Law & Order: Special Victims Unit – Undertow

By starrymag | March 20, 2025

By: Kaylyn Bell

 

 

Billy (T.C. Matherne) takes his wife Stacey (Marilyn Caserta) to a fancy hotel to celebrate their anniversary. As they’re out for dinner, he orders a drink after being sober for 6 months. Stacey is worried, but he assures her it’s just one drink for a special occasion. Later in the evening, back at their hotel room, Billy is completely drunk and initiates sex. Stacey has to say no and push him away multiple times, so she leaves for the hotel bar.

A man is already drinking at the bar when Stacey arrives, and he introduces himself as Ryan (Billy Keogh). Ryan says his dad is getting married here at the hotel, so he snuck out for a drink. After they finish their drinks, he takes her to the pool with a bottle of liquor. Ryan starts undressing into his boxers and gets in. Stacey takes a drink from his bottle before doing the same.

The next day Ryan’s stepmom, Emily (Clea Alsip), is tidying his clothes when she discovers lingerie in his suit pocket.

Captain Benson (Mariska Hargitay) arrives at the station when Ryan and his stepmom enter. She explains that a woman pressured her son into having sex, and they’re here to report an assault because he is only sixteen years old. Benson and Bruno (Kevin Kane) take them to the conference room.

Ryan explains he didn’t know the woman, but she was around 30. Emily keeps interrupting him, so Benson takes her to a different room to speak separately. Benson asks if she can send the lingerie to the lab, and she says yes because her stepson was taken advantage of.

Bruno tells Ryan that he understands he doesn’t want to be here but explains that because he’s sixteen years old, he’s simply too young to consent according to the law. Ryan says they were both a little drunk and started kissing, then moved to the hot tub and had sex.

Fin (Ice-T) asks what they’ve got, and Bruno says a boy who doesn’t understand that he’s a victim. Benson says he’s about to be educated as he’s been taken to the hospital for a rape kit. Benson directs the squad to go canvass the hotel.

Fin and Curry (Aimé Donna Kelly) arrive at the hotel bar where the bartender confirms Ryan was last night. He says he didn’t know the boy was sixteen, and the woman bought the drinks. Curry asks for security footage and the receipts.

Back at the station, the squad reviews the footage, but there’s none from inside the pool. They are able to ID Stacey as a middle school teacher from Jersey, and Benson takes Curry to talk to her.

Benson and Curry inform Billy and Stacey there was an incident at the hotel, and they invite them into their home. After Benson shows her a picture of Ryan, Stacey explains they got a bit drunk and went swimming. Benson informs her that she’s been accused of having sex with Ryan and that he’s underage. She immediately refuses, explaining that it’s not possible because he was at a bar with a drink. Billy rushes in and asks what happened and Stacey says they think she had sex with someone, so she must have blacked out. Billy exclaims that his wife would never do something like this voluntarily, and she was raped.

Curry and Benson update Carisi (Peter Scanavino) on the case, explaining that both parties claim they were taken advantage of. Carisi says it doesn’t matter because she’s in her 20s and he’s 16, and the rape kit confirms they had sex. Curry explains to him that he’s not claiming force or coercion; he’s only here because his stepmother filed the complaint. Carisi says he’s got to get her lawyer to take a plea deal. Benson explains it might be challenging since her lawyer, Moran (Nathan Wallace), is her brother-in-law.

Carisi tells Moran that not knowing his age is not a legal defense, but Moran counters that his client was incapacitated. Stacey explains that she had a few sips of his vodka at the pool, and she felt different than anything she’d felt before. Her lawyer adds that she could’ve been drugged even if she doesn’t remember being blacked out. Carisi says the registry is mandatory for an offense like this. Concerned for her career, Moran asks for his client to get a tox screen and a rape kit.

The squad debates the ramifications if her tox screen shows she was drugged because then they’d have two complainants incapable of consent.

Benson invites Ryan’s parents to her office to update them. Fin assures them that they’re going to pursue what Stacey did as a crime no matter the circumstances, but depending on the results of the tox screen, they might have to charge Ryan as well. 

