| Ep. # |
Title |
Writer(s) |
Director |
Airdate |
Prod. code |
| 1 |
"Alternate" |
Neal Baer & Dawn DeNoon |
David Platt |
September 25, 2007 |
9003 |
| Detectives Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler suspect that Janis Donovan (played by Cynthia Nixon), a woman with Dissociative Identity Disorder, may have harmed her own daughter. Their investigation is met with initial resistance from Dr. Henry Carlisle (played by Bronson Pinchot). Captain Don Cragen is temporarily re-assigned due to problems with his detectives last season. The detectives end up discovering that Janis has 4 other alternate personalities. As the episode progresses, the detectives witness these personalities, culminating when one of Janis's personalities throws a chair across the room. Later in the episode, Janis and her sister are re-united after serving time in jail. The day after Janis and her sister go home together, their parents are found murdered in their beds. Janis's fingerprints are found on the gun. When Janis goes to trial, she displays one of her alternate personalities, choking ADA Novak. Janis is then found not guilty by reason of mental defect. In the end of the episode, it is discovered that everything was an act cooked up by Janis and her sister in order to fake a motive to kill their parents. When detective Stabler and Benson go to visit Janis in the psychiatric hospital, Janis confesses to everything and her sister, who was visiting with Janis, is arrested for being a co-conspirator and is taken away in cuffs before credits begin to roll. |
| 2 |
"Avatar" |
Paul Grellong & Chris Emposimato |
Peter Leto |
October 2, 2007 |
9004 |
| Rachel McGarrett (played by Christina Brucato), a participant in virtual reality video games, goes missing. Her boyfriend, Dan Friedich (played by Ryan Lynn), is a suspect in the case and is discovered to suffer from sexsomnia which caused him to accidentally rape her sister, Kristi McGarrett (played by Liza Joyce). In an effort to locate Rachel, Detectives Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler use her avatar to track her kidnapper down. |
| 3 |
"Impulsive" |
Jonathan Greene |
David Platt |
October 9, 2007 |
9001 |
| Sarah Trent (played by Melissa Joan Hart), a high school teacher, is suspected of statutorily raping her student, Shane Mills (played by Kyle Gallner), after he is diagnosed with gonorrhea. Sarah claims that Shane actually raped her. The team finds that Shane has a brain disorder making him obsessed with sex (he hires prostitutes, photoshops scantily-clad women, and masturbates with high frequency) and he confesses to raping his teacher. Shane is given another chance and is sent to a rehabilitation clinic, but the situation quickly changes gears when Shane himself is raped. When a guard is identified as the culprit he uses the same defense as Shane. |
| 4 |
"Savant" |
Kate Woods |
Judith McCreary |
October 16, 2007 |
9005 |
| Ben Nicholson (played by Aidan Quinn) discovers that his mentally challenged daughter, Katie (played by Paulina Gerzon), is the only witness to the savage beating of his wife (played by Judy Kuhn), which placed her in a coma. Detectives Benson and Stabler and ADA Novak work with Katie to reconstruct the night the beating took place. |
| 5 |
"Harm" |
Josh Singer |
Peter Leto |
October 23, 2007 |
9002 |
| The detectives investigate the fatal stabbing of a private school teacher, who had volunteered at a victim's rehabilitation center. The teacher had been working with an Iraqi man whose story helped uncover some military secrets, which may have led to her murder. |
| 6 |
"Svengali" |
Kam Miller |
David Platt |
November 6, 2007 |
9006 |
| A college student is found murdered in an attack that bears the hallmarks of infamous serial killer Robert Morton (played by Jared Harris). Detectives Benson and Stabler investigate Morton and discover his loyal following, which includes a man whose comic books glorify Morton's murders. When Cecilia (played by Shannon Woodward), the last person to have seen the victim alive, goes missing, the detectives are pressed to save her life. Benson also finds herself in danger when the investigation angers Morton's followers. |
| 7 |
"Blinded" |
Jonathan Greene |
David Platt |
November 13, 2007 |
9009 |
| The discovery of a kidnapped girl leads Detectives Benson and Stabler to her abductor, Saul Picard (played by Arye Gross), who is a violent, schizophrenic artist. As Detective Stabler prepares to take Saul into custody, he head butts Stabler, slamming his head into a car window which then shatters on impact. As Stabler wakes up in the hospital room he is unable to see anybody around him. A.D.A. Casey Novak must face her own dark past while attempting to convict Picard. First appearance in the Law & Order series of Jack McCoy as District Attorney. |
| 8 |
"Fight" |
Mick Betancourt |
Juan J. Campanella |
November 20, 2007 |
9007 |
| A brutal murder leads the detectives into the dangerous world of ultimate fighting. The investigation then leads to two brothers who confessed that they had to rape the victim to enter a gang. The case gets harder when the leader of the gang and prime suspect is accidentally crushed in a trash compactor and one of the brother lies to protect the brother. |
| 9 |
"Paternity"[1] |
