Chasing Demons on Law & Order: SVU

It sure seemed like this episode of “Law & Order: SVU” (2-28-18) featured more of Det. Brian Cassidy than we saw when he was living with Det. Olivia Benson, but to paraphrase Martha Stewart, “that’s a good thing.” Certainly, not everyone agrees but by the end of this episode, they might.

It begins with the trial of pediatrician Dr. West, accused of sexually abusing his young male patients. After Benson testifies, Cassidy is up next. Det. Amanda Rollins asks Benson if she is okay with seeing Cassidy. Apparently, she harbors some ill will towards him over that child abuse investigation. Benson says it’s okay. He’s left her a few voicemails since then but “I just can’t.” Rollins understands.

On the stand, West’s defense attorney tries to discredit Cassidy, making the detective admit that he slept with a prostitute while he was undercover. We don’t think Benson knew about that beforehand. Another hooker accused him of rape but he was cleared. Then Cassidy is shown a picture of Dr. West with a black eye and bruises. The attorney accuses Cassidy of slamming the defendant’s head on a desk and calling him “a monkey” during the arrest. Cassidy said West resisted arrest, calling the monkey thing a lie and “garbage.” The attorney kept the pressure up and Cassidy lost it. He jumped up, hollering that West was lucky he didn’t put him in a goddam body bag after what he did to his victims. The defense got a mistrial and lower bail out of that spectacle.

Cassidy is sorry but Peter Stone doesn’t want to hear it and suspends him. Later, Benson learns that Cassidy is causing trouble at McCaffree’s Pub. The guy who started it taunts him with “Did your girlfriend come here to fight your battles?” Other patrons restrain Cassidy, who thinks Benson came to read him the Riot Act. She explains that Dr. West may walk thanks to his “epic tantrum.” Cassidy says she’ll fix that because she’s “The Olivia Benson. Oh my God!” (LOL!!) She tells Joe to get him an Uber and Cassidy asks her if she’s going to kick him when he’s down and “leave like you always do.” Benson tells him to go home. He says, “You wanna know something, Olivia? I AM home.”

Later, Benson is awakened by a persistent pounding on her door. She gets her gun and cautiously peers through the peephole to see Cassidy, disheveled and bloody, and lets him in. “I need your help,” he says.

The next morning, Rollins and Det. Carisi are called to Dr. West’s home. He’s been murdered with 10 stabs wounds from a thin single-edged knife. The one to the external carotid caused him to bleed out in less than minute. Homicide Det. Devin Holiday is already on the scene and kicks the SVU detectives out, before they “screw up” her crime scene like “that racist” Cassidy screwed up SVU’s case in court. Rollins tells her Cassidy is no racist. She gets a message from Benson asking her to take Noah out for breakfast and to school. Rollins gets suspicious when Noah draws a picture of men’s boots that were in the kitchen that morning.

Cassidy is real surprised that Benson still had a set of his sweats for him to change into. “I wear them to clean the toilet,” she says. (LOL!!) He knows it looks really bad and believes Benson is the only one who can prove he didn’t kill Dr. West. She hears him out: he went to West’s home to warn him not to try to intimidate his victims. The front door was open, he went in and was hit on the head from behind. He woke next to the dead doctor, covered with his blood. “That’s a hell of a story, Brian,” Benson says. Cassidy says if she wants to take him in, fine, but: “I need to know deep in my heart that you know deep in your heart that I could never do something like that.” The only other thing he had to offer was a little metal bloody ring he found embedded in his boot. For all her chuckling and tough posturing, Benson must have believed him in her heart. She left him there and went to work.

At SVU, Benson gets photos of the crime scene and takes them in her office. Rollins pops in to get the goods on the men’s boots. She is flabbergasted and thinks Cassidy is playing Benson and also implies that their past relationship is causing her to protect him. Irritated, Benson tells Rollins to give her a little credit. That would not matter if she thought Cassidy was guilty. Rollins continues to convict him: “I know Cassidy and his fuse is so short, and he is notorious for making really bad decisions.” (LOL!! Like Rollins isn’t.) Exasperated, Benson asks Rollins what she would do. She has no response and Benson says her plan, for now, is just to work on the case. Rollins got all huffy, declaring that it won’t only be Benson’s ass when Stone finds out now, it will be hers, too. (Well, don’t be so damned nosy next time, Rollins).

