Law & Order: SVU – Recap & Review – Hunting Ground

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Law & Order: SVU
Hunting Ground

Original Air Date: Feb 22, 2012

Caitlin – Staff Writer
caitlin@thetwocentscorp.com

It’s been a while since we’ve had a good old-fashioned serial killer on SVU. Tonight, we correct that oversight. And yes, I did just use the phrase “good old fashioned serial killer”. Again, it’s Law & Order: SVU.

We open with Olivia and ADA Haden on a date. While they’re debating how quickly to take things, though, a girl working as an escort is getting into a client’s car, and soon being taken away against her will.

For the record, from where Liv and Haden are when they hear about this case, I’m thinking they fell back on the idea of taking thing slowly. Regardless, the kidnapped girl is Hayley, whose mother thinks she works in catering. In fact, she was out with a man named Brewster, who also hired several other girls through other agencies, one of whom, Roxie, hasn’t been heard from since. Hayley herself is being chased through the woods by Brewster and his dog.

The detectives and start making connections to advertisements both Hayley and Roxie posted in a local paper, the Downtown Voice. The editor of the paper assumes he’s being harassed by the police and doesn’t help them even when he knows the ads are getting girls taken. We also learn about a girl who ran from Brewster before getting into his car. She’s married now and doesn’t want to talk, but eventually agrees to come to the station with her husband.

Liv is pissed off toward the Voice, and wants to get Haden to help with a sting and catch them in the act. He, however, thinks they need to keep out of each other’s lines of work. The new witness says she saw a cage in the back of Brewster’s car and provides identification information that leads to a beach. A police officer says a man who looked like Brewster was there after burying his last dog. This is already suspect, but what we find is still unexpected- the bodies and bones of multiple victims in the sand.

With the realization that Brewster is a serial killer, Haden changes his tune completely and takes off after the Downtown Voice on his own. Nick is shaken up, too, and calls his wife overseas. Unfortunately, he and Olivia still have to look at the bodies, all hanged or strangled and in various stages of deterioration. One is Roxie, who was apparently homeless before she was taken. Haden tells the public and Hayley’s mother he’ll go after everyone involved in the case.

With Hayley still missing and possibly alive, the investigation goes into full swing. Munch and Fin get people following every lead they can, and the detectives eventually learn about Lizzie, a girl who escaped from Brewster after actually being taken by him. She’s in a psych ward now, and in no real condition to talk, but manages to show Olivia the wounds around her neck. She made them herself, she tells us, because “it was the only way to end the game”.

When Liv and Nick believe her, unlike any of the doctors she’s seen, she’s able to think more rationally. Brewster chased her with a tranquilizer gun and then raped her while she couldn’t fight back. She managed to run after trying and failing to hang herself, but encountered an electric fence she tried to use commit suicide again, not realizing the power had gone out. Instead she escaped over it and ran for miles before being found. Through her, we get our first real lead.

The detectives and a SWAT team show up at Brewster’s cabin in the woods. Olivia finds Hayley still conscious on his bed, but Brewster and his gun find her before she can do anything. He taunts her, saying she’ll have to play the game, but soon slips up. Nick fatally shoots him. There’s still more to the case, like several other missing girls Brewster claimed to kill, but Cragen tells Nick to take a few days off. He doesn’t tell his wife about any of this.

I know it’s probably a bit wrong to enjoy episodes about such a gruesome topic, especially when (whatever the voice at the start of each episode might say) they bear resemblances to real-life crime stories. Still, I think the serial killer episodes of SVU are often some of the most emotionally incense and dramatically fulfilling. I’d include this one on the list, and liked Nick having a moment at the end there.

Speaking of which, maybe I’ve become morbid from all my years of watching this show, but I’m becoming more and more convinced we’re not going to see Nick’s wife come home alive. The tense but sensitive way they speak and the things left unsaid- including him killing someone for the first time- strongly foreshadow a tragic ending. I hope I’m wrong, though.

Next Week: Child’s Welfare

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