Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

1999
4.8
9.87K reviews
TV-14
Rating
Eligible
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Season 5 episodes (25)

1 Tragedy
9/23/03
A frantic 911 call is logged and it appears a woman is being attacked in her car. Detectives Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Stabler (Christopher Meloni) think it could be the carjack rapist, but after much digging, they discover the victim is Annika Bergeron (Karen Goberman). Her only relative is her sister, Laura (Marisa Ryan), who lives in New Jersey and tells the detectives that Annika is eight months pregnant. Her doctor also warns them that she has a dangerous condition and must have a caesarian section or both she and her baby will die.
2 Manic
9/30/03
Detectives Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Stabler (Christopher Meloni) are called to a chaotic situation at a high school. Two star basketball players are found in the gym, stripped and shot to death, and what appears to be a third victim, Joe Blaine (Rory Culkin), is shot in the head.
3 Mother
10/7/03
A top forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Greta Heints (Susanna Thompson), is found assaulted and bound in a crack house. She regains consciousness but doesn't seem too eager to help Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Stabler (Christopher Meloni) find her assailant. Her husband says she got a call on the private patient line the night of the attack and then went out.
4 Loss
10/14/03
A young woman wearing only a fur coat is found dead, with her tongue cut out. Her identity is shaky and records only go back two years. But it turns out, the victim, Livia Tellez, is really Livia Sandoval, an immigrant from Colombia who's been here seven years. She took her civil service exam in 2000 and was snapped up from the Police Academy by the DEA to be an undercover agent and infiltrate the Colombian drug cartel.
5 Serendipity
10/21/03
A newborn is found dead in a sewer. Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Stabler (Christopher Meloni) go to a nearby apartment to question a very pregnant woman, but she's found dead. The woman, Brianna Morris, was going to give her baby up to Ron (Jack Gilpin) and Kelly (Barbara Garrick) Wolcott, who were excited about the adoption. But Ron found out Brianna had second thoughts about keeping the baby.
6 Coerced
10/28/03
Adam Forbes (Dylan Bluestone), a five-year-old, is missing from his apartment, and his mother initially blames her ex-husband Peter (James McCaffrey), but it's soon clear a stranger kidnapped him. Shortly thereafter, a major stabbing-death incident at the grocery store down the street links the primary suspect, Kevin Walker (Leland Orser), to Adam. Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Stabler (Christopher Meloni) frantically question Walker on the whereabouts of the missing boy.
7 Choice
11/4/03
While patrolling, police stumble upon an attack in progress at Momma Sue's restaurant on the owner, Jennifer Fulton (Josie Bissett). Fulton is in a hurry to leave after being examined at the hospital and her husband, Craig (Ricky Aiello) is concerned, which leaves Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Stabler (Christopher Meloni) to believe the suspect was not her husband, but could have been an underage drinker she busted earlier. The young man is Leon Ardilles (Victor Rasuk) and it turns out he was in the restaurant that night, but Jennifer was already injured. Finally, Jennifer admits that her husband has a history of abuse and had attacked her for drinking since she is 11 weeks pregnant.
8 Abomination
11/11/03
Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Stabler (Christopher Meloni) have trouble identifying a male murder victim in his 20's found in a pile of sheets in the West Village. The victim is James Reed, a former member of the ReGenesis group, who was studying at Hudson University for his Master's where his thesis was to prove groups like ReGenesis not only don't work but also steal people's money. Detectives are led to Roger Tate (George Segal), a professor with a reorientation business who had problems with Reed's project.
9 Control
11/18/03
Horace Gorman (Austin Pendleton) collapses at a subway station. He is rushed to the hospital and although he survives, his genitals have been cut off. While Gorman claims a homeless man did it, Detectives Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Stabler (Christopher Meloni) are not sure sure until they are led to Samuel (Joseph McKenna) who lives in the Grand Central subway tunnel. In Samuel's "space" they find a mannequin holding a paper bag, which contains Gorman's "missing parts." Samuel claims he received them as an offering, the Jewels of Sodom, from an archangel.
10 Shaken
11/25/03
Sarah Rendell (Nicole Leach), a 19-year-old babysitter and Veronica Nash (Olga Merediz), an officious, older nanny are watching children in the park. Lucy, who's under Sarah's care, disappears and they call the cops. Stabler (Christopher Meloni) finds her lying in the bushes with a massive head injury. As Lucy fights to survive on life support M.E. Warner (Tamara Tunie) drops a bomb, claiming her injury was caused by being shaken about 12-48 hours earlier and not at the park.
11 Escape
12/2/03
There's an escape at the Virginia Correctional Facility. Double D (Michael Kenneth Williams) and Michael Baxter (Stephen Lang) are on the loose. Deputy Marshall Andy Eckerson (Craig Bierko) goes to N.Y. to team up with Detective Benson (Mariska Hargitay) to track them down. Benson and Eckerson are concerned Baxter is going to find his stepson, Lee Healy (Milo Ventimiglia), who said he was raped by his stepfather, and that testimony sent Baxter to jail. Can the Detectives find Lee and his mother, Carin (Nancy Allen), and warn them before it's too late?
12 Brotherhood
1/6/04
The body of young man is found in a tank at a wastewater treatment plant. M.E. Warner (Tamara Tunie) is able to identify a tattoo that says TE and it's the symbol for the fraternity Tau Epsilon. Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Stabler (Chris Meloni) discover the deceased is Tyler Henry, treasurer of the Panhellenic Council. Medical examiners discover a very expensive violin bow had been pushed up Tyler's anus and detectives trace it back to Nathan Angeli (Noah Fleiss), a former pledge who got kicked out of Tau Epsilon.
