I’ve been a faithful watcher for pretty much the entire series. I’ve endured some preposterous plots. I’ve swallowed some ridiculous pills for story arcs, character development, you name it. But that shit you just asked me to swallow is just too much. I must leave you now.
The plot: Woman is raped but fights off her attacker who is arrested. Rapist says she asked her to rape him on this website where rape fantasies come true. Woman denies ever having been there. Police find porn on her computer; don’t know who to believe. Turns out the website posts and porn were uploaded by a Trojan planted on her computer by her stalker ex-boyfriend, who’s a computer consultant that works for the Department of Justice, and had followed her to NYC and moved in across the street. He is arrested.
Mind you, as a regular viewer, none of this is implausible enough for me to write this show off.
Moving on: ADA goes to the judge to get a restraining order on the boyfriend b/c he tried to attack her again. Another judge passes by, and offers to review the petition. Refuses. ADA says “you of all people should be concerned about this case.” Turns out the judge’s son was kidnapped at three years old and murdered by a serial murderer several years ago. Judge reminds her that as a judge that shouldn’t sway his judgment. He agrees to take the case for the other judge.
At trial, stalker rapist is disruptive and gets held in contempt. As he’s being led away, he recites some Aesop fable about tyrants. Judge gives an odd look. Det. Stabler takes the stand to affirm that his interrogation was above board. After trial judge calls him into his office, b/c he wants him to go to prison and interrogate the man accused of killing his son. The serial killer was caught, and has divulged the location of all his victim’s bodies, except the judge’s, due to some grudge against the legal system. Stabler agrees to go talk to him.
Back to the trial, judge is distracted by text messages from Stabler - finally Stabler gets the guy to talk. The judge stops court for the day to go look at the body. Looks like the body was moved, but they found a bunch of blood.
Next day, the Detectives visit the ME. ME says it’s not the judge’s son’s body. ME says the judge gave her a hair sample to DNA map - it’s the rapists’ hair sample. Concerned and confused, they head to court. The judge does not show up for court. Turns out he visited with the rapist in jail and got him to confess that he’d been sexually abused his whole life. They go to the judge’s house and find him with blood on him, and a man tied up and beaten. Turns out the man is the rapist’s father.
They ask the judge how he got the hair sample, as the rapist doesn’t remember him taking one. Judge says “from his baby book.” Turns out the rapist on trial was really his son, who was kidnapped and abused by the man the judge was beating. When he heard the kid recite the Aesop fable, he knew it was his son. He hired Stabler to confirm that the body they found wasn’t his son’s. At the end, the son / rapist shows up, the father asks him to remember how he heard that fable, the son suddenly realizes that this is his dad. Even though he was three when he was kidnapped and previously had no idea that the man that abused him wasn’t his real father.
They tearfully embrace. The End.
Are you fucking KIDDING me? It just so happens that this judge was walking by and took a case, and it just so happens that the guy on trial was his long lost kidnapped-at-three-years-old-and-presumed-dead son, and it just so happens that he figured this out by hearing him recite an Aesop fable?
No. Sale.
Goodbye, SVU.