Curry informs Benson that Stacey’s tox screen showed traces of MDMA. Carisi suggests she could’ve taken it herself, but Benson points out that teachers get frequent drug tests, so it’s unlikely she’d be a drug user. They search Ryan’s home, and Bruno finds drugs under his bed. An officer tests the substance and identifies it as MDMA, so they arrest Ryan.

Fin and Bruno interrogate Ryan with his lawyer (Madeline Calais-King). His lawyer asserts that the woman accused of statutory rape is the one lying, not her client. Bruno gets Ryan to admit that the MDMA is his and that he put it in his vodka. He says that he never handed it to Stacey, but he didn’t tell her when he saw her drink it. He suggests that because she “wanted to have fun,” he thought it was what she wanted. Bruno asks, “What about what you wanted?” Fin brings out a file with chat history between Ryan and his friends the day of the wedding. It shows Ryan saying he’s sick of high school girls and that he’s going to tag one of his stepmom’s bridesmaids. Fin says it looks like he wanted an older woman, found one, and drugged her.

Benson states that if Ryan intentionally neglected to tell Stacey about the MDMA, then it’s a felony. Carisi agrees that that’s true, but he can’t prove that was Ryan’s intent.

At arraignment, Stacey pleads not guilty. After court, Carisi informs Benson they’re going to trial and asks her to find evidence that Stacey was not blacked out as she claims by finding a witness. Benson says she’ll ask Ryan’s parents if they are able to identify the passersby found on tape from their backs.

Ryan’s dad identifies a man taking a photo of the pool as one of his second cousins, Thomas (Tyler Shore). They acquire the photo from Thomas that shows Stacey smiling with Ryan. Benson points out that incapacitated people can still smile, and Carisi says they’ll see what the jury thinks.

Thomas testifies that he saw a couple in the pool having sex but didn’t know it was Ryan at the time because he was also drunk. Thomas describes Stacey’s affect as one of enjoyment. Moran counters that he wasn’t in the pool room to hear or see what was happening, so how could he be certain she was smiling out of enjoyment? He furthers that since he was intoxicated, he’s probably not the best judge of Stacey’s state of being.

Carisi gets Ryan on the stand, who explains that she straddled him in the pool and reached into her boxers and grabbed him. He continues to explain the events of the night, including the MDMA, and says she never asked his age. Moran points out to the jury that because he already had a drink in his hand when his client arrived, it was natural for her to assume he was over 21. He then introduces the texts between Ryan and his friends and suggests that between the messages, him keeping her underwear, and him never telling Stacey to stop, this was what he wanted. 

Bruno suddenly rushes out of the courtroom into the hall, and Benson follows him out to check on him. He explains that it felt like he was watching himself on the stand. He discloses to her that when he was 15 at one of his parents’ cocktail parties, his neighbour snuck into bed with him and started touching him, but he didn’t do anything. She asks if he ever told anyone, and he replies with a sad smile, “You, right now.”

Billy testifies that he knows his wife would never knowingly hurt a teenage boy and she doesn’t deserve to have her life torn apart.

Stacey testifies, asserting that Ryan didn’t tell her there were drugs in the drink, so she was taken advantage of. She says the way she acted was out of character, and she wouldn’t have had sex with Ryan if she hadn’t been drugged. She furthers that Ryan initiated physical contact by kissing her. Carisi questions her next. She says she didn’t feel incapacitated until she drank from Ryan’s bottle at the pool, but Carisi counters that even so, she voluntarily got into the pool immediately after that. He asks how they got to the hot tub, and she says she can’t remember. He tells her they’re talking about a trace amount of a diluted substance, not a roofie, so she should remember. He continues to question her, and she starts crying. He says it ultimately comes down to math, and he was simply too young.

The attorneys make their closing statements. Carisi reminds the jury to rule without bias and questions if their viewpoint may change if the minor were a young girl and the adult was a grown man. The jury foreman (Peter Stray) relays to the judge (Yvonne Valadez) that they were not able to come to a verdict on the charge of rape in the third degree. He says they are hopelessly deadlocked, and more time would not be of use. The judge declares a mistrial.