Law & Order: Special Victims Unit – Constricted

By: Kaylyn Bell

A young teenager, Hannah’s (Maya Drake), computer keeps ringing with notifications, so her mother, Allison (Rosie Benton), checks it. She sees messages from Hannah’s boyfriend, Ryan (Landon Maas), and realizes that they’re planning to lose their virginities. At Ryan’s house his father, Josh (Troy Garity), discovers the same thing and cancels his meeting to give Ryan advice. Allison speaks with Hannah to be sure she is positive about this and says that if she’s going to do it, she should do it at home. So, she offers Hannah the house to herself. Allison’s final message to Hannah is to not do anything she’s not ready for.

Carisi (Peter Scanavino) and his daughter, Jesse (Charlotte Cabell), exit a phone store. He got her a phone to keep in contact with her mom while she’s traveling for her new job. As they’re walking down the street a man checks out Jesse and Carisi turns back to watch him. The man also stops to talk to a few young teenage girls, so Carisi approaches him. He checks the man’s ID and then threatens him if he doesn’t keep to himself.

Hannah and Ryan are on their date at a restaurant when Ryan adds alcohol he took from his dad to their drinks. They get back to Hannah’s house and she invites him to her room. A few hours later, Allison is rushing into the hospital with Hannah on a gurney. The doctors think she has a concussion and notice bruising on her neck.

Fin (Ice-T), Captain Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Carisi enter the precinct. Fin and Benson inquire about how Rollins is doing with her new job and tell Carisi to let her know they’re proud of her. After Fin heads to his desk, Carisi informs Benson that he’s there to see her for parenting advice, not work. In her office he tells her about the incident with Jesse and the other girls on the street and that he almost couldn’t contain his anger. Benson replies that, unfortunately, he has to get used to this when he has two teenage daughters. Curry (Aimé Donna Kelly) enters with news that SVU was called for a 16-year-old girl that was brought to the hospital last night.

Benson and Curry meet with Allison at the hospital so she can disclose what happened. She says she doesn’t know if they had sex like they intended; she just arrived home later that night and Hannah was passed out, dizzy and vomiting. The doctors have said that could be from the concussion, but it’s unclear how Hannah was injured because she doesn’t remember. Benson and Curry go speak to Hannah privately. Hannah says she remembers falling out of bed and Ryan was worried because she had blacked out and she told him to go home. When they address the marks on her neck, Hannah says, “It was fun at first,” but won’t provide any more information because she doesn’t want Ryan to get in trouble. They tell her to rest, and they’ll come back later. After they leave Curry points out that “sex is messy enough for adults to navigate, let alone kids.” When they reenter the hospital Hannah’s doctor (Christine Toy Johnson) reports that the bruising on her neck is consistent with a hand or two holding her from behind.

At Ryan’s house Velasco (Octavio Pisano) speaks with Josh while Silva (Juliana Aiden Martinez) speaks with Ryan’s mom, Paula (Allison McAtee). Ryan arrives home and tells them he’s been worried about Hannah because she wasn’t at school. When Ryan tries to ask about Hannah, his dad tells him not to speak with them and declares that his son won’t be saying anything without a lawyer.

In the precinct Benson updates Carisi. He says both the kids may be guilty of a misdemeanor or, if Hannah is sure she said no, Ryan will be looking at a felony charge. Benson reminds him that Hannah claims not to remember anything, but Benson suspects she could be saying that to protect Ryan. Carisi asks for them both to be brought into the station.

Hannah and her mother sit and speak with Benson and Curry. Hannah says she remembers they were kissing and taking their clothes off, and she was fine with that. She continues that her friends that had done it told her boys like it when girls act like what they see in videos. She says they did it face-to-face at first, but then he turned her on her stomach and was holding onto her by her neck. She says she tried to say that he was hurting her and to stop, but she doesn’t think he heard her because it was hard to talk with his hand there. Benson asks for confirmation that she did want him to stop and Hannah confirms that to be true. The next thing Hannah remembers was being on the floor. Ryan told her she hit her head on the nightstand. Curry takes Hannah to get some water and Allison asks Benson if her daughter was assaulted. Benson replies that this is a complicated case, but if Hannah wanted him to stop and he didn’t that a crime was committed.

Fin, Benson and Carisi reconvene while they wait for Ryan to arrive for questioning. Benson suggests Fin should do the interview because Carisi is emotionally invested because of his daughters and he seems angry at Ryan. He admits he’s angry, but he assures he “won’t let being a parent prevent him from doing his job.” In questioning Ryan admits to holding her neck, but explains he saw it in a video that boys on the fencing team showed him and that they said girls like it. He also claims he never heard her ask him to stop.

