Tonight on NBC Law & Order SVU returns with an all-new Thursday, November 12, 2020 premiere episode and we have your Law & Order SVU recap below. On tonight’s Law & Order SVU season 22 episode 1 “Guardians and Gladiators,” as per the NBC synopsis, “In the season premiere, the squad’s effort to solve an assault is hampered by their own blind spots and a community that is losing trust in the police.”
Tonight’s Law & Order SVU season 21 episode 1 looks like it is going to be great and you won’t want to miss it. So make sure to bookmark this spot and come back from 10 PM – 11 PM ET for our Law & Order SVU recap. While you wait for the recap make sure to check out all our Law & Order SVU recaps, spoilers, news & more!
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We see a mother and a child in Central Park, she tells a young black man, Dayvon, to get away from her – she says he is just working out, she calls the cops. When the cops get there her son goes to look for his ball and finds another man lying down in the grass, not moving. The mother approaches and then yells to the cops, she says it was probably the young black man and that is why he was acting strange. As the police handcuff him, he shouts, welcome to 2020.
Rollins is on the scene, she asks the victim, Eric, what happened. He says he went nuts, he raped me. Tutuola asks the cops why the cuffed Dayvon, they say besides giving them a hard time he has two outstanding warrants.
The mother tells Rollins that the young black man was scaring her son, Tutuola tells the cops to put the young man in the car.
At the station, Benson is surprised that the mother called the cops before the body was even found. Carisi tells Benson that they better have more than just the mother calling because she didn’t like how Dayvon looked at her son, he needs an airtight case. The video is going viral and with the way, people think about cops right now it is not going to be good.
Tutuola interrogates Dayvon but he continues to say nothing happened. Meanwhile, at Mercy hospital the hospital Eric is unconscious, they haven’t done a rape kit yet. He usually walks home from work through the park, his mother is there, she says she told him it was dangerous. His mother wants to know if it was the black guy who did it, Rollins says they are looking into it.
Eric’s brother heads to the elevators and tells Benson as she is leaving that his brother likes to unwind after work at some certain bar.
Carisi watched the video, he tells Benson it is not good. They go in to interrogate Dayvon and tell him they want to get to the truth. He got to the park at 7 am, but he punched out at 5 am. Tutuola tells him to help himself. Dayvon says that he was having coffee with his sponsor, Tutuloa asks for his sponsor’s number.
At Owney Madden’s Bar Tamin shows him a picture of Eric, he doesn’t remember him but when Rollins shows him a picture of Dayvon, he recognizes him. The owner doesn’t want to give up his video, but Tamin sees a traffic cam and is able to get footage. They see Eric walking with a man, not Dayvon, and Rollins remembers seeing him in the park.
Benson calls Dayvon’s sponsor, he vouches for him, says they were with each other that morning. Benson tells him that they are going to call the DA and drop the charges. Tutuola shows Dayvon a picture of the man that was with Eric, he asks them why he should help them after what they did to him.
Eric’s mother is in church, the doctors don’t know when he is going to wake up, she tells Rollins that he is in God’s hands now. Rollins shows her a picture of the man Eric was walking with, she doesn’t recognize him. His brother recognizes him but doesn’t know exactly who he is.
Dayvon filed a lawsuit, the Chief is mad and he tells Benson. After George Floyd and Brionna Taylor, business as usual doesn’t work. There will be an investigation and they are starting with Benson, he tells her to bring a lawyer – they are under a microscope. Chief asks Tutuola if it would have been different if Dayvon wasn’t black, he says yes, the mother, Colleen, wouldn’t have called the police from the start and the police wouldn’t have cuffed him. He tells Tutuola that he appreciates his loyalty to Benson, but he needs to be careful himself.
They find the man that was in the photo with Eric, Joe, he lives with his mother, Bernadette Murphy, in an apartment. They know on the door, Joe comes to the door. Rollins tells him it would be good if he could go to the station to give a statement. Benson tells Tutuola they found DNA on Eric’s underwear, how can they get DNA from Joe. He says offer him a fresh mask, they can take it from the mask he is wearing. They start talking and Joe tells him that Eric followed him out of the bar. He says he lives by the park and came back out when he heard all the commotion.
At the Internal Affairs Bureau, Benson is there to be questioned. She says she didn’t bring a lawyer because her conduct was by the book.
Rollins tells Joe that they have his DNA. Joe starts to talk more, he says that Eric tried to sexually attack him, he pushed him away and left him.
Joe is with his lawyer who says that he was lured to the park by an intoxicated Eric. It turns out that it was Joe’s DNA on Eric’s underwear, Carisi tells Rollins to book him.
Benson meets with Chief, she tells him that they arrested Joe. He tells her that it might be better for Tutuola to testify to the grand jury. Benson says she has gone over and over about what happened in that park. She was so focused on the victims, that her own bias didn’t occur to her and how much that affected her.
Grand jury, Eric cannot testify because of his injuries from the assault. It ends up being a train wreck because the talk turns around to the wrongful arrest of Dayvon. Joe’s lawyer shows up, he tells Carisi that his client has decided to testify after all.
Joe tells the jury that he was ashamed, he didn’t want his family to know that was bi. He says nothing happened after his sexual encounter with Eric. Carisi asks about pushing him, Joe says that he told the police that because it was what they wanted to hear. Joe says he is a victim, along with Eric and DaVonne. He is horrified about what happened to Eric, but he didn’t do it, the cops are lying to them, he is not.
Rollins goes to see Carisi, he tells her that Joe is lying, he knew what to tell the jury. Joe’s lawyer walks in, tells Carisi you win some you lose some, Joe walks.
At the hospital, Rollins tells Eric’s mother and son that the man who attacked Joe walks.
Benson is home, her son is watching a video of her arresting the wrong guy, he tells her that all the kids at school are watching it. He then asks her if she is racist and asks if she said she was sorry. She says there is a lawsuit and she is not allowed to speak to him, he reminds her that she tells him to say sorry when he is wrong.
Benson goes to see Joe, he tells her that he was laid off because of everything. She tells him that DA is pursuing charges against Colleen for a false claim. Then she tells him that she has a lot of work to do.
THE END!
