Throng

Saturday 14th November 11.00pm

The seventh season of the ‘Law & Order’ spin-off following New York’s elite special victims unit continues. This week, Stabler clashes with his new temporary partner as they investigate an assault on a 16-year-old girl. The trail leads to two overweight teens who acted in revenge for an attack on their obese older brother.

Following the events of last week’s episode (‘Fault’), Stabler discovers that Benson has transferred to the computer-crime division. “You needed a break from each other,” Cragen explains. Stabler is partnered with Detective Lucius Blaine (Anthony Anderson, ‘The Shield’, ‘The Departed’) and together they are sent to investigate the brutal assault of 16-year-old Jessica DeLay, who has had a finger severed.

Footprints at the scene indicate there were two – most likely overweight – attackers. Blood stains on Jessica’s clothes provide a further clue when Warner reports that one of the pair was a girl in puberty. “So we’re looking for two kids?” Cragen asks. “Two very large kids,” Stabler replies. When questioned in hospital, Jessica claims not to know why two people would want to attack her – but Stabler is unconvinced. “I’m not buying her littlemiss- innocent routine,” he says.

Stabler theorises that the assailants knew Jessica through the school orchestra, where she played piano. “You wanna screw up a pianist, you cut off her finger,” he points out. Jessica’s phone records indicate that someone called her an hour after the attack. It transpires that the mystery caller is Kenny Bixton, an overweight musician from the orchestra. His younger sister Mia, also overweight, has scratch marks on her face from a fight. Stabler and Blaine immediately arrest both siblings.

The case against the teenage pair seems watertight – especially when Kenny’s shoes match the footprints at the scene. However, Blaine’s insistence on interviewing them without a parent present breaks procedure. A furious Stabler ends up in a fistfight with his new partner. “Either you get rid of him or I quit!” he tells Cragen. The captain responds by pointing out that Blaine’s cavalier attitude resembles Stabler’s own. “He bends the rules – you do too,” Cragen says. “You’re a good cop, but God knows how Olivia put up with you so long.”

Stabler and Blaine bury their differences and start to probe the reasons for Jessica’s attack. They learn that Kenny and Mia attacked Jessica because she and her friends had previously beaten up Rudi, their morbidly obese older brother. “I wanted her to suffer like he did,” Kenny explains. The brutally beaten Rudi is now confined to a wheelchair, but he refused to report the crime because he was embarrassed. “I got so fat I let children beat me,” he says.

Kenny and Mia are certain to go to jail for their actions, but Stabler is determined to win justice for Rudi. With Benson’s help, he learns that Jessica took a photograph of Rudi’s beating and uploaded it to a secret website for her friends to see. When accessed, the picture shows Jessica’s friend Tommy attacking Rudi. Tommy is promptly arrested, but a legal loophole means that police have to release him. Tommy is just leaving the police station when he is accosted by Rudi. “Hey – you. Remember me?” Rudi says, before shooting Tommy dead.

As the stunned officers react to Tommy’s death, Novak arraigns Rudi on a murder charge. However, Rudi’s lawyer and an influential assemblyman are determined to present Rudi as a victim of obesity. By illustrating Rudi’s health problems and poor upbringing, the defence team hopes to turn his case into a campaign. “By the time he’s told his story, no jury will convict him,” says the assemblyman. Can Novak see that justice