Law & Order: Special Victims Unit – Fractured

By starrymag | October 10, 2024

By: Kaylyn Bell

 

 

Season 26 opens with Captain Benson (Mariska Hargitay) picking up new squad member, Kate Silva (Juliana Aidén Martinez), from her apartment. We learn Silva has worked with SVU for three weeks and is the daughter of a well-known police officer. Benson takes them to meet the squad at the shooting range, explaining she wants to make sure everyone is on their game.

Meanwhile, three law students Elodie (Lexi Minetree), Teddy (Jeremy Gill) and Damon (August Blanco) are happily studying in their apartment when a 4th roommate, Shelli (Larkin Reilly), gets home. Teddy leaves to get ready for a date. Back at the shooting range, Silva asks Joe Velasco (Octavio Pisano) why she feels like the captain is testing her even though she has credentials, including working Brooklyn homicide.

The roommates are drinking wine together when Shelli points out the blatant tension between Elodie and Damon when the couple suggests a threesome. Teddy gets back to the apartment following his date. He is unable to open the door as the chain lock is on, so he looks through the crack, shocked to see the three roommates’ activities. Later that evening, Damon lets someone in the apartment without checking who, assuming it’s Teddy. A shadowed figure enters and hits Damon over the head. Shelli wakes up after hearing noise as the man enters her room and she screams.

Benson and Renee Curry (Aimé Donna Kelly) meet Fin (Ice-T) and Terry Bruno (Kevin Kane), along with other officers, at the crime scene. Benson asks what they’ve got, and an officer explains it is a home invasion, multiple injuries and a sexual assault. They establish there’s no building security, but it seems the perp was let in voluntarily. The officer points out the sexual assault victim, Shelli, sitting in the ambulance and Benson directs Curry to ride with her to the hospital.

They enter the apartment where Teddy, the only unharmed roommate, is on the couch. The officer explains Teddy claims he wasn’t there when it happened, and he got back around 3am when he reported it. Bruno takes him to the station for questioning. Benson asks where the final roommate is and the officer takes her into a bedroom where she sees Shelli’s body covered in blood. Shelli’s mom runs in calling for her. Benson and the other officers try to restrain her, but she sees Shelli. Benson consoles her and takes her outside where press has gathered. Benson pushes through the crowd with the grieving mother, ordering for the street to be closed.

Velasco and Silva are waiting in the hospital hallway as Benson enters. She inquires about the victim with head trauma. He’s still in surgery and the doctors say he’s touch and go. Benson directs the partners back to the crime scene and to widen the search because they still haven’t located a murder weapon.

Benson meets with Curry, asking about the sexual assault victim. Curry explains they’re finishing the rape kit and that Elodie’s parents are coming. Having spoken with Shelli’s mother, Benson gathered that Shelli had no problems (boyfriend or exes), but Benson isn’t so sure because with all the overkill done to Shelli’s body – it had to have been personal. A nurse updates them, explaining there were clear signs of sexual assault and that they are sending the collections to the lab to be analyzed.

Benson and Curry get Elodie’s statement. She says she woke up and heard Shelli screaming, so she went to see why and saw a man in Shelli’s room standing over her hitting her with something. She says she didn’t see his face, but knew he was their age and that she thinks the weapon was a hammer. Elodie continues that he made eye contact with her, so she ran when he knocked her down and raped her. Elodie says she can’t understand why someone would kill Shelli because she just kept to herself.

Back at the station Fin and Bruno interview Teddy. Teddy says he got home around 2-3am when he saw Damon on the floor bleeding, and he wouldn’t wake up. He explains that is when he saw Shelli’s door was open, so he looked in and she was covered in blood. Next, he found Elodie who he was able to wake up, but she was naked and in shock. He threw a blanket over her and went outside to call his dad who instructed him to call campus security as they would arrive quicker than the police. He waited outside until help came.

Velasco and Silva are back at the crime scene. They explain because this apartment has been off-campus housing for years, there will be prints and DNA everywhere which will take weeks to process and land them with 100 suspects. As they enter the apartment they are called to Shelli’s bedroom. It’s discovered that the smoke alarm has a hidden camera that looks recently installed so the murder may be filmed.

