Law & Order: SVU Lures Rollins Back — But for How Long?
Enough trying to fit in with the normies, Rollins. If this week’s Law & Order: SVU proves anything, it’s that you belong back at the zoo with the rest of the big-hearted, if maladjusted, herd.
Kelli Giddish’s latest guest appearance finds Det. Amanda Rollins slipping a little too easily into her old job. Could the hour be a peek at what might come to pass next season? By the end, things are very much up in the air. But damned if I didn’t love all the little peeks at Carisi and Rollins’ life away from the job.
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Read on for what goes down in Episode 11, “Prima Nocta.”
FREE TIME | The episode opens with a woman making pancakes and slipping them into a briefcase, and because I have watched way too much of this show over the years, my instant reaction is: “Yep, classic trauma response — whoever she is has clearly been attacked and is disassociating and is soon going to walk into a supermarket in her underwear and start gabbing with a pineapple, and the store manager will call the cops, and DUN-DUN.” But nope! Happily, I am wrong, and the woman is none other than former Det. Amanda Rollins, who is playing a silly prank on Carisi, to her daughters’ delight.
When the silver fox himself enters the kitchen, he kisses baby Nicky as Billie blurts out that there’s some breakfast in his bag. Carisi laughs as he removes the cake, eats it and helps gets the kids ready to go. When he and Rollins have a minute to themselves before he leaves for work, we learn that she is recently unemployed. She swears she’s not bothered by that fact — she reminds him (and us) that she was bored as a professor — and he floats the idea of her joining the district attorney’s office as an investigator. “Working with you, so we can be together all day and all night, hmm?” she teases him. They smooch, I momentarily get lost in the crinkles Carisi gets around his eyes when he gazes fondly upon his wife, and then he takes off.
Capt. Benson rescues Rollins from her moody introspection with an offer to meet for lunch. As they unload their takeout at the precinct, Liv needles Amanda about the reasons she apparently turned down a tenure offer at Fordham. Before they can get into it — or eat a bite — Bruno interrupts: A bride named Jenna has locked herself in a room at her own wedding and won’t speak to anyone but SVU. Benson says she’ll take the call, and Amanda tags along.
LIKE RIDING A BIKE | Jenna tells Benson and Rollins that she was raped the night before, while sleeping at her parents’ house after the rehearsal dinner. She tells Amanda that the rapist was black, he took her nightgown and all the bedding, and it felt like he knew that she was about to get married because he said she’d remember him forever. Meanwhile, Fin and Liv have a suspicion that, given the snail-like pace of paperwork at the NYPD, Rollins might still be an active cop — and therefore good to go, investigation-wise. (Side note: OK, sure!)
When the DNA evidence comes back, it shows that the man who raped Jenna also raped another woman the night before her wedding six months before. When they talk to that victim, they learn that her attacker also took the bedding and said “you’re going to remember me” as he left.
Fin takes Rollins to the shooting range, ostensibly so she can get her weapon back while she’s working the case, but really so he can ask, “Have you litigated all of this with the counselor yet?” She says she’ll tell him that night.
THE BLOOM IS OFF THE ROSE | The squad gets wind of another rape from the year before that fits the bill; when Liv and Bruno visit the victim, the woman has an infant. (Oh no.) It’s clear her husband doesn’t know what happened; later, when the woman shows up at the precinct, she confirms that the baby isn’t his. She also says she thinks she saw her rapist at the flower wholesaler they used.
After talking to the guy (his name is Leon) and checking out his (what they assume is false) alibi, Bruno, Fin and Curry are convinced they’ve found their man. But Carisi swings by the station to remind them that they have no hard evidence linking him to the crimes. So Benson comes up with a plan to have Rollins and Carisi — two people who, may I remind you, DO NOT WORK FOR HER — to pose as an engaged couple in order to bait the supposed rapist into action.
So they swing by the flower wholesaler, and Leon definitely takes notice of them. That night, while Rollins is adjusting the wire she’ll wear during the op, Carisi notes that she’s got a spark in her eye he hasn’t seen since she left the force. I’d counter that she also doesn’t have the bullet in her abdomen that she definitely DID when she was on the force, but potato, potahto. “I am kind of excited about this,” she admits, then he slips out to wait in the truck outside with Bruno, Curry and Fin.
HASN’T LOST HER TOUCH | Leon arrives and Rollins turns on the charm, making him come into the apartment and pouring him a drink even though he initially refuses one. Outside, Carisi frets; this is starting to feel like entrapment. Rollins pushes Leon a little more, and he bolts without taking a sip — which would have given them his DNA. But surprise! Rollins got enough DNA under her fingernails (did she lightly scrape him without his noticing?) and on the rim of the glass to match Leon to the three rapes. And Carisi only had three small heart attacks in the process!
Jenna IDs Leon via his voice. The victim with the infant IDs him via his face. Have fun in jail forever, buddy!
Benson swings by the Rollisi homestead to drop off Amanda’s stuffed chipmunk, which the captain posits was left behind so she’d have a reason to return. “So are you saying you don’t want me back?” Amanda asks. Liv says even if she did, “I don’t have a desk for you.” What’s more, she adds, Rollins needs to figure out what she really wants to do with her life. “I don’t want SVU to be your safety net,” she says gently. “How about you take some time, figure out what makes you happy?” Then they agree that they both have a little more work to do to become less tormented people (though, Liv, given the Maddie Flynn-ness of this season for you, isn’t “a little” an understatement?), and that’s about as happy an ending as SVU episodes yet, isn’t it?
Now it’s your turn. What did you think of the episode? Sound off in the comments!
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