Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (season 8)

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This article contains a list of episodes for season 8 of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

Contents 1 "Informed" (9/19/06) 2 "Clock" (9/26/06) 3 "Recall" (10/3/06) 4 "Uncle" (10/10/06) 5 "Confrontation" (10/17/06) 6 "Infiltrated" (10/31/06) 7 "Underbelly" (11/14/06) 8 "Cage" (11/21/06) 9 "Choreographed" (11/28/06) 10 "Scheherezade" (1/2/07) 11 "Burned" (1/9/07) 12 "Outsider" (1/16/07) 13 "Loophole" (2/6/07) 14 "Dependent" (2/13/07) 15 "Haystack" (2/20/07) 16 "Philadelphia" (2/27/07) 17 "Sin" (3/27/07) 18 "Responsible" (4/3/07)

[edit] "Informed" (9/19/06)

Season premiere. A young woman, Haley Kerns, shows up at a hospital emergency room beaten and with her head shaved. Despite signs of sexual assault, she demands only a morning-after pill and refuses a rape kit. Kerns is accosted on the street by Benson, who pleads with her to submit to the rape kit. Benson follows Kerns back to her apartment but is asked to leave when Kerns locks herself in the bathroom. Benson does so, but not before taking Kerns' soiled underwear from her assault for a DNA analysis. When she returns to Kerns' apartment, she finds the woman missing and encounters Agent Dana Lewis (from season 7's "Raw," played by Marcia Gay Harden), who reveals that Kerns is her confidential informant on an ecoterrorism investigation. After Stabler is wounded while following a lead on Kerns' whereabouts, Benson and Lewis must find Kerns and get her to cooperate in preventing a terrorist bombing.

Mariska Hargitay's maternity leave from the show is explained away at the end of the episode, when Benson is pressed into undercover service with the FBI to continue Agent Lewis' investigation.

[edit] "Clock" (9/26/06)

Connie Nielsen is introduced at the end of this episode as Det. Dani Beck, who replaces Benson as Stabler's partner. The squad investigates the case of two missing teens, including a girl with Turner's syndrome. However, neither teen is found to be actually missing. The "missing" boy turns out to have faked his own abduction in order to extort money from his father in order to settle a gambling debt. The case of the girl, Janey (Betsy Hogg), is far more complicated. Because she has Turner's syndrome, she looks 12 even though she is a 17-year-old high school senior. Her over-protective father (Gregory Harrison) and grandfather are locked in a custody battle with her mother, a recovering alcoholic who abandoned Janey when she was 5, but who now wants back into her life. Janey herself wants nothing to do with either parent, preferring to live with her 30-year-old boyfriend.

ЃAccording to TV Guide, Nielsen will guest star as Beck for a total of six episodes. Robert Vaughn also guest starred in this episode.

[edit] "Recall" (10/3/06)

Stabler and Cragen have concerns about Beck's reputation as an overzealous investigator. She works with Stabler on a vexing rape case in which they are unable to make the charges stick until a surprise witness (played by Leslie Caron) comes forward.

[edit] "Uncle" (10/10/06)

When a mother and daughter are found raped and murdered in their home, the squad suspects a homeless man of crimes. However, it turns out that the man is actually Andrew Munch (guest star Jerry Lewis), John Munch's uncle who has become nearly catatonic due to severe depression. Uncle Andrew had somehow made his way from an assisted living home in Florida to New York to find Munch, but wound up on the streets because of his illness.

The detectives believe they've found the real culprit when they match a bite mark on one of the victims to a suspect in a prior rape. Unfortunately, the bite mark evidence is thrown out of court, and Stabler and Beck decide to follow the suspect in a last ditch scramble to catch him in the act of committing his next rape. Timothy Adams also guest stars.

[edit] "Confrontation" (10/17/06)

Stabler receives a late night phone call from a rape victim, informing him that she had just been raped again by the same man. When the woman is found dead, the squad concludes that the suspect must have raped other women, repeatedly, before. They turn up three other victims, including a pregnant woman, and find out that all the victims are connected through the property management company that maintains their apartment buildings. They also discover another disturbing facet of the rapist's pattern: he repeats his attacks based on the victims' menstrual cycles, meaning he is intentionally trying to impregnate them. Stabler and Beck therefore naturally focus on the pregnant victim, convinced that a paternity test will reveal the suspect's DNA. When she refuses, Novak has no choice but to take the highly unorthodox step of charging her with obstruction of justice.

Throughout the episode, Beck continues to butt heads with Stabler over the proper way to treat rape victims. More of Beck's back-story is revealed, including her obsession with the criminal files of the two men jailed for murdering her husband. At the end of the show, Stabler accompanies Beck to Attica Correctional Facility, where one of the killers of Beck's husband is serving a life sentence.

[edit] "Infiltrated" (10/31/06)

Casey Novak is forced to get Benson, still undercover with the FBI, to come back to New York to testify in a rape case. While undercover with an Oregon environmental group, Benson is injured by an overzealous deputy sheriff and charged with assault (even though it was the deputy who initiated the fight). She is eventually released but is questioned about her group's involvement with a murder. She then sets out to clear her group's name and finds that the murdered man was a pedophile. She finds a room under his garage and discovers the murder scene. The local sheriff finds two sets of prints at the scene, the murdered man's and those of a girl who went missing ten years ago. Benson is then released from the FBI (it turns out that the group she had infiltrated had nothing to do with terrorism; the actual terrorist leader had been arrested two days ago) to go back to New York. As she is still unaware of the urgency of Novak's case, she decides to stay and help the FBI find the missing girl. In the end Benson finds the girl, who had developed Stockholm Syndrome. Benson just makes it back to New York in time to testify.

