WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Law & Order: SVU Season 23, Episode 8, "Nightmares in Drill City," which premiered Thursday, November 11th, on NBC. This article also contains descriptions of sexual assault.
Two girls and some guys are being driven down the road in an SUV and sending sexy photos to another guy, Chris. They arrive to his apartment where he, his brother and two friends are editing a music video. Jasmine, seventeen-year-old Tori and their armed male friends ring the doorbell and barge in, shooting two of the men inside. The two girls then help rob the men. They all run and end up shooting a third man dead. Jasmine and the men take off, but Tori is struggling, having been shot in the leg. They leave her behind.
ADA Sonny Carisi and Detective Amanda Rollins then brief Captain Olivia "Liv" Benson on the triple homicide and that Tori is in custody, as both a suspect and a victim; she was part of the shooting but shows physical signs of abuse. Rollins and Benson talk to Tori but she won't flip, not yet. She says she was forced to do it by "him" but she can't say who, or he'll kill her too. A review of Tori's phone shows that she texted the brother of one of the victims, Chris, making her directly responsible for the home invasion. However, nothing else in her history would suggest this type of life.
Carisi interviews Tori, telling her she's facing three counts of homicide. Benson and Rollins talk to her, and she says she only knows the guy she was with by a nickname, "G," and that the other girl, Jasmine, used to be her friend but she didn't shoot anyone herself. She says G is an upcoming rap star on a YouTube channel and Carisi, Detective Joe Velasco and Detective Odafin "Fin" Tutuola investigate. They see Jasmine and Tori in some videos when a new one drops, with lyrics and visuals that nearly amount to a confession. Tori confirms she knows the trap house in the video. A SWAT team swarms the trap house, making arrests. G says Tori has them all fooled - she was the one who actually planned it all, and he can prove it. Benson then tells G his guns match those used in a triple homicide, but he's unphased, still insisting Tori was the mastermind. He says they targeted the murder victims because they disrespected the gang and that Tori knew the younger brother of one personally. She had the whole idea of how to gain access to Chris and his three friends by sexting him and setting them up.
Rollins talks to Chris in the hospital and he's soft-spoken, and expressed he only wanted to hone his interest in filmmaking. He says it's his fault his brother is dead because he fell for Tori's lies. Jasmine tells Carisi that Tori was always the connection and always leading the way, hooked on the drugs and the sex. Rollins and Benson go to talk to Tori in her cell and say they're becoming convinced she was the mastermind -- unless she can explain her part. Tori agrees to talk through a lawyer and shares how she met Jasmine and that Jasmine introduced her to G, and she wanted him to like her, so she had sex with him and other guys under his orders. He beat her and even cracked her skull. She says she had to always do whatever G wanted and that he made her text Chris under threat of death. Benson believes she was trafficked and coerced, but Carisi isn't sure that argument will hold up to cut a deal, as it's his first case with the Homicide Bureau.
He pleads his case to the Bureau, trying to get leniency for Tori based on her history of being abused by G and in light of her cooperation. They won't agree, though, as there are too many eyes on the case: they won't send a black man to jail while cutting a deal for the white girl. They also insinuate that this is a high enough profile case that could take Carisi to the next step in his career.
As they walk through the court halls, Rollins and Benson are met by Tori's mother. She feels guilty for having left Tori alone while she had to work. In the pre-trial, G and Jasmine are remanded to custody. Carisi plays as the Bureau wants him to and gets Tori remanded, while Rollins and Benson determine to open their own investigation into G as a rapist and trafficker. They present their findings to the Bureau and Carisi argues Liv's case to them to help Tori as a victim. It eventually works.
Liv and Carisi meet with Tori and offer her a deal to get out of jail in 10-25 years. Jasmine has been offered and accepted the same deal. If Tori doesn't take the deal, she'll likely be facing life. Despite it all, though, Tori turns it down in hopes the jury is swayed by her history of abuse. Fin feels she bought in a little too deeply, while Velasco is sympathetic to her and sees she was caught up and in over her head. He shares his own backstory of having got in too deep with a gang in his teens and that he's been trying to only do good since. Fin hears him and understands, having his own history as well.
It's the day of Tori's trial and the press is hotly invested. Jasmine gives a rundown of the incident, saying it was all Tori's idea, while Tori's lawyer questions to motives of her testimony. Chris takes the stand and details the night, while his sister has an emotional outburst at Tori for killing her brother. Then Tori takes the stand and details G's sexual coercion, gang rape and physical abuse, and how she went along with whatever he ordered out of fear. She says this robbery was all his idea.
Carisi cross-examines her and argues that she was actually excited by and loved the life she had carved out for herself. She took G's gifts, she went home to her mom and never asked for help, she never called the cops, she enjoyed the attention, gifts and lifestyle. He says he knows G is a manipulative bad guy, but questions that Tori ever actually wanted to leave. He says she left for a few weeks to Poland and then willingly and happily went back to the trap house lifestyle -- that until she was arrested, she never seemed to have an issue with the life.
Court is adjourned until the next day and Carisi regrets the extent he had to go to to do his job, telling Rollins he feels sick. She's disappointed in him. Benson, though, wants to go back to Jasmine, as she believes Jasmine was also trafficked and that she knows more about the night in question than she's telling.
Velasco and Fin ask Jasmine about her multiple ER trips, implying G was abusive with her. Fin says he understands her rough life, but that they suspect she turned Tori out. They want to make a case against G, but need Jasmine's cooperation. She says she's not a snitch, but Velasco is able to talk her into helping because he understands her fear and tells her she's worth more than G is -- she's still a good person. It works. Carisi brings her new disclosures to the Bureau but they still want to convict Tori. Carisi takes a moral stand, though, backing Tori and asking to renegotiate Tori's and Jasmine's deals. He wants them to do the right thing -- not just for the rich or connected for once, but for the real victims who need compassion.
His impassioned speech works and both Tori and Jasmine's murder charges are dismissed -- they get only community service, counseling and probation while the Bureau parrots Carisi's words back to the press as their own. Tori meets with Benson, as she's missed her last two counseling sessions -- a violation of her probation. A part of her believes she belongs in prison because she misses the excitement of the life, but also because she feels bad for Chris's family suffering while she goes free. Benson tells her she knows she had to put on armor young to protect herself and that, in time, she'll be able to release that burden.
Law & Order: SVU stars Mariska Hargitay, Ice T, Kelli Giddish and Peter Scanavino. New episodes air Thursdays at 9 p.m. on NBC.
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