After last week’s Mike Tyson debacle, I was hoping SVU would regroup and come back with a strong, realistic episode. Instead, “Secrets Exhumed” eschewed plausibility and focused on creating unbelievable plot twists. It succeeded … in being unbelievable.
Recap: A cold case is re-sparked when a Florida prisoner’s DNA matches a series of five rapes from 25 years ago. When Olivia and Nick fly to Miami to pick up the suspect, wheelchair-bound Brian Traymore, they’re met by an FBI agent played by Marcia Gay Harden, who cheerfully suggests they all investigate together. Olivia happily agrees to work with Marcia, who has periodically guest-starred on SVU over the years.
Olivia and Nick quickly extract a confession from Traymore, who was a serial rapist until a car accident severed his spine. But he only admits to four of the five rape/murders. That is, until Marcia comes into the room and, using a voice as soft and creepy as a snake charmer, convinces him to confess to rape/murder #5, the attack on a beautiful young kindergarten teacher named Kyra.
The case seems closed, until Kyra’s fiancee, Noah, shows up at the station and greets Marcia with a hug and an exchange of guilty glances. Nick’s Spidey sense tells him something’s off. And he’s right.
Turns out, Marcia used to date Noah in college. He broke up with her just a few weeks before getting engaged to Kyra – who was pregnant at the time she was killed.
Although SVU conventions demand that at least one investigator be personally involved with a victim or witness to the crime (case in point: the preview for next week, where Amanda shoots her sister’s boyfriend), Nick is shocked – shocked! – that Marcia had a relationship with Noah. [Read more…]