Tonight on NBC Emmy Award-winning producer Dick Wolf’s crime drama, Law & Order: SVU airs with an all Wednesday May 11, season 17 episode 21 called, “Assaulting Reality.” On tonight’s episode a contestant on a reality-dating show claims she was raped
On the last episode, a young model was raped by a renowned fashion house photographer, who looked to his successful brother to make the charged disappear.
On tonight’s episode as per the NBC synopsis “a contestant on a reality-dating show claims she was raped, so the squad investigate and unintentionally become part of the show thanks to the producers.”
Tonight’s season 17 episode 21 looks like it is going to be great and you won’t want to miss it, so be sure to tune in for our live coverage of NBC’s Law & Order: SVU at 9:00 PM EST! While you wait for our recap hit the comments and let us know how excited you are about this new episode?
Tonight’s episode begins now – Refresh Page often to get the most current updates!
Tonight’s episode of Law & Order SVU kicks off with a live studio audience at a reality TV show called “Heart’s Desire,” it’s set up similar to ABC’s The Bachelor. Carisi is hanging out at Rollins’ house with the her and the baby and watching the show on TV. There’s a house full of guys and girls going out on dates together, the host shares clips of Melanie and Gigi’s dates with Ryan.
Melanie and Ryan took their date back to the Dream Suite and spent the night together. The host shares a clip of Melanie and Ryan having sex with a night vision camera. Melanie jumps up on live television and says that she doesn’t remember having sex with Ryan, she says she is a virgin, and shouts that Ryan raped her. They quickly cut to commercial. Rollins and Carisi are in shock, Rollins asked, “Did they just air a rape on live television?”
At work the next day, Rollins, Carisi, Olivia, and Fin watch the tape again. They tried to reach out to Melanie, but the producers take everyone’s cell phones. Rollins and Carisi head to the Hearts Desire house, they meet one of the producers, Lizzie Bower. Lizzie says that Melanie’s accusation was scripted – it was all for ratings.
Carisi and Rollins won’t leave without talking to Melanie. Lizzie caves and takes them to Melanie’s bedroom. Melanie is scared to talk in her room because of the cameras, they go in the bathroom with her. Melanie cries that she doesn’t remember having sex. When she woke up in the morning her panties were on the floor though and she felt “sore down there.” Melanie says that Jeffrey and Regina Prince, the executive producers told her that it wasn’t rape – because she told Ryan before that she wanted to lose her virginity to him.
Melanie asks to borrow Rollins’ cell phones. They aren’t allowed to use cell phones, and she really wants to talk to her mom. Lizzie is furious when she hears that they are taking Melanie to the hospital to do a rape kit.
Fin and Carisi sit down with Ryan – he confirms that he had sex with Melanie, he says that it was “magical.” Ryan thinks that Melanie’s “freak out” on TV was all scripted. Ryan thinks that Melanie crying rape is all part of the show.
Olivia gets to talk to executive producers, Regina and Jeffrey, they think that the sex was consensual. Regina says that they think Melanie screamed rape on live TV because her parents were watching. Jeffrey says that it might have all been an act because Melanie thought that Ryan was going to choose Gigi.
Regina and Jeffrey show Melanie’s on camera interview from the morning after she had sex with Ryan. Melanie raves about how special their night was, she says she is falling in love with Ryan, and then brags that Ryan was a perfect gentleman.
Ryan shows up to the police station with his mother, who happens to be a lawyer, she yanked him off the show and is furious. Ryan confesses that he lied he says that he never had sex with Melanie. He tells the police that Melanie got drunk and whispered to him that when they got married, she was going to give him her virginity. Ryan says that she freaked him out and he left her in the suite.
Olivia heads back to the Heart Desire House, she and Rollins have a warrant to watch the whole footage from that night. They have Melanie on camera telling Ryan that she is a virgin, and she wanted to marry him before she slept with him. Ryan was telling the truth – he freaked out and left her alone to sleep in the bed. Olivia wants all the camera footage from the house so that they can figure out who slipped in to bed with Melanie.
Regina and Jeffrey make an announcement to all of the house guests and tell them that production is on hold. They only have two episodes left – they will resume filming when all of this is resolved. Carisi and Fin spread out and start interviewing all of the house guests. Gigi tells Rollins that she spent the night with Ryan, so she knows that there is no way he was having sex with Melanie.
While Olivia and her team are arguing about the video footage – Melanie shows up at the house and she is freaking out. She demands to know where Ryan is. She got her rape kit results back from the hospital and apparently whoever she did have sex with that night gave her an STD.
Olivia is fed up with the producers – they are obviously playing games. They head back to the police station to wait for all of the STD test results form the houseguests. Regine and Jeffrey show up with Lizzie, they miraculously found footage of the person that went in to Melanie’s room, it was a houseguest named Graham. The producers insists that they weren’t withholding the footage, it was just “mislabeled.”
They head back to the house to arrest Graham. Graham insists that it wasn’t rape because Melanie didn’t say “no.” Graham says that they had sex because if they didn’t hook up with any one that night, they would have been off the show. As they are taking Graham away in handcuffs he shouts that Lizzie knew all about it and he told him it was okay. They get the test results back, and Graham test positive for chlamydia too.
Hearts Desire airs on television that night, executive producers Regina and Jeffrey appear on the live show. They air footage of Olivia and her team questioning the houseguests, Melanie screaming that she got an STD. The show spins it to make it sound like the producers are the ones that solved the rape, and makes it sound like Olivia’s team didn’t do their jobs. Jeffrey and Regina throw Lizzie under the bus and make it seem like she condoned the rape. They announce that they fired Lizzie, and she won’t be working on the show again.
Olivia is furious after the show airs – on the bright side, Lizzie is going to testify against them after they threw her under the bus. Lizzie insists that she never told anyone to keep quiet. Lizzie says that she called Jeffrey and Regina and told them about the rape, and they told her to be quiet.
Olivia convinces Lizzie to wear a wire and meet up with Regina and Jeffrey. Jeffrey tells Lizzie to relax and promises to get her a lawyer. Lizzie gets them to admit on camera that they covered up the rape, and told her to be quiet about it. Once Olivia and Barba get the footage – they charge them with a felony of tampering with evidence.
Melanie’s mom drives in from Idaho to pick her up, Olivia gives her a pep talk before she heads home. Melanie confesses that she feels foolish because she honestly thought that she and Ryan were in love and were getting married. Olivia watches while she shares an emotional reunion with her mother.
THE END!