Internal Affairs Recap: Law & Order: SVU

“Internal Affairs” opens with Olivia Benson winding up an office visit with Dr. Lindstrom, who will be away for a week. Olivia jokes that she’ll survive in spite of her abandonment issues. Lindstrom gives her a gift – a replica of the necklace that she always wore, now being held in evidence in her abduction case. Liv seems unsure of whether it’s a good thing or will be a daily reminder of her recent nightmare but, realizing his sincerity, thanks him, her voice breaking ever so slightly.

In the Bronx, Brian Cassidy arrives and is in the locker room where Officer Michael Groves notices he’s late. After making a remark about NYPD standing for “Now You are Persecuted Daily,” Groves starts acting weird and gives Cassidy an envelope with a key to a safety deposit box key. “If anything happens to me,” he tells Cassidy that the contents of the box should be turned over to the New York Times. Cassidy is trying to process this when a bunch of officers storm in and order Groves not to move. He is tasered and hauled off (to the looney bin, it turns out). Cassidy keeps his head down and puts the key in his pocket.

Going home to the new apartment, he and Olivia have moved into together, Liv notices that Cassidy is distracted and seems uneasy while they unpack. He opens up about Groves, whose current fate is a result of being a “whistleblower.” Cassidy ponders the wisdom of going to Internal Affairs with what he saw, but Benson thinks it most unwise. The PBA or lawyer would be better but she thinks he should should take care of himself, for once, and for her, too.

The next day at SVU, while Rollins and Benson chat about Cassidy’s t-shirt collection, Internal Affairs come a-calling in the form of Lt. Tucker, who utters the dreaded words: “I need your help,” to Capt. Cragen and Olivia. And it is connected with Officer Groves being committed. It’s more than just corruption in the 12th Precinct, he also says a possible rape is involved. Cragen gets his reluctant team to investigate because it just wouldn’t be politic to turn Tucker down. Nick Amaro and Benson go off, and she tells him how Cassidy saw Groves get the business. He wonders if Cassidy went to IAB. He’s not answering his phone, Liv says. Amaro wonders if Tucker knows she and Cassidy are living together.

Fin and Rollins go off to talk to a cab driver involved in the buried rape accusation made by a girl named Tanya Jenkins. He says Tanya couldn’t pay her fare and worse, she threw up in his cab. When he tossed her out, she started hitting him. The cops showed up and told him to file assault charges against her. He did but dropped it since Tanya made no accusations against him and he didn’t feel like going to court. He says the cops took her away and if she’s now claiming he did anything to her now, it’s a lie.

Benson and Amaro find Tanya, a pretty redhead, who says everything that happened was her fault because she was drunk. She attends AA now. Amaro explains she is not a suspect, they want to know about that night. Tanya doesn’t want to talk about it. Just tell “them” she said nothing happened but doesn’t say who “they” are. Benson and Amaro suspect intimidation tactics and go off to talk to the cops who dealt with Tanya.

At the 12th, Lt. Terrence Wood looks up the case and directs them to the male/female team of West and Quinn (the woman). They describe Tanya as drunk and disorderly. Their “catch and release” policy means getting them home safe because they are “easy prey.” Benson speculates whether the cabbie may have gone to Tanya’s later, but West points out that she was so wasted, if he did, she wouldn’t even remember.

Back at SVU, the cabbie is ruled out after Fin checks his fares. Amaro is troubled by the officers making a big point out of Tanya’s credibility. Cragen tells them to check the 911 calls against the precinct logs, and Benson goes home.

Cassidy says he didn’t go to Tucker or IAB, as Olivia explains the case that Tucker has laid at their feet. “Let me get this straight,” Cassidy says, amazed that it’s okay for Olivia to work with IAB but not him. Rollins calls Olivia and she has to go.

At SVU, security camera footage near Tanya Jenkin’s building shows West and Quinn returning to Tanya’s place, with West going upstairs and Quinn waiting in the squad car two separate times. The two partners set up an excuse for their presence in the area with phony 911 calls. Tanya made a report the next day but her complaint vanished. Fin thinks it’s IAB’s problem: they go after cops. “These aren’t cops, they’re rapists,” Benson pronounces.

So they set up a sting for West and “Quinny”, an unlikely evil duo if ever there was one, sending a reluctant Brian Cassidy to pose as a guy with no scruples about taking sexual advantage of intoxicated females; and later a willing Amanda Rollins to pose as a drunken floozy. Predictably, Cassidy gets “made” which results in a beating and being repeatedly threatened with a gun to give the other officers enough time to get there and arrest West and Quinn.

The most comical part was when West and Quinn take Cassidy to a party where he is offered the services of a hooker named Lila, as a “quid pro ho,” a line delivered by Quinn, no less. Olivia gets to hear her man saying “mmmm” and “yeah, right there” to Lila while Amaro says, he’s working. Later Cassidy runs in and the first thing he wants is to explain to Olivia what happened between him and Lila, but she shushes him up, saying she knows he was working. Okay, Olivia. Maybe you don’t want to know what happened, but we do!

After the arrests, Amaro and Olivia set to work on Quinn to get this disgraceful specimen to stop protecting West. Believing her Achilles’ heel is a strong, unrequited love, they prove to her that she never meant diddly squat to West who told Cassidy: “Girls like Quinny, you thrown them a couple crumbs, they are so grateful they’ll do anything.” She doesn’t want to believe it but it’s the straw that breaks her, for sure.

Lt. Tucker comes clean about how they managed to make Cassidy. He knew corruption in the 12th went all the way up, so he told the 12th Lt. what Cassidy was up to, who in turn told West and Quinn. Cragen kicks him out for putting Cassidy’s life at risk. Cassidy goes to Bellevue and gets Officer Groves released and brings him home to his wife. Later at home with Olivia, he again wants to tell her what happened with Lila, but she asks him if anybody has ever told him to just keep his mouth shut. “Everyone,” he laughs, “All the time.”

Random Bits: Captain Cragen told Olivia that John Munch (Richard Belzer) put in his papers and will be retiring because the Mehcad Carter case hit him hard. Cragen says he gets mandatory retirement in 6 months too. Who will head up SVU after they go? How about Fin?

It was nice to see an episode featuring Dean Winters’ character. Will his relationship with Olivia last this time? In their first go-round, many seasons ago, after a one night roll in the hay, Olivia blew him off.

And it wasn’t a bad idea to make West’s partner a female. They just didn’t have enough time to flesh out her motivation so it came off pretty flimsy. There are lots of females who have covered up and even participated in heinous crimes because they could not bear to lose their man, but one of the crumbs most were getting (even Marie-Andrée Leclerc was getting some) was sex. If West had been taking care of business, Quinn’s delusions might not have so easy to dismantle.

Cast of Internal Affairs:
Mariska Hargitay – Det. Olivia Benson
Ice-T – Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola
Dann Florek – Captain Don Cragen
Kelli Giddish – Det. Amanda Rollins
Danny Pino – Det. Nick Amaro
Dean Winters – Brian Cassidy
Bill Irwin – Dr. Lindstrom
Robert John Burke – Lt. Ed Tucker
Marc Menchaca – Office Michael Groves
David Conrad – Officer West
Nadia Dajani – Officer Quinn
Lance Roberts – Lt. Terrence Wood
Megan West – Tanya Jenkins
Osh Ghanimah – Cabbie
Trace Lysette – Lila