So, despite it being Homicide’s case, the detectives go visit the victims’ families. Holiday finds out and complains to Stone, who confronts Benson. She plays “The Noah Card.” That’s what we’re calling it from now on. “I have a son…” She can’t sleep at night because his grandmother kidnapped him, etc. This makes her better equipped to handle the families than Holiday. Stone agrees to let her go through his trial prep.

Fin and Carisi learn that Kayla Price, victim Sammy’s mom, got $5 grand in hush money from Dr. West that’s she’s now keeping because he’s dead. Rollins nominates Felix, another victim’s dad, as a suspect because he has an assault record and can’t account for his whereabouts. Rollins then lets herself in Benson’s place and gives Cassidy the business. He scoffs at her holier-than-thou attitude but she tells him that if he ever gave a damn about Benson, he’d man up and turn himself in instead of jeopardizing her career.

Things get even hotter down at the station when Det. Holiday shows Stone video of Cassidy throwing something down the sewer near Dr. West’s home on the night of the murder. He also learns that Benson and Cassidy were once a couple. Stone’s about to corner Benson on Cassidy’s whereabouts when her ex shows up with his bloody clothes in a bag and soon finds himself under arrest for murder.

Fitz from the Medical Examiner’s office arrives to announce that the only other DNA at the crime scene belonged to– wait for it– A FISH! This leads them back to Kayla, whose handyman and part-time lover, Glanville, regularly takes Sammy fishing for stripers in the East River. Guess what’s missing from his tackle box? A bait knife! It’s looking bad for Glanville, who is on his way to the station in cuffs, when Benson notices Reggie Price playing with a fidget-spinner that’s missing a little metal ring.

So Reggie was the one who confessed to West’s murder. He blamed himself for what West did to his brother, Sammy, because he was also molested by West and never said a word.

In the aftermath, at “La Diagonal,” Cassidy asked Stone to cut Reggie a deal. Hard-nosed Stone recounts Cassidy’s sins, not wanting his advice on how to do his job. Cassidy explains what Reggie has to cope with the rest of his life because of what West did to him and Sammy– he’ll be chasing demons and every time he looks in the mirror, he’ll see a looming shadow. Stone deduces that Cassidy is talking from experience and says Benson didn’t tell him. She doesn’t know, Cassidy says, confiding that it was his little league coach. After a couple of months, his father found out and beat the crap out of the guy. It was because of this that Cassidy had to transfer out of SVU all those years ago. Stone is moved enough to agree to do what he can for Reggie.

On his way out, Cassidy encounters Benson on her way in. He tells her he was begging Stone not to fire him and says he’s real sorry about what happened. Benson says he would have done the same for her. Cassidy then wants her to let him explain about the child abuse investigation: he was only trying to explain what happened between the two of them at the time and had no idea she was under investigation. Cassidy says he would “never ever ever” do anything to intentionally hurt Noah or her. “I mean, come on now. You’re the love of my life.” Flummoxed, Benson says she doesn’t know where this is coming from– they broke up a long time ago. Cassidy says they had a lot of mutual love and respect for each other but she has to admit that she was never going to bare her soul to him. She admits it. Word! She looked like she was about to start crying. They share a warm embrace (but no kiss!) and Cassidy tells her to go inside and get out of the cold. Inside, Benson looks wistfully out the window as if she expected Cassidy to still be there but he was gone (with the wind).

Selected Cast of Chasing Demons:
Mariska Hargitay – Olivia Benson
Dean Winters – Brian Cassidy
Kelli Giddish – Amanda Rollins
Ice-T – Odafin Tutuola
Peter Scanavino – Dominick Carisi Jr.
Philip Winchester – Peter Stone
Kylie Bunbury – Detective Devin Holiday
Pernell Walker – Kayla Price
Dominic Colón – Felix Ramos
Dov Tiefenbach – Fitz
Daryl Edwards – Dr. West’s Attorney
Stephen Hill – Glanville
Brett Gray – Reggie Price
Ryan Buggle – Noah Porter-Benson
Asher Talty – Sammy Price