Tonight on NBC Law & Order SVU returns with an all-new Thursday, February 8, 2024 episode and we have your Law & Order SVU recap below.
In tonight’s Law & Order SVU season 25 episode 4 “Duty To Report,” as per the NBC synopsis, “When Chief McGrath’s daughter discloses a sexual assault, Benson must balance the intricacies of the investigation with McGrath’s impulsive actions.”
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In tonight’s Law & Order SVU episode, a bunch of teenagers had a party. They were all illegally drinking. Shea McGrath had overindulged. She went upstairs to lie down and there a boy she knew found her. He saw her on the bed barely conscious. Everyone else was downstairs. There was loud music playing.
The boy figured he could take advantage of Shea and write it off as a high school experience, but Shea wasn’t just anyone. She was Police Chief McGrath’s daughter. She was a cop’s daughter. She didn’t bury what happened to her. She reported it to her therapist and by coincidence she proved to be sharing a therapist with Captain Benson of the Special Victims Unit.
The therapist had a duty to report. She reported what happened to Shea to Benson after one of their sessions. She also warned Benson that the victim was Chief McGrath’s daughter.
Benson later visited McGrath’s home. She asked to quietly speak with Shea. McGrath and his wife were confused only they allowed it. They knew Benson. They trusted Benson. She was able to talk to Shea alone. She heard from Shea herself that she was pretty out of it and that she didn’t want to have sex that night. And Benson had to explain to her that was rape.
Only it looked bad for Shea. Shea was the one that threw that party. She waited until her parents were out of town and her parents did find out. She wasn’t that great at cleaning up afterwards.
Her dad has been hard on her ever since that party. It also didn’t help that Shea personally covered up all the cameras inside the house. The boy that raped her could claim that Shea was only claiming to be raped to get out of trouble with her parents. Finn and Bruno were even wondering the same. Benson was the only one besides the girl’s parents that believed her.
Benson said Shea reported the rape to her therapist before her parents got back. Meaning she had no clue she was about to get in trouble with them much less need an excuse.
Shea also hadn’t wanted to tell anyone. Her therapist told Benson for her because she legally had to. Shea did confess to the rape once she talked to Benson, but she didn’t want to get anyone in trouble. Nor did she want her parents to find out about it. Her parents didn’t take it well when Benson took their daughter to get a rape kit done.
McGrath wanted blood. He wanted to be involved in the case. Benson told him that he legally couldn’t be a part of anything that happened next. He was the father of the victim and he couldn’t be involved. Not that he let that stop him. He wanted to give his daughter’s case to Brooklyn SVU. He said it happened in their jurisdiction. Benson stopped that transfer. She wanted to stay on the case because she’s built up a bond with the victim. She also quickly found a suspect that she could question.
Benson thought Shea was raped by her older math tutor. The boy was eighteen compared to Shea’s fifteen. He was brought in for questioning and McGrath found out about it. He burst in on them questioning the kid. He threatened to kill him. The boy quickly got a lawyer and it later came out that he wasn’t the perp. He had an alibi. He reported McGrath threatening him. IAB became involved. IAB Captain Curry had to oversee the rest of the investigation to ensure that McGrath was staying by the book. She and Benson later heard from Shea who raped her that night.
Shea hadn’t wanted to say his name because he lived right across the street. It was Liam Dowling. His parents and her parents were really close. Their dads were best friends. Shea didn’t think Liam intentionally wanted to harm her that night, but she didn’t want to say anything because she didn’t want to hurt her dad. Her dad was stumped when he saw Curry as well as Benson escorting Liam and his father. He could see it. He just couldn’t put two and two together until Liam admitted to sleeping with Shea that night.
Liam was claiming it was consensual. He said that Shea wanted it. His dad got him a lawyer. It was a she said/he said. The District Attorney needed more evidence than that and that’s when the math tutor turned out to be helpful. He walked into that party wearing his bike helmet. It had a camera attached to it in case he gets into accidents. The guy had a recording of Shea leaving that room and making an outcry statement to a girl at the party. The girl was a cousin of Shea’s friend. She heard about the party and was there when Shea needed to talk.
The witness said that Shea admitted Liam raped her that night. Only Shea’s parents didn’t want her to testify. They were also worried about IAB being involved in the case. McGrath’s wife Katie didn’t want her husband’s career to sink over this. She also suspected that Benson was gunning for her husband’s job and she refused to ever speak to Benson again. After Benson arrested Liam, Liam’s parents began yelling abuses at Shea’s parents. The Dowlings called Shea troubled as well as a slut. McGrath got so angry that he pulled a gun on Mickey Dowling.
Benson stopped him from killing the guy, but it’s a good thing Curry wasn’t there. Dowling later took a plea deal. He was going to serve three years at a juvenile detention center. He owned up to what he did because he said that when his parents met that his mother had slapped his dad after he asked her out. He thought the same rules still applied. Liam returned home with his parents where he was supposed to be awaiting sentencing only the cops got called to his house. Liam’s father was abusing his mother and Liam tried to step in to protect his mom.
Unfortunately, McGrath missed a lot of things about his once best friend. He failed to see the man was abusing his wife or that he was teaching his son its okay to rape someone. And so McGrath has to live with his mistakes, but Benson told him to focus on his daughter.
And then Benson offered Curry a job.
THE END!
