Tonight on NBC Law & Order SVU returns with an all-new Thursday, March 20, 2025 episode and we have your Law & Order SVU recap below.
In tonight’s Law & Order SVU season 26 episode 16 “Let Me Bring Pardon,” as per the NBC synopsis, “The doctor of a comatose woman calls SVU when he discovers his patient is pregnant. Benson must convince the family to reject magical thinking and look at the facts.”
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In tonight’s Law & Order SVU episode, Captain Olivia Benson visited her mother’s grave tonight. Serena Benson has been gone for a while. Only Benson needed to see her.
She needed to forgive her. Her mother was an alcoholic. Benson was the product of rape and Serena didn’t get the help she needed after the crime. It led to a lot of fights. Benson’s childhood wasn’t always consistent. She was finally going through therapy now and she realized it was time to forgive her mom. Serena wasn’t the perfect mother. She also wasn’t the devil. She did her best and Benson has accept that.
Benson later went into work for what she thought would be an easy day. She was unfortunately wrong about that because she received a call from Ellie Hughes’s mother.
There’s been a change in circumstances. Ellie was the influencer traveling across country with her boyfriend. Her boyfriend was physically abusive towards her.
There were plenty of videos to prove it. He beat her up so bad that he put her in a coma. Chris Becker was sentenced for what he did and was currently in prison. If Ellie’s mother had her way, Chris would be released.
Laura Hughes never bought the narrative that Chris was an abuser. She thought they wouldn’t have looked so happy in the videos they posted if they didn’t really love each other. Laura forgave Chris for his “one” mistake.
She also stayed in the city to be there at her daughter’s bedside. The mother and Chris’s mother would often play videos of Ellie with Chris together to try helping her come back to them. Come out of her coma. It was during their last visit that Laura was told some news. Her daughter is pregnant.
There’s no way of determining how far along she was. It was a large window. They weren’t keeping track of her period while she was in the coma and so there’s a chance that Chris wasn’t the father. Ellie could have been sexually assaulted at the hospital. She was in the trauma unit for a month there.
She was transferred to her currently facilty after that and her mother hasn’t left her side since she was moved. Ellie was either assaulted at the hospital or it was Chris’s. Benson tried to get Laura to agree to a DNA test.
Laura had her own reasons for not wanting to do it. Benson had to work around Laura. She visited Chris in prison. She told him that Ellie was pregnant. She also mentioned there was a chance he might not be the father. Chris didn’t want to agree to a test until he was given something in return. He wanted to punish the judge that found him guilty.
He wanted a bunch of stuff that the cops couldn’t give him. Benson then went to Chris’s mother, Virginia. Virginia and Laura have stayed in contact the whole time.
They even agreed to raise the baby together. Then Benson told her about the risk. She also said that raising a baby with no support from Chris wasn’t going to be easy. Chris was in prison and Virginia was a hairdresser.
Once Virginia was reminded of her circumstances, she agreed to change her son’s mind for free. Benson was taking this one personally because it reminded her so much of her own situation. She tried to talk to Laura again and Laura explained why she didn’t want the test. Laura’s family wanted to end the pregnancy because they didn’t want Ellie to be connected to Chris in that way.
If Laura were to tell them that her daughter was sexually assaulted, it wound tarnish the miracle. Laura described her grandchild as a miracle. She didn’t want to lose that and knowing the truth might take that away from her.
Laura fought the DNA test. She went to court to fight it. Chris’s rights were favored over her own as a grandmother. The judge ordered the test. The staff went through with it and it was determined that Chris wasn’t the father. Ellie’s baby was the product of rape. It was the one thing Laura feared the most.
Laura’s first instinct when she was told the results was how Chris was going to feel. Chris still thinks of himself as Laura’s protector. He blew up when he found out the baby wasn’t his.
He was stationed at the same hospital for the injuries he inflicted on himself. The ones he used to claim some strangers attacked them, but Chris was still saying he wanted to be a part of the baby’s life. He wanted to be involved in Ellie’s life. He wanted to control her even now that she was declared brain dead. The doctors actually suggested that Ellie be removed from life support months ago.
Laura always turned the option down. She said that Ellie was squeezing her hand. Her neurologist checked Ellie multiple times and no Ellie wasn’t squeezing anyone’s hand. She was brain dead.
There was no hope for her. Laura just couldn’t see that. She turned to her faith and the youth pastor for guidance. Pastor Caleb Hartwell volunteered at the trauma unit. He’s the one that helped Laura to see that there was hope for Ellie. Laura left them alone for hours when she prayed with another couple who lost their daughter.
The cops checked the security cameras on that day. They saw Hartwell go into Ellie’s room. They saw him close the door and close the blinds. They tried asking him about it.
He said he was called by God to visit Ellie. They had a private moment of prayer. Hence the need for secrecy. Hartwell wasn’t going to confess. The cops visited him at his home and they found out why he attacked Ellie. Ellie looks a lot like his wife. The same wife that was heavily pregnant four months ago. Right around the time he attacked Ellie.
The cops eventually got around to arresting Hartwell. He later said he heard from God that he needed to help Ellie. He also said that he asked Ellie if she wanted a baby and she squeezed his hand to say yes. It was a crap excuse from a rapist. He will serve time for what he did because the DNA test did prove he was the father of Ellie’s baby.
Benson visited Ellie at the hospital and, while she didn’t see it, Ellie did try to move her fingers. So, maybe the doctor was wrong.
THE END!
