WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Law & Order: SVU Season 22, Episode 15, “What Can Happen in the Dark,” which premiered Thursday on NBC.
This episode of Law & Order: SVU starts with a mother, Diana, heading to work, a son, Charlie, heading to school and a father, Andy Richards, ready to head to his construction job. He looks on edge. As soon as his family leaves, he dumps his coffee and replaces it with alcohol. Next door, Deputy Chief Garland stays to work from home with his daughter home sick from school. At the construction site, Andy drops planks of wood on another coworker who then becomes enraged and hits him, instigating a fight. The scene flashes to Garland’s house again, with the neighbor knocking on the door asking for help because his dad is hurt. Garland comes over to find the dad passed out on the floor.
Garland is at the hospital. The doctor reports his neighbor is in bad shape and that Andy told him he fell down the stairs, but the doctor is suspicious and recommends Captain Olivia “Liv” Benson interview him, as he shows signs of having been raped. When Benson arrives, Andy is attempting to get dressed and leave. There’s blood on his hospital gown. He keeps insisting it was a simple fight onsite, but Benson knows there’s more to his injuries. His wife shows up to take Andy and their kid home. She tells Liv that her husband was hazed at work. Liv knows hazing is usually code for something more but says she’ll make her investigation discreet.
Detective Katriona Azar “Kat” Tamin and Sergeant Odafin “Fin” Tutuola interview the construction workers and look at the site’s security footage, which only shows a minor scuffle. Liv and Garland go to Andy’s wife to tell her that his injuries don’t line up with the footage. She brushes them off. They talk with Andy, who is visibly upset and adamant nothing else happened. He accidentally lets it slip that it was a woman who assaulted him, making Benson suspect his wife. Andy asks her to leave. Liv talks to Garland and says it explains why Andy’s reluctant to speak and why his wife is doing damage control.
At the precinct, Detective Amanda Rollins researches Diana, who is a prominent gallerist and has no record. Counselor Sonny Carisi stops by and is hesitant to pursue a case against the wife. He says if they find evidence against her, he’ll approach a judge. Kat and Fin both acknowledge men are less likely to be raped and less likely to talk about it if they are.
Rollins swings by Diana’s gallery. When she mentions she works at SVU, Diana is unsettled. She inquiries if Andy’s injuries are being perceived as sexual in nature. She tells Amanda she saw blood in the bed, but Andy said it was a work injury. She also says he wouldn’t cheat or lead a double life, despite his depression and increased alcohol use, and their sex life got weird and angry over the past year. She asks if it’s possible that Andy did this to himself. Liv and Amanda call it classic victim-blaming. Kat isn’t so sure, but Liv says they know people don’t typically make up abuse stories and that if the victim was a woman, they’d believe her. They then receive a 911 call from Diana who says Andy cut her throat with a knife. Liv talks to Andy who is all but passed out and incapacitated. Through closed eyes and with slurred speech, he mumbles that whatever she says he did, he did it.
In the squad room, Diana says her husband was drunk when he assaulted her. He was mad she talked to the cops, and she had told him that whatever happened, she wasn’t judging him. Diana says that set him off and he grabbed a knife, put it to her neck and told her that if she left him, he’d kill her. She says she locked herself in the bathroom and called 911. Amanda tells her that’s good the call is on record and that, even though Diana doesn’t want to press charges, there is a mandatory arrest for Andy. Diana is upset by that.
Fin and Carisi are interrogating Andy, who doesn’t remember what happened. He says whatever Diana says he did, he’ll admit to it, even though he doesn’t recall grabbing the knife. At Garland’s, Charlie says he saw his mom have her accident in the kitchen earlier: she cut herself, and he got her a bandage while his dad was upstairs. Garland calls to let the squad know.