Carisi (Peter Scanavino) and Benson are in the precinct. Benson states TARU (Technical Assistance Response Unit) is downloading the footage. Carisi hopes they get lucky, and the murder was recorded as they don’t have any concrete evidence. Carisi’s boss is riding him wanting updates because she is an alumnus and donor to the university. The squad and Carisi gather to review the footage from the camera which they discover was turned off just before the murder. They look shocked seeing the roommates having a threesome, which Benson points out Elodie neglected to tell them.

Benson and Curry arrive at Elodie’s hotel room to speak with her, but her parents say they don’t want them communicating with Elodie again, especially not alone. Benson encourages Elodie to let them speak to her by herself because it’s private and Elodie agrees. Elodie asks how Damon is doing, and Benson informs her he’s now in a medically induced coma. Benson asks Elodie why she didn’t tell them about the hookup before and she says she didn’t think it mattered. Elodie confirms she was not aware of the camera and questions whether it captured the murder. They ask about Shelli’s relationship with Teddy, which Elodie describes as tense. He liked to tease Shelli, and she thought there was some sexual tension and that he had a crush on her. Elodie says there’s no way Teddy would’ve known they were hooking up because it wasn’t planned, but Benson suggests maybe he saw it for himself. Curry furthers that it’s possible Teddy was the one to install the camera and that he found out that way.

Back at the precinct Fin and Bruno are in an interrogation room with Teddy trying to determine his whereabouts between 12-3am. Teddy explains that his date was with a girl in his class, but she cancelled last minute. He says he went home around 12am and when asked if he saw something unusual, instructed by his lawyer to do so, he explains he saw their threesome. He shares he felt left out and pissed because if he didn’t know about this, then they could have hidden other stuff. Bruno asks if it pissed him off enough to kill Shelli, since he had a crush on her. He replies, “I didn’t do any of those things!” He said he got some drinks and went to the park to play chess. Teddy doesn’t know the name of the person he played with, but said he is always there.

Benson and Carisi look through the interrogation window as Teddy’s lawyer ends questioning. Benson points out that the medical examiner put the time of death around 1-2am but based on the evidence of rage on Shelli’s body, she was clearly the target. Carisi wonders why he raped Elodie if she wasn’t the target, and Benson suggests it’s because he felt left out. Carisi says it’s a solid motive, but there is still no evidence like a murder weapon or witness. The squad is going through his credit history to try and link him to the camera and searching for the chess player alibi, so they can secure some evidence.

Fin and Bruno find the chess player in the park who identifies Teddy and confirms his presence at the park that night until 3am. Bruno steps aside to take a call from TARU and relays it to Fin, explaining they have a new suspect as there was another IP address with access to the camera.

Fin and Bruno pull up in their cop cars next to the sidewalk and call out, “Sam Ellis!” They learn Shelli and Sam were study partners. They mention the camera and ask where he was that night. He said home alone with no way to verify that. There are students crowding who are filming this interaction. Sam (Ari Dalbert) asks if he’s being arrested and they say no, they just want to ask more questions but at the station because the crowd is becoming rowdy. He asks for a lawyer anyway. Fin pushes someone down that’s getting in their faces and more start coming at them. One student gets on top of the squad car and starts dancing. Soon the car is surrounded and they’re requesting backup to control the crowd.

They made it back to the station where Benson is calling the Commissioner explaining the situation with the crowd and she assures her officers did not provoke the students. After she’s off the phone she explains the Student Civil Liberties Association is suing the NYPD as ten students were arrested. They explain to her what happened and Benson questions why they’d do all that just to defend a suspect. Fin replies, “Everyone’s looking for an excuse to beat up on the cops these days.” They turn focus back to the suspect. He has no record, no school complaints, and is 4.0 GPA law student. Curry returns having spoken to some students in Shelli and Sam’s joint class who said Sam was friend-zoned by Shelli. Bruno gets an update from TARU that Sam downloaded the camera footage of the threesome and played it six times. Now that they have some evidence and a motive, Benson sends them to interrogate Sam. Sam claims he watched the footage because he was concerned that what was happening on the tape wasn’t consensual. He said he was asleep during the time of the murder after being at the library until 12am.

Carisi walks up to Benson, who is supervising the interview, and reports that the DA is dropping the charges for the ten kids that were arrested. He asks if they have anything concrete because otherwise, they can only hold Sam for unlawful surveillance. Benson explains he claims that Shelli asked him to install the camera, but she’s skeptical because Shelli was shy so she doesn’t think Shelli would have sex knowing it was there.