13 Hate
1/13/04
A young woman, Mira Elbisi, is brutally raped and burned, and after identifying her, Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Stabler (Christopher Meloni) suspect her husband and mother-in-law. The Detectives take take her husband and mother-in-law, Al-Shani (James Rana) and Jazlyn (Lorraine Serabian), into custody. Both claim they were at their office while they're being questioned, when another incident happens. A young Arab student is burned and the same type of fuel oil found, along with the pipe.
14 Ritual
2/3/04
The dismembered body of a black boy is found in Central Park, amidst what appears to be Santeria type ritual materials - candles, bowls with blood. Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Stabler (Christopher Meloni) trace the candles to a Santeria group but the leader says there's no way any of the members would hurt a child. There haven't been any reports of a missing child, but he does have an unusual scar on his abdomen. M.E. Warner (Tamara Tunie), still unable to identify the victim, says that based on tests to the bones, the child has only been in New York about four weeks, and before that was in Nigeria...
15 Families
2/10/04
The body of a 16-year-old girl is found while Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Stabler (Christopher Meloni) are chasing down a rape suspect.
16 Home
2/17/04
A young, emaciated boy is found by neighbors scrounging for food. Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Stabler (Christopher Meloni) suspect the boy, Jacob (Jesse Schwartz), is a victim of abuse and are reluctant to let him go home. They question his mother, Marilyn Nesbit (Diane Venora), and it appears she controls Jacob with food and is very restrictive about what he can eat. Jacob and his teenage brother, Adam (Joseph Cross), are both home schooled and their house is immaculate. While the situation is strange, it is not enough to prove Jacob's mother is an unfit mother and he returns home. That night, Stabler's cell phone rings, and it's Jacob...
17 Mean
2/24/04
The body of 16-year-old Emily Sullivan is found brutally murdered in a car. Detectives Benson (Mariska Hargity) and Stabler (Christopher Meloni) confirm the identity of the victim at her well-appointed house in Westchester, where her parents tell them she was supposed to have been sleeping at Andrea Kent's (Arielle Kebbel) for the night. When they visit Tanner Day School, the upscale private school Emily attended, the Detectives discover she had sent hundreds of threatening text messages to Agnes Linsky (Lindsay Hollister), an overweight, unpopular schoolmate and they suspect Agnes' father.
18 Careless
3/2/04
A 6-year-old boy is brought to the emergency room from a midnight church service because he has stopped breathing. Sam (Cress Williams) and Lori-Ann Dufoy (Malinda Williams) are his devastated foster parents. While it is unclear what happened, the medical examiner points out a ring mark on the boy's skin. His parents say their son, Jamie, had all kinds of problems, including ADHD and epilepsy, making him extremely difficult to control. At first, Fin (Ice-T) and Munch (Richard Belzer) think the priest at the church might have killed him, especially when they realize it was his ring that made the imprint, but M.E. Warner (Tamara Tunie) says he was already dead when he got to the church.
19 Sick
3/30/04
Students at the University of Denver spot very threatening messages in a chat room that are coming from the computer of Jeremy Ostilow (James Colby), a rich toy executive.
20 Lowdown
4/6/04
Jeff York (Dean Strange) is found strangled to death in a neighborhood frequented by prostitutes. With his wallet missing, It looks like a trick gone wrong. The victim turns out to be an Assistant District Attorney from the Bronx, someone Olivia (Mariska Hargitay) has dated. At first, Benson and Stabler (Chris Meloni) think he was killed because of a case he was prosecuting; the defendant, Alvarez (Carlos Pizarro), threatened him in open court but his alibi checks out. A condom with lipstick stains was found at the scene, but on closer examination, it turns out to have been staged.
21 Criminal
4/20/04
Rebecca Wheeler, a graduate student at Wallace University, is found dead by a cop in Central Park with virtually no clues left at the scene of the crime.
22 Painless
4/27/04
Christina Nerrit (Karen Young) is left for dead in her apartment, a plastic bag over her head and her hands cuffed, but survives. Initially, Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Stabler (Christopher Meloni) think her married boss was the culprit, since he was seen leaving her apartment. But urine tested from her bathroom indicated the victim or perp is a female... suffering from kidney failure.
23 Bound
5/4/04
Donna Brooks is found dead in her apartment, and a "gentleman suitor," Richard Sutton (Richard Easton) is there, and thought to be dead but alive... he suffered a heart attack when he found her dead body. Donna's grief-stricken daughter, Joset (Isabel Glasser), says her mother had pancreatic cancer and was close to the end, but she still had plenty of time to date a variety of men. Several have alibis and Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Stabler (Christopher Meloni) now think Sutton could be the killer. He's finally well enough to communicate and claims Donna was killed in the morning and that he has an alibi.
24 Poison
5/11/04
A young girl is in a coma after ingesting detergent, and although her mother is suspected of poisoning her, a very biased judge makes the case difficult to prosecute, which eventually leads to an investigation into his past.
25 Head
5/18/04
A woman drops her cell phone in the toilet at a coffee house and finds a spy cam. Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Stabler (Chris Meloni) track the camera to a high tech shop and ask the techno geek, a woman named Charlie (Amy Sedaris), where they were installed. When the Detectives track down the man they think was the voyeur and go to his apartment, Charlie answers. It turns out her brother Wade (James Urbaniak) is the pervert, and he had been using the toilet cam to spy. Everyone is thoroughly disgusted by him and ready to charge him with the max, when he admits he saw a real crime happen.