Amanda Green |
Kate Woods |
November 27, 2007 |
9010 |
| The murder of a young boy's nanny leads Detectives Benson and Stabler to suspect her Internet love interest, "Casanova" (played by Steven Bauer). However, the nanny's employers (played by Mark Valley and Anastasia Griffith) soon become suspects in the case. Stabler's family suffers a tragedy leaving his unborn child in serious danger after Benson and Kathy are hurt in a car accident.[1] |
| 10 |
"Snitch"[2] |
Mark Goffman |
Jonathan Kaplan |
December 4, 2007 |
9008 |
| Detectives Benson and Stabler investigate when a Nigerian polygamist's wife is killed, and the husband fears that his testifying in a crime may have led to his wife's demise. Benson and Stabler suspect that the man's cultural tradition may have been the cause of his wife's murder when they find a website that exposes potential witnesses to the crime that he was testifying for. Method Man plays the antagonist who threatens the man's family.[2] |
| 11 |
"Streetwise" |
Paul Grellong |
Helen Shaver |
January 1, 2008 |
9011 |
| The SVU squad are called in when a wealthy teenager is found murdered in Central Park. The case soon develops into an investigation of a community of homeless children. |
| 12 |
"Signature" |
Judith McCreary |
Arthur Forney |
January 8, 2008 |
9012 |
| Detectives Benson and Lake investigate the murder of a female alongside a man with a bullet inside his head; they soon team up with Special Agent Cooper (Erika Christensen), who's tracking a serial killer by the name of "The Woodsman", but things turn weird when the male victim is identified as the serial killer and Special Agent Cooper seems to be hiding something of her own. |
| 13 |
"Unorthodox" |
Josh Singer |
David Platt |
January 15, 2008 |
9013 |
| The sexual assault of a Jewish boy prompts the attention of Benson and Stabler. Initially an orhodox jewish priest is suspected to be the one responsible for the raping of the kid, but The case turns into a media circus as a flood of young victims are revealed, with all the clues pointing to one of their classmates. It's discovered that a 14 year old boy is the rapist, but he doesn't go to prison because (Due to a psychological examination) he is declared mentally ill, as a result of the expossure to pornography he suffered daily (as most of the boys his age). |
| 14 |
"Inconceivable" |
Dawn DeNoon |
Chris Zalla |
January 22, 2008 |
9014 |
| When fertilized embryos disappear from a sperm bank, examination of a security tape points the detectives to two publicity-hungry extremists. Meanwhile, Benson ponders her own decisions about fertility and motherhood. |
| 15 |
"Undercover" |
Mark Goffman |
David Platt |
April 15, 2008 |
9015 |
| After a young girl is found raped in a community garden, Benson and Stabler realize the girl has a mother who is in a female correction facility. After the rape kit on the girl goes missing the detectives realize one of the corrections officers at the facility is raping and brutalizing women. Without the rape kit however Benson and Stabler have no proof so Benson goes in undercover at the same facility to catch the officer. |
| 16 |
"Closet" |
Ken Storer |
Peter Leto |
April 22, 2008 |
9016 |
| When investment banker Jeremy Haynes is found murdered, suspicion turns to his boyfriend Lincoln Haver, a professional football player who could lose everything if the truth about his sexuality came to light. When information about Haver's sexual orientation is leaked to the media, Benson comes under fire for her relationship with a reporter. Bill Pullman guest stars as Benson's boyfriend. |
| 17 |
"Authority" [3] |
Neal Baer & Amanda Green |
David Platt |
April 29, 2008 |
9017 |
| The 200th episode of the show features an engineer, Merritt Rook (Robin Williams) who has been posing as a cop to make people do abnormal things all in the act of trying to convince people to oppose authority. He turns his trial into a media circus and the case gets more complicated when Rook abducts Benson. He tries to make Elliot inflict pain on her, but he refuses. |
| 18 |
"Trade" |
Jonathan Greene |
Peter Leto |
May 6, 2008 |
9018 |
| When a pregnant woman's body is found raped and murdered inside her burnt loft the team investigates a family of coffee importers. The suspects are numerous ranging from the woman's fiance (P.J. Bartlett) to his father (Stephen Collins). Further investigation reveals a twisted love triangle between the woman, her fiance, and his father. The paternity of the baby is questioned and the case takes a twist. |
| 19 |
"Cold" |
Judith McCreary |
David Platt |
May 13, 2008 |
9019 |
| The SVU squad is left at ends when they have a dead cop on their hands and Det. Chester Lake is their prime suspect. They discover Lake was investigating a ten-year-old cold case and the cop may have been involved in the rape of one girl and the rape and murder of another girl. Lake tracks down the girl that wasn't murdered and convinces her to testify against the partner of the dead cop who also raped and helped murder the other girl. During the trial, Novak lies to her superiors and it costs her a suspension. When the cop on trial gets off, Lake shoots and murders him. Finn puts in his transfer papers after Elliot has his cell phone records dumped to try to find Lake. |
