Guardian Recap: Law & Order: SVU

The 5/9/2018 edition of Law & Order: SVU was called “Guardian,” a reference to a guy named Malik who was the guardian of his 16-year-old sister, Tiana.

Malik and his friend, Jerome, enter a bodega and get in an altercation with the owner who calls the police. They try to flee but the police catch them right away. Jerome tells them Malik’s sister is being raped. Malik says he only went to the bodega to call 911 and the owner thought he had a gun when he tried to prove his cell phone was dead. His sister is at the playground around the corner.

The police call in SVU and Malik explains to Fin that he had to leave Tiana because there were 6 guys with a gun. They find Tiana dazed and bloody. Malik tells her he will kill the guys who did it. She cries and says “I’m sorry, Malik, I’m sorry.” Both Rollins and Fin thought that was strange.

The family that tricks together sticks together

At the hospital, there is enough physical evidence to believe Tiana was raped but, strangely, alcohol and traces of heroin show up on her tox screen. Fin is finding out about that from Malik– the alcohol, at least, but not buying Malik’s claim that running away was his only choice: “Sure you had a choice. You take a bullet, you don’t leave your little sister alone.” Well, we’re sure Malik didn’t feel a smidgen of guilt since the rape story turned out to be a big fat lie. Despite Malik’s claims that there were 6 big gang dudes, it turns out that Tiana willingly had sex with 3 teenagers for $200. The teens’ grandma hired legendary attorney Ron Carter, “every prosecutor’s nightmare” who informed the stunned detectives “Your victim is a prostitute.”

The teens are questioned and Fin is revolted to learn that Malik set the whole thing up. He’s pimping his little sister. Off they go to arrest him. They find Tiana all drugged up. Malik insists she is “just tired.” He gets cuffed and she is taken to the hospital. Malik is charged with child endangerment, possession and promoting prostitution. Malik has no plans to confess so Amanda Rollins & Olivia Benson go to work on Tiana.

They assure Tiana that no matter what she tells them, she is not in trouble but the girl is smart enough to know that Malik is in big trouble. Their father left them when she was 10, she says, and her mother went to jail when she was 14. Malik is the one who took care of her and “whatever I can do to help him, I do it.” She flips the script when cornered and says it was all her idea, she “wanted to do those boys.” ADA Peter Stone tells Benson “no victim, no case,” but Benson wants to insist that Tiana was drugged and incapable of consent. Ron Carter shows up with his daughter, Regina. He tells them if he calls a press conference “this case is going to make the Central Park debacle look like a public relations triumph” and gives them until 5 p.m. to release the teens. Otherwise, he will call the press and tell them that NYPD and the DA are railroading young black men. “Including Tiana’s brother,” Regina Carter chimes in. She is representing Malik. (At this point, you wonder who is paying them).

The detectives surely have their work cut out for them to make Tiana see that her loyalty to Malik is misplaced. Tiana runs away from the foster home Children’s Services put her in and busts in on Malik’s arraignment, but the judge kicks her out. The detectives threaten to arrest her for giving false information to the police if she won’t go back to the foster home.

Meantime, Fin produces a guy named Bobby Jackson who can testify that Malik was totally pimping out Tiana. Bobby, as their driver, kept a written record of the appointments to keep track of his 10% cut. Benson can’t believe this stroke of luck but Fin assures her it’s on the up and up. “You really want to get Malik,” she muses. “He’s the worst kind of predator,” Fin asserts, “he betrays his own. I mean, his sister really loves him, and he’s throwing her away.”

At the trial, things are not going too well for Malik but the defense produces a surprise witness — Lashonda Williams, Malik and Tiana’s mother. Lashonda tries to throw Tiana under the bus to save Malik, making her daughter out to be the ho of the century. Peter Stone digs up the man that Lashonda assaulted– the reason she went to jail. There was a dispute over the amount of money the man paid Malik to have sex with Lashonda. Malik was his mom’s pimp first. Shocked, Tiana bolts from the courtroom. Fin follows and she asks him if it’s true. She says that their daddy used to rape Lashonda and Malik does that to her? Fin says he knows Malik is her big brother and she thinks she owes him, but she doesn’t owe him anything. (At this point, you had to wonder if it was really Malik’s idea to pimp out his mother or was it mom’s idea.)

Later, as Benson discusses the horrors of project life with Fin, she gets a call that Tiana has OD’d on heroin. She recovers and is more defiant than ever. Benson tells her that Malik is making her a liar, a whore and an addict and proceeds to break her down by bringing up her dreams from when she was a straight-A student.

Remember Jerome? Well, Fin collars him and he confesses that he gave Tiana a “hot shot” at Malik’s instructions to “take care” of her because Malik said if Tiana testified it would be all over. Rollins and Benson have Tiana outside watching this little twist. Holy smokes! Now they’ve got Malik for attempted murder. But they have a little tete-a-tete where Tiana reveals how her daddy used to beat the hell out of Malik and how Malik protected everyone else. She tells Malik that she doesn’t hate him and that she doesn’t want to testify, but she will if she has to. Peter Stone thinks they can spare Tiana from testifying by making a deal with Malik. He agrees to do 15 years, for what specifically they did not say. They also did not go into what happened to Jerome for his part in the murder attempt, or whether Ron Carter (or one of his relatives) was going to defend him.

Selected Cast of “Guardian”
Mariska Hargitay – Olivia Benson
Ice-T – Detective Odafin “Fin” Tutuola
Kelli Giddish – Amanda Rollins
Peter Scanavino – Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr.
Philip Winchester – Peter Stone
Rachel Naomi Hilson – Tiana Williams
Rotimi – Malik Williams
Maul Donte Davis – Jerome Freeman
Big Daddy Kane – Ray “Four Stroke” Wallis
Alejandro Hernandez – Bobby Jackson
Laiona Michelle – Lashonda Williams
George Wallace – Ron Carter
Amanda Warren – Regina Carter
Ami Brabson – Judge Karyn Blake
Kason Sol – Bodega Owner