Velasco notices Josh looks really frustrated, so he goes to talk to him. Josh apologizes for how he acted when Velasco visited his home. He explains that he was just being protective. He further states that whatever Ryan did, it wasn’t his fault and that they were just two kids figuring out sex, so there’s no need for this investigation. He then bribes Velasco with donations for the police department, which Velasco immediately refuses.

Silva relays to Benson that there has been a report of another teenage girl being choked and assaulted, this time in a park. When they arrive on the scene an officer informs them that two 13-year-old boys attempted to rape a 12-year-old girl, Eliza, but she ran away and got hit by a cab. A witness, Simona (Zani Jones Mbayise), tells them that the boys Toby (Jaden Waldman) and Andrew (Domenic Innarella) tried to kiss her and then they pulled up her skirt and grabbed her neck.

Benson and Curry are at the hospital where Eliza is still in surgery for her injuries from the car accident. Velasco and Silva are in interrogation with Toby while Carisi and Fin are with Andrew. Toby admits to choking Eliza but said he did it because Andrew said girls like it. Andrew says she came on to them, but shares that he’s sorry. Fin questions if he’s sorry for trying to rape her or for getting caught. Andrew says it’s not their fault because his cousin showed him a video.

They meet back in Benson’s office after finding out that Andrew’s cousin is Ryan. Andrew said Ryan was shown the video by his dad. Carisi thinks that if it’s true that Josh showed and encouraged Ryan to watch choking porn, then they could try and charge him with child endangerment.

They plan to “coincidentally” run into Ryan after school so they can confront him without his father or lawyer, but it was unsuccessful as Ryan didn’t confess anything. Andrew is still consistent that Ryan got the video from his dad and Carisi says that’s enough for a warrant. They arrive at Josh’s home with a search warrant and a warrant for his arrest.

In interrogation Josh claims he just gave advice and didn’t show any videos. His lawyer (Zak Orth) asks if they’ve found any pornographic content on any of his client’s home devices, which they have not. Therefore, he says he’ll speak to a judge to get Josh released.

After the search was complete, they still didn’t find anything incriminating and Josh’s lawyer filed a motion to dismiss. Benson gets a call from the hospital that Eliza died, so her and Curry head back to the hospital to update her parents. Carissa (Connie Giordano), Eliza’s mom, asks what they’re doing to get justice for Eliza and Curry assures that the boys will be held liable, but likely not with life imprisonment because they are young. Carissa says, “We’ve lost our daughter forever,” and her dad (Jeff Barry) adds, “and these boys just walk away when they’re 18?”

Benson arrives at Ryan’s house because a disturbance was reported. Ryan says he was the one that called. Paula and Josh are fighting because Paula heard about Eliza and that her husband was responsible. Benson says she understands she’s upset. Paula cuts her off by explaining upset is an understatement and she wants him out, so Benson directs Fin to take Josh to a hotel. Benson also tells Ryan to go to his room. Paula reveals that Josh has a VR headset that she suspected was for porn but didn’t want to believe it. She confirms that Josh lent it to Ryan. She says the worst part is that her husband was willing to let his own son go to prison to take the fall. Benson orders a search of all the nearby garbage bins for the headset and Velasco locates it. They send it to TARU and Carisi says it’s sufficient evidence to rearrest him.

Benson meets Carisi, and he tells her that TARU found choking porn in the headset search history. Benson asks what charges Josh will get, and Carisi says, unfortunately, still only child endangerment, which is a misdemeanor. Benson asserts, “Eliza is dead because of Josh, and I want to make sure that he knows that.”

Carisi and Benson meet with Josh and his lawyer again. Josh admits to giving Ryan the headset, but says he didn’t tell him to choke anyone. He continues to blame Ryan, saying it’s not his fault that his son got confused about the difference between fantasy and reality. Benson challenges him, saying this all happened because he tried and failed to teach his son how to be a man. Carisi furthers that if he wants to be a real man that he should take accountability.

In court Josh makes a statement saying that his son’s actions were wrong, but his negligence played a major role. He furthers that it was his responsibility to teach Ryan how to treat women, but instead he introduced him to a world that demeans women. Finally, he says that his whole life he threw money at problems, not realizing he was the problem.

Outside the courtroom Benson tells Hannah that Ryan was mandated weekly therapy and assault prevention classes. Allison is hopeful that what happened to Hannah and Eliza will prevent kids from making the same mistake Ryan and Andrew did. Benson adds, “Parents, too.”

Benson invites Carisi for a drink before Rollins gets back from her trip in a few hours. Benson informs him that Paula is filing for divorce and Ryan won’t even speak to his dad. Carisi replies that he deserves it and adds that after the hearing today he’ll probably lose his job, too. Benson notes he won’t have much money left either after Eliza’s parents take him to civil court for wrongful death. Carisi toasts to justice, but Benson questions if they actually got justice. Carisi replies, “It’s a start,” and she agrees that sometimes that’s the best they can do.