Curry enters explaining campus security doesn’t verify Sam’s timeline because he was captured walking outside at 2:15am. He also wasn’t carrying any bag or books, so it was unlikely he came from the library like he said. He was; however, holding a towel which they suspect could have been to conceal the weapon.

Silva and Velasco arrive at Washington Square Park where they’re trying to follow Sam’s tracks. They assume he would head home to clean up the blood, so they go in that direction. We learn more about Silva when Velasco asks why she wanted to be a cop, and she says it was because of seeing first responders on TV running towards danger to help people during 9/11. She spots a homeless man in the park with a cart, and she starts searching it. There she finds a wrapped bloody hammer which the man says he found in the garbage can ahead of them.

The next day outside the courtroom there are dozens of student protestors. News reporters head over to ask Sam questions as he arrives. We learn from a reporter that his prints were found on the murder weapon, but he’s still claiming he didn’t do it. Sam’s lawyer explains he found it on his walk home and disposed of it for public safety. Benson and Carisi arrive outside the courthouse. She thinks with the blood match, prints on the weapon, and motive they’ve got a good shot of winning, but Carisi reminds her to “never underestimate the power of boldface lies in the halls of justice.”

Now in court, Carisi finishes questioning Teddy. Sam’s lawyer is up next, and she questions why he waited outside after calling security rather than wait with his friends, implying it was because he was pissed off due to their sexual encounter. She also asks whether he liked her. Teddy says yes, and that he did feel left out.

Elodie is testifying, explaining her account of events. She confirms to Carisi that she couldn’t pick Sam out of a lineup., but is sure the man was college-aged and white. Sam’s lawyer has no questions for this witness and Elodie looks to Benson from the stand, concerned. “I screwed it up in there,” Elodie says to Benson outside the courtroom. Benson assures Elodie that she didn’t, explaining, “You told the truth, you said exactly what happened.” Elodie asks why they didn’t question her then and Benson says it’s because questioning a rape victim sometimes doesn’t go well with the jury. Elodie shares she feels responsible for Shelli’s death and explains Shelli was working on herself and had been going to women’s empowerment meetings, talking about not attracting negativity. Benson asks if she thought Shelli had been talking about Sam when she said that.

Benson and Curry arrive at Rise and Radiate Empowerment Group where it’s confirmed Shelli was there every week for three months. She never mentioned Sam by name in the group, but the woman working there says each member gives a private testimonial so Shelli would have done one. They review the testimonial video back at the station in which Shelli states, “I will no longer be afraid to say no and the first person I’m going to practice saying no to is Sam Ellis.”

In court, Shelli’s testimonial is played. Benson is asked how long Shelli attended the group and she explains three months and that the video was recorded on the last day she attended, which was the day she was murdered. Sam’s lawyer requests a recess, but Sam asks to contextualize this new evidence, which lands him on the stand. Sam’s lawyer is the first to question him. She asks if he knew about the group, and he said yes and that he supported her going. He furthers she said she went because she had trouble drawing boundaries. He’s asked whether Shelli said no to him as she had planned to and he confirmed she did.

Carisi starts his questioning by asking whether he ever asked Shelli out on a date. Sam explains that he did but she said she was too busy. Carisi continues that Sam just said she needed to practice creating boundaries and he asks Sam when specifically, she practiced with him. Sam asks the relevance of the question. Carisi explains that it’s relevant because she made this video the day before she was murdered, so she either practiced the night before she was murdered or the morning of. Carisi and Sam argue back and forth when Carisi enforces his point is that Sam watched Shelli say yes to two other people on the same day she said no to him and Sam breaks. Teddy explains his father always told him he’d have to work twice as hard to meet a woman and that he did everything for her, but she still said no. Carisi continues pushing him and Sam confesses, repeatedly apologizing.

Outside the courtroom, Benson and Carisi are walking when Elodie approaches them to say goodbye. Shelli’s women’s group is standing just behind Elodie and she explains the group wanted to thank them. Benson and Carisi give credit to Shelli – the jury heard her in her own words. Benson asks how Elodie is holding up and she explains she’s taking the rest of the year off but next year her and her roommates are going to keep working on their degrees to become kickass lawyers like him [Carisi], just as Shelli would have wanted.