Tonight on NBC Law & Order SVU returns with an all-new Thursday, February 27, 2025 episode and we have your Law & Order SVU recap below.
In tonight’s Law & Order SVU season 26 episode 14 “The Grid Plan,” as per the NBC synopsis, “A Midwestern tourist is viciously attacked in Times Square. As the squad scours the area for clues, the victim takes the investigation into her own hands. A secret motive threatens to derail Carisi’s case.”
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In tonight’s Law & Order SVU episode, Megan Wallace came to New York City to see Broadway. She went to five different shows in four days. She was loving it. She was also traveling alone and several people took notice of that. There was a lovely couple that asked a lot of questions.
There was a bar man that told her where she could go to see the cast of “Lion King” party. Megan didn’t hide the fact she was on her own. She didn’t think she had to hide it and sadly she was sexually assaulted right in Time’s Square. It was the Broadway area. It also has heavy traffic all throughout the day and night. Megan thought she was safe in public.
As Captain Benson once said, sexual assault was unpredictable. It could happen anywhere. It could happen to anyone. It sadly happened to a tourist surrounded by other tourists and so it became a huge thing with the Commissioner wanting updates. Megan could have easily gotten overwhelmed.
She was recently diagnosed with an underlying health condition. She has MS. She hasn’t told anyone back home about it. She wanted to enjoy her life before things took a turn and then this happened. Megan couldn’t understand why it happened at first.
She was forty something. She was a mother and wife from Iowa. She was on the hefty side. She wore a heavy coat. Megan couldn’t understand why he chose her.
It just didn’t make sense. Megan later tried to go back through her memories. She tried to find out what she did wrong and Benson warned her against doing that. Nothing Megan did or wore was responsible for what happened to her. Megan also kept notes in her planner. She did that during her rape kit. She also wrote everything she remembered about her attacker.
Megan was very helpful. She was almost too helpful. She said her attacker was in his thirties. He wore a nice suit. He had suitcase with him and that seemed strange. It wasn’t the only strange thing that happened. Her attacker was already waiting in the alcove when she passed by and he pulled her in.
It didn’t seem planned. It was more a spur of the moment. There was a witness that later stopped by SVU’s office. She said she saw the two people in the alley. She thought it was consensual at the time. She said the man wasn’t covering the woman’s mouth and she didn’t try to scream.
The victims of crime don’t normally act in a way people think they should. Take Megan. Megan didn’t want to stay at the hospital or her hotel. She instead made some fliers and she handed it out in Time’s Square. She asked for people’s help in identifying her rapist. It’s usually the cops that canvass the area.
Megan was so set on finding her attacker that she was trying to do the cops’ job. Benson understood why Megan was being so vigilant. She tried to tell her not to interfere. She told her that she would make it harder for them to build against her attacker. And Megan ignored her.
The cops found out that her attacker was a wine salesman. He was trying to get bars to buy a thousand dollar bottle of shiraz and none wanted it. They thought it was too expensive for the area.
Which was why the salesman started drinking the wine. He got drunk off his own supply. He threw a bottle at one building that was caught on camera. He also still had his suitcase full of more wine. The cops were doing a good job with identifying the guy and they would have caught him on their own. They didn’t need Megan’s help.
Only Megan couldn’t let things be. She had to be the one to catch him. Benson understood that was her way of taking control back and so she didn’t arrest Megan when she should have.
Megan found out on her own where her rapist was drinking. She deliberately chatted him up at the bar. She kept him talking. Megan texted the cops when she found her attacker. She flirted with him to keep him there. Then the cops showed up to arrest him. It just wasn’t enough for Megan. She punched him when he called her crazy.
Megan was arrested for doing that. Benson later released her without charges. She also warned Megan to tell her husband about everything and that included the MS. It wasn’t the time for secrets. Megan once again ignored Benson’s wisdom and she met someone who didn’t share Benson’s patience – her rapist’s lawyer.
Her rapist was Gerard Ridley. He claimed they had consensual sex. He used the fact that he was a good-looking man in his thirties to say that he doesn’t have to assault anyone. And that wasn’t true because he also raped his college girlfriend.
Gerard’s lawyer somehow found out about Megan’s MS. They used that to say she wanted one last thrill when she came to the city on her own. They painted her as some kind of slut and even her own husband was left with doubts.
Megan was ready to drop the case, but Benson was finally able to convince her of something and that something was to finish giving her testimony on the stand. Megan told her side of the story. And her rapist was found guilty of what he did to her.
It was going to be a tough road to rebuild trust with her family only she didn’t blame the city for what happened.
New York was still beautiful in her eyes.
THE END!