About this show

From the creator of the longest running drama series on television, "Law & Order", comes a powerful series chronicling the life and crimes of the Special Victims Unit of NYPD. Each episode follows the exploits of detectives Elliot Stabler, Olivia Benson, John Munch and Odafin Tutuola as they attempt to solve the city's most complex cases. They diligently follow lead after lead, relentless in their quest for justice and the search for truth.

Ratings and reviews

4.8
9.87K reviews
A A
May 26, 2015
Almost every episode has a screen play that's more like a feminist rant.. The man is always evil and the women is just a innocent victim.. And the title that says this show isn't based off of any real event is bullish*t too almost every episode has something to do with something that has happened in the world recently they just change the names around..NBC should have canceled this show 10 years ago...
26 people found this review helpful
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Shawnasi Spatola
June 20, 2018
Season 19 episode 12 was a shame. I have been watching this show since it first came out nearly 20 years ago and all the law and orders for that matter. I know this show leans on the liberal side but this was it for me...for Barbs to do what he did simply because he didn't like the victim was disgusting to me. I've seen them fight head over heals in impossible circumstances just depending on who the victim is, but this! No, mistrial because she's a conservative big mouth...rediculous!!! If she was a liberal big mouth they would have fought tooth and nail. Well that's it for me. Just one show too many of their bias and now I'm done with law n order for good.
219 people found this review helpful
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KunSun Sweeley (KSweeley)
February 7, 2013
This show is now owned by Comcast as they have acquired NBCUniversal and the changes they made I do not like one bit. Major change is not having Chris Meloni (Elliott Stabler), Comcast just acquired NBCUniversal and somehow the ongoing contract negotiations with Meloni fell apart and Meloni decided to completely leave SVU which to me disrupts the show's chemistry it had with the longtime partnering of Benson and Stabler. Until Comcast manages to bring back Meloni as a series regular again, I will not watch.
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