Carisi goes back in to talk to Diana and her lawyer with Amanda. They ask her about where Charlie was and if he saw her get cut. Diana says Charlie would want to protect his dad, while Carisi informs her she is now the target of the investigation. Olivia and Fin talk to Andy and tell him his wife is setting him up. He tells Liv that Diana told him to stop making up stories or she would take Charlie from him and that she promised not to hurt him again. Liv tells him that, unfortunately, things don’t get better in these situations and abusers never stop — they only escalate. Fin declares it’s about protecting Charlie now, too, so he needs to press charges. Andy says that Diana had told him if it ever went to trial, the jury would look at both of them and believe her side in an instant. However, Olivia ensures him juries are smarter than that.
Diana walks to court while being hounded by reporters. Her lawyer disparages Andy’s character. Garland accompanies Andy to court and holds onto his flask for him. Carisi sneaks in Andy through the side and away from the press. Liv says spousal abuse is spousal abuse, but that gender bias is a big fear. On the stand, Andy and Diana’s maid reports she changed sheets stained with blood and saw Andy’s bloody underwear in the garbage, but Diana had told her it wasn’t her business. Diana’s lawyer interrogates her over illegally being in the country, and that Diana had promised to sponsor her but hadn’t yet. He tells her it’s natural to be angry at Diana.
The doctor then takes the stand and testifies that Andy’s injuries were unlikely self-inflicted as there was no lubrication and intense tearing and force. Diana’s lawyer cross-examines him and implies that Andy was drunk and high. Liv then testifies that male victims are generally reluctant to admit to sexual abuse, but that she became suspicious that his wife had assaulted him. She says Andy didn’t cooperate at first, which is common in domestic violence cases, but he did fully disclose after his wife’s false accusations against him. Diana’s lawyer twists Liv’s words back at her, implying Andy is a serial liar.
In the hallway, Kat feels bad she didn’t believe Andy at first. Carisi informs them that they can’t find Andy. Garland leaves and discovers Andy at a bar about to drink. He gets him some coffee and they go back to court. Andy testifies his wife has always had a temper and been violent with him in everyday situations and in their sex life. The night in question, he had told her he was too tired for sex and passed out. When he woke up in pain, his wife was anally raping him. He yelled at her to stop before he passed out again in pain.
When he woke up in the morning, he was too embarrassed to call 911. He tried to deny what happened. But when his wife tried to claim he had attacked her, he finally told the cops the truth. He doesn’t want his son to think it’s okay to be abused. Diana’s lawyer says that since he testified that he went along with his wife’s BDSM and other sex life choices, that it means she would have had previous consent. Andy claims he told her to stop that night, though. The lawyer asks why he didn’t physically push her off, and Andy says he was drunk and afraid of hurting his wife. The lawyer says this sounds like a marital agreement, not a rape. Andy gets up to leave, upset and passes out.
Carisi is mad that Garland didn’t tell him Andy was at the bar, drinking. He thinks they may have lost the case. Andy doesn’t want to go back on the stand because he’s scared of his angry wife. Carisi knows it’s important the jury hears him now. On the stand, Andy says he’s always afraid he’ll hurt his wife if he physically fights back, but he’s also afraid of making her angry because she becomes even more violent when she’s upset. He confesses he knows his wife is angry at him right now because she just sent him a text, which violates the no-contact order. Andy reads the text which says, “You stupid bitch. I warned you. You are nothing. A loser. A zero. By the time I’m through with you, you’ll never see Charlie again.” He also says there are seven other threatening texts from today.
Carisi is rehearsing his closing arguments about the emotional control abusers have over their victims. Diana’s lawyer comes in and says they should cut a deal. Diana will plead to misdemeanor assault with no jail time. She’ll serve probation and not pursue custody of Charlie while paying for Andy and Charlie to live in the home without her. Carisi wants her on the sex offender’s registry, though. Diana agrees and pleads guilty. The judge sentences her to one year’s probation and to be on the registry until Charlie turns 18.
Diana approaches Andy and says she wants to work things out and she’s sorry. Andy tells her he won’t keep Charlie from seeing her, but he will not be in her life anymore. He thanks Carisi for believing in him and fighting for him.
Law & Order: SVU stars Mariska Hargitay, Ice T, Kelli Giddish, Peter Scanavino, Jamie Gray Hyder and Demore Barnes. New episodes air Thursdays at 9 p.m. on NBC.
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