure and utter hatred."
The detectives then find Harvey murdered in his apartment, and Leah decides to represent her sister as Laurel, disgusted with herself for having a one-night stand hours after her father's funeral, laments that he was "looking down" on her actions. Olivia, attempting to get a direct confession for Harvey's murder, alludes to William Lewis as she reveals that she too once violently attacked a man who was threatening her, though Laurel maintains that she cannot remember the circumstances of Harvey's death. She then brings up a childhood memory in which she witnessed some kind of inappropriate contact between her father and Leah, and Leah storms out in anger, declaring that she is glad of their father's death. Olivia guesses that Harvey vividly reminded Laurel of her late father, prompting her to lash out in violent anger, and Laurel implies that she too was sexually abused by her parent, who "said it was love" when he harmed her.
Laurel then speculates that Olivia too both "loves and hates" her own father, and Olivia reveals that she never met him, as he "chose" her half-brother Simon and his mother over her before eventually killing himself. Fin attempts to stop the interrogation, sure that Olivia is going too far in revealing her own past, but Barba is confident that she will secure Laurel's confession. After revealing that her father was in fact a rapist, Olivia presses Laurel to recall the night of her father's first attack, but she deduces from her language that she is actually describing Leah's experience, as she herself was never "chosen" by their father, leading to years of conflicted feelings of rejection. Laurel finally confesses that Harvey did not harm her and that she killed him as he slept because of her long-buried rage towards her father, and she is arrested for murder as Olivia reels from the emotionally taxing experience. Commercials deleted.
This asset also contains clips from the episodes "Payback," "911" and "Remember Me Too."
Details
- NETWORK: NBC
- DATE: November 30, 1999 9:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: N/A
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: 133477
- GENRE: Drama, police/detective
- SUBJECT HEADING: Drama, police/detective; Sex crimes; Fathers and daughters
- SERIES RUN: NBC - TV series, 1999-
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Peter Jankowski … Executive Producer
- Arthur W. Forney … Executive Producer
- Mariska Hargitay … Executive Producer
- Julie Martin … Executive Producer
- Dick Wolf … Executive Producer, Created by
- Michael Chernuchin … Executive Producer, Writer
- Lawrence Kaplow … Co-Executive Producer
- Richard Sweren … Co-Executive Producer
- Alex Chapple … Co-Executive Producer, Director
- Mark Dragin … Producer
- Kenneth Brown … Producer
- Amanda Slater … Co-Producer
- Michael Ciliento … Co-Producer
- Jonathan Strauss … Co-Producer
- Allison Intrieri … Co-Producer
- Mike Post … Music by
- Mariska Hargitay … Cast, Lieutenant Olivia Benson
- Kelli Giddish … Cast, Detective Amanda Rollins
- Ice-T … Cast, Detective Odafin 'Fin' Tutuola
- Peter Scanavino … Cast, Detective Dominick "Sonny" Carisi, Jr.
- Raúl Esparza … Cast, A.D.A. Rafael Barba
- Melora Walters … Cast, Laurel Linwood
- Joanna Going … Cast, Leah Linwood
- Chris Cafero … Cast, James
- Crystal T. Johnson … Cast, Meg
- Lana Young … Cast, Mrs. Drayson
- Kayla Diaz … Cast, Nancy
- Tai Lyn Sandhu … Cast, Linda