Peter Stone takes center stage as SVU delivers its best episode of the season.
Law and Order: SVU “Dear Ben”
Season 20, Episode 12
Airdate: 1/17/2019
BY: JACOB POLITTE
Staff Writer
I didn’t think I was going to like “Dear Ben” at all. It was promoted as being an episode focusing heavily on the character of ADA Peter Stone, who who has been a rather poorly written character this season. This, coupled with the fact that SVU hasn’t had a lot of great episodes this season, resulted in my hopes not being too high for this episode.
I’m happy to say I was proven wrong. “Dear Ben” was arguably the best episode that SVU has aired this season. It did something that the last year of episodes largely hasn’t: it made me care about Peter Stone on a personal level. The writers smartly used the presence of his late father (former Law and Order ADA Ben Stone) as a way to connect him to the case in a way that was very enjoyable to watch.
The case of the episode, which is recapped below, focuses on the re-emergence of a serial rapist, code-named Infinity, after decades of silence. Stone’s father was the lead prosecutor on the case, and the Infinity Rapist developed a sick and twisted affection for him that no one ever knew about, including his own family. One of the more chilling pieces of evidence was a old photo of Ben and Peter playing baseball in a park that appeared to have personally been taken by the Infinity Rapist himself. This case causes Peter, who had harbored some resentment towards his father in his younger years for spending so much time away from him, to see some of the decisions his father made in an entirely new light.
While the case was personal for Stone, it was also conducted very professionally which I was also a fan of. As I have stated numerous times in the past, I understand the need to give most of these stories a feel-good ending, but it is important for the police work to remain as realistic as possible while working towards that ending. In this case, Carisi comes across the real identity of the perpetrator through less than ideal means. Although he got the right guy, I’m pretty sure that evidence illegally obtained solely from a genealogy site and a voice identification alone would never hold up in court in real life. And it didn’t hold up here.
CASE RECAP:
A couple, April and Gavin, return to their apartment only to find the front door propped open; security for the building basically non-existent. An unknown man takes advantage of this, heading to the couple’s apartment later that night. Off-screen, he quietly takes out Gavin, tying him up and laying a stack of plates on his back. Once Gavin is subdued, he moves on to April, who is attacked by the man and sexually assaulted.
Benson, Fin, and Carisi arrive on the scene to investigate. They all become increasingly disturbed as the details of the crime are revealed to them. It’s soon revealed why: they know this perp. Carisi leads his Lieutenant and Sergeant to a room where an infinity symbol and the number 23 are spray-painted on a wall. It appears that the Infinity Rapist has struck again after a quarter century of silence.
Before we continue, it’s important to note that this case has never been explored on SVU or any of the other Law and Order shows. The Infinity Rapist began his crimes in 1981 and suddenly stopped after his twenty-second victim in 1994; Benson was about two years into his police career at the time. His modus operandi was exactly like the crime that happened to April and Gavin. While his DNA is not found in CODIS or in April’s rape kit, it appears that this is the real guy.
I keep saying “appears” because it turns out that April’s rapist is nothing more than a copycat. Carisi tracks an IP address (from a user who updated the rapist’s Wikipedia page two hours before April’s assault) that appears to be the real guy, but turns out to be a younger man named Karl who doesn’t fit the description or age of what the Infinity Rapist would look like in 2019. Clearly mentally ill, he claims to be the real Infinity and it is discovered that he was in fact April’s rapist, but is not responsible for the real Infinity’s crimes.
While April’s case is solved, Stone is grappling with the actual Infinity’s case. While looking through old case files with Carisi, he learns about his late father Ben’s involvement with the case, even finding out that he was still investigating it as late as 2017, just a few months before his death. He even comes across old letters that Infinity wrote to his father and, from that photo of Ben and Peter playing baseball, comes to realize that Infinity was stalking his father.
After Karl’s arraignment, Peter is approached by Claire Newbury, a writer who has published three books on Infinity and is working on a fourth. She asks Stone for an interview, but he declines. All of this media attention, however, has struck a chord with the real Infinity. He returns for real this time and makes Claire his real twenty-third victim.
The squad deduces that there are more Infinity letters out there, so Fin and Carisi track the rest of them to an antique store in the Lower East Side. There are still no DNA hits in CODIS, but Carisi does get one hit from a different place… a familial match on genealogy site. Fin and Carisi head to Brooklyn and talk to Amy Gardner; she says her only living older relative is her Uncle Edgar. He got married in 1994, the year when the Infinity’s spree stopped. Amy can’t believe that Edgar would do anything criminal, but reluctantly gives them his address. Benson and Fin catch him coming back from a bodega and take him in.
Edgar denies being Infinity, but he knows exactly who Peter is right after he walks through the door and makes sure he lets everyone in the room know. Not the smartest move, Edgar.
Despite that blunder, there’s next-to-no evidence that Edgar is the Infinity Rapist. Making matters worse, it turns out that Carisi didn’t identify himself as a police officer on the genealogy site and although there is legal precedent in two states that would allow the DNA evidence to be admissible, the New York courts might not accept it.
After a court hearing, the judge doesn’t accept the DNA evidence and Edgar is free to go. On his way out, he taunts Peter by saying, “Your father would have done better.”
Amy, however, contacts Carisi, saying that her uncle has ceased contact with her. Now coming to the realization that her uncle is Infinity, she reveals to Carisi that Edgar was traumatized by his alcoholic parents. He and Amy’s mother had to listen their father brutalize their mother. From this information, Peter and Carisi piece together that Edgar saw Ben Stone as a father figure. They even think that Edgar wanted to confess his crimes… but only to Ben.
SVU picks up Edgar for driving with a suspended license and then they confront him once more with more Infinity evidence. Using’s Edgar’s fondness for Ben against him, Peter coaxes Edgar into admitting his crimes. Benson tells Peter that it’s time for Peter to forgive his father for not being around so much and he agrees.
THE NOAH FILES:
Noah returns this episode, and Benson figures out that part of the reason why Noah has been so awful lately is because a kid at school has been asking where his dad is. Noah doesn’t know how to answer him or even how his dad felt about him. Benson lies to Noah, saying that his biological father is in heaven and loved him very much.
Um, no. He was a horrible sex-trafficker who raped Noah’s birth mother and died in a hail of gunfire during a courtroom hearing concerning his parental rights. I understand that Noah is a young child and maybe Benson shouldn’t divulge all of that information until he’s older, but surely there is a better response to Noah’s questions than outright lying to the kid.
Benson also says that maybe Noah needs some “masculine energy” in his life. Not only is this starkly out of character for Benson to say or even think, it’s also completely irrelevant. Speaking from personal experience, “masculine energy” is not what Noah needs. I lost my father when I was a child to cancer and have turned out fine, even without much “masculine energy” in my life.
What is going on with Noah and his behavioral issues could be a deeper issue which might require some help from a therapist. While Benson is the only mother he’s ever known, his biological mother was a drug addict and Noah shares her genetics. The types of developmental and behavioral problems that may stem from that cannot be ignored.
JACOB’S FINAL VERDICTS:
– What a fantastic episode this was. Fantastic cinematography, fantastic acting, just a fantastic hour of television all around. It’s almost surreal; my article for the previous episode, which included my thoughts and concerns on the state of this program, was posted extremely late (long after this episode aired) due to some technical issues. Even so, many of the concerns I had were addressed in some form with “Dear Ben.” It’s like they wrote this episode specifically for me or something.
– After all these years of dealing with sex crimes and especially after what happened with William Lewis, you’d think Benson would be more alarmed by how easily people can access her apartment building.
– Sometimes I forget that Carisi once passed the Bar Exam and can become a lawyer at any time. So I’m calling it right now: when this show officially ends, Carisi will be the featured ADA.
– The show’s take on what Wikipedia looks like gave me a big laugh.
– A side note about Peter’s father who was the original ADA on the original Law and Order: the actor is still alive and in good health, so I’m not sure why he was killed off in the first place. It would have been pretty neat to see that character back on a Law and Order program for the first time in 25 years.
SVU returns on Jan. 31 for “A Story Of More Woe.”