[edit] "Underbelly" (11/14/06)

Three teenaged homicide victims with matching tattoos lead Detectives Stabler and Beck to an underage prostitution ring. With the victims' pimp, Victor Bodine (guest star Michael K. Williams), as the prime suspect, detectives must rely on one of his young girls Belinda "Passion" Holt (guest star Charlie Ray), to testify against him. Also, Benson's jealousy flares when she quietly returns to the squad room and witnesses an intimate moment between Stabler and Beck. Beck introduces herself to Benson, but has no idea that the woman who walked into the precinct asking to see Stabler was Olivia. Benson then tells Capt. Cragen that she is not ready to come back to SVU, and leaves without saying hello to Stabler. She does not, however, witness a kiss between Beck and Stabler after a round of drinks with Novak.

[edit] "Cage" (11/21/06)

Detectives Stabler and Beck investigate a car accident involving two foster children. The accident leads the detectives to the foster parents and some questionable medical practices involving controversial "rebirthing" therapy. As the detectives dig deeper into the case, they discover other gruesome secrets involving the children, and after one of the foster children, Eden (Elle Fanning) sets the drapes in Beck's living room on fire, attempting to murder Beck and committ suicide, Beck says goodbye to Stabler and Special Victims Unit. This was Det. Beck's final episode on the show.

[edit] "Choreographed" (11/28/06)

A woman is found dead in Central Park, and when medical examiner Warner can find no apparent reason for her death, Detective Stabler begins the investigation by talking to the victim's husband, Wesley Masoner (guest star Chris Sarandon), who owns a dance troupe, as his friends Glenn (Bob Saget) and Naomi Cheales (Catherine Bell) pay a condolence visit. Stabler's investigation unravels a case of drugs, infidelity and an elaborate plot that impacts everyone involved in the troupe. Attorney Stella Danquiss (Bernadette Peters) defends Wesley. In this star-studded episode, Stabler also discovers Detective Benson is back in town, as she is reassigned to be his partner (or, as she points out, 'handler') once again.

[edit] "Scheherezade" (1/2/07)

Stabler agrees to hear the dying confession of a cancer patient named Judson Tierney (Brian Dennehy), but first he and Benson do some digging into what possible crime Tierney could be guilty of and come up with an unsolved case that goes back 47 years. Tierney is later found responsible for 21 armed bank robberies, murder, and kidnapping. Tierney's daughter, Shelia (Paget Brewster) refuses to see him in his last days, but as he lays dying she goes to his bedside.

[edit] "Burned" (1/9/07)

Stabler and Benson are at odds over whom to believe in a “he said, she said” rape case involving a husband and wife (Blair Underwood, Michael Michele) in the middle of an extremely bitter child-custody dispute. Tessa: Tiffany Evans. Kathy Stabler: Isabel Gillies. Eriq La Salle directed.

[edit] "Outsider" (1/16/07)

Fin looks into an alleged rape at the college where his son, Ken (Ernest Waddell), attends. Fin is joined in his investigation by a Brooklyn SVU detective named Chester Lake (Adam Beach), who is working a strikingly similar case. Also stars Kal Penn as Henry Chanoor.

[edit] "Loophole" (2/6/07)

An anonymous letter leads to an apparent child-pornography case and the testing of pesticides on unwitting apartment tenants. The case puts stress on Olivia, who develops medical symptoms similar to those exhibited by the victim and his mother. Stabler gets thrown out a window while the SVU corridor is being trashed by Cupid (Bill Goldberg). Ray Wise also guest stars as the CEO of a chemical company.

[edit] "Dependent" (2/13/07)

After a mob lawyer (Cary Elwes) is attacked and his wife brutally murdered, Benson and Stabler question their daughter. But her wild night of drunken partying leaves her unable to recall her actions, even though her father insists she was at the scene of the crime. Stabler is charged with excessive force when the daughter's boyfriend dies in his custody. Charlotte: Emily VanCamp. Ryan: Justin Klosky. Tommy: Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick.

[edit] "Haystack" (2/20/07)

In a "ripped-from-the-headlines" episode, overzealous reporter Cindy Marino (Kali Rocha) accuses new mother Laura Kozowloski (Ashley Williams) on television of kidnapping and trying to kill her baby. That's the last straw for the despondent woman, who promptly commits suicide (see Melinda Duckett). Although everyone is under suspicion, including the mother and her ex-husband, Mike (Pablo Schreiber) the case takes an unusual emotional toll on Detective Stabler who is drawn in on the mother and her past.

[edit] "Philadelphia" (2/27/07)

Benson investigates a rape case outside her jurisdiction and must meet with a police psychologist (Mary Stuart Masterson) to discuss her recent actions which have compromised her performance. Also, Benson finally unravels a part of her past when she finds her brother Simon Marsden (Michael Weston) who may be a rapist. Capt. Julia Millfield: Kim Delaney.

[edit] "Sin" (3/27/07)

A successful preacher (Tim Daly) is the prime suspect in a murder case, until his wife (Kathy Baker) provides detectives with a taped conversation.

[edit] "Responsible" (4/3/07)

Stabler and Benson are forced to dive in to the world of under age drinking when a death leads to high school binge parties and a mother who supplies booze to her daughter's friends but sleeps with those friends as well. Hunter Parrish Guest starred.