LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT {LAW AND ORDER: SVU}: WRATH (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, when several murder victims are found at a scientific “body farm,” it is discovered that all three victims—a young abused boy, a rape victim and a murdered girl’s father—are all connected in some way to Olivia. She immediately begins to investigate, and they learn that all three victims experienced painless deaths by potassium chloride. Olivia and Elliot interview the victims’ families and initially suspect the rape victim’s original attacker, but he provides an alibi. A friend of the young boy’s tells Munch and Fin that the boy, Clayton, received a letter saying that he won a computer, and went off somewhere to retrieve it. Olivia learns that the murdered woman received the same letter, and they track the address to a warehouse in Chelsea. The renter is nowhere to be found, but Olivia is shocked to see her own name stenciled on the office door.
Dr. Huang concludes that the perp’s real target is Olivia, and that he wants revenge on her for something and is attacking victims to whom she was close to rattle her. Olivia and Elliot track the renter’s bank account, and then talk to Clayton’s abusive father, who is in prison and angry at Olivia for taking his son away. They managed to compile a list of convicts with grudges against Olivia who might have the means to pull off the crimes, and after the first two strike out, Olivia and Elliot talk to a woman named Valerie Plummer whose former husband, Eric, was arrested and imprisoned for seven years for a crime he did not commit. She refuses to tell them where he is, and they plan to track her phone calls. Later that night, Olivia is awakened by an insistent buzzing of her doorbell, and goes downstairs, armed, to find the dead body of Clayton’s father left at her doorstep. When other police arrive, she angrily refuses a protective detail. They discover that Clayton’s father was bailed out of jail by someone using Olivia’s name, but the bondsman is unable to tell her anything useful. At the same time, Captain Cragen is pressured to take Olivia off the case, but he refuses, saying she made her decision.
Phone records prove that Mrs. Plummer made a long phone call to a nearby lab, and the man in charge recognizes Plummer’s mugshot, although he says that he is using another name. At the station house, Olivia and Huang talk about the case, and are surprised when Plummer himself shows up. His lawyer argues that he was railroaded once before and is being persecuted unfairly, and Plummer shares that he suffered horribly in prison and denies any involvement with the murders. Munch and Fin try to comfort Olivia at a bar, saying that Plummer was convicted because of lab mistakes, not because of her, but she remains upset, saying that they “create monsters” by wrongfully convicting innocent people. Later, she accosts someone following her and is stunned to find that Elliot put an FBI tail on her for her protection. She goes to his house and confronts him, angry that he does not trust her to take care of herself. She agrees to take some vacation time and distance herself from the case. Elsewhere, Cabot makes a deal with a judge and interviews Plummer’s former cellmate, who reveals that Plummer talked endlessly about his grudge against Olivia, including in letters to his wife. They obtain a search warrant and find the letters and the potassium chloride in his warehouse office, but when Elliot returns to Plummer’s job to arrest him, he learns that Olivia was before him and obtained the address.
At Plummer’s apartment, Olivia hears a gunshot within and calls for backup. The door opens and Olivia sees that he has a hostage. She aims her gun at Plummer, asking him to let the woman go and apologizing for what happened to him, promising she will testify for him, but he refuses, saying there will not be a trial. He tells her that his gun has no bullets, but moves to kill the woman, and Olivia shoots him. Other policemen enter, and Olivia is horrified to see that his gun really was unloaded and that he always intended for her to kill him. Elliot attempts to comfort her, but she ignores him, and refuses to answer the door when he checks on her later that night as she sits alone in her apartment. Commercials deleted.
Details
- NETWORK: NBC
- DATE: October 5, 2001 10:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:42:58
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: B:72362
- GENRE: Drama, police/detective
- SUBJECT HEADING: Drama, police/detective; Drama, legal; Asian American Pacific Islanders Collection
- SERIES RUN: NBC - TV series, 1999-
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Peter Jankowski … Executive Producer
- Neal Baer … Executive Producer
- Ted Kotcheff … Executive Producer
- Dick Wolf … Executive Producer, Created by
- Judith McCreary … Co-Executive Producer, Writer
- Arthur W. Forney … Co-Executive Producer
- Jeff Eckerle … Supervising Producer
- Roz Weinman … Producer
- Lisa Marie Petersen … Producer
- Dawn DeNoon … Producer
- Joe Lazarov … Producer
- David DeClerque … Producer
- Lynn Goldman … Co-Producer
- Jonathan Greene … Co-Producer
- Robert F. Campbell … Co-Producer
- Jonathan C. Brody … Associate Producer
- Samantha Howard Corbin … Consulting Producer
- Eric Overmyer … Consulting Producer
- Jean de Segonzac … Director
- Mike Post … Music by
- Christopher Meloni … Cast, Detective Elliot Stabler
- Mariska Hargitay … Cast, Detective Olivia Benson
- Richard Belzer … Cast, Detective John Munch
- Stephanie March … Cast, A.D.A. Alexandra Cabot
- Ice-T … Cast, Detective Odafin 'Fin' Tutuola
- Dann Florek … Cast, Captain Donald Cragen
- John Doman … Cast, Special Agent Rod Franklin
- Ned Eisenberg … Cast, Roger Kressler
- Richard Joseph Paul … Cast, Adam Cordell
- Lee Shepherd … Cast, Mr. Platt
- Ebony Jo-Ann … Cast, Mrs. Harding
- Daryl Edwards … Cast, Group Home Leader
- Divina Cook … Cast, Mrs. Barrantes
- Ben Gazzara … Cast, Executive Assistant Attorney
- B.D. Wong … Cast, Dr. George Huang
- Justin Kirk … Cast, Eric Plummer
- Orlagh Cassidy … Cast, Valerie Plummer
- Melissa Maxwell … Cast, Bank Manager
- L. Trey Wilson … Cast, Bruce
- Patrick Husted … Cast, Warehouse Landlord
- Larry Block … Cast, Lonnie
- Hassan Iniko Johnson … Cast, Junior
- Jernard Burks … Cast, Russell Williams
- Denise Bessette … Cast, Janice
- John Bianco … Cast, Victor Klaussen
- Larry Mitchell … Cast, Book Seller
- Stephen Paul Johnson … Cast, Dr. Lawrence
- Brent Meyer … Cast, Michael
- Ed Bogdanowicz … Cast, ESU Officer
- Irene Mazeski … Cast, Shirley
- Michael McCauley … Cast, FBI Agent #2
- Dave Trovato … Cast, FBI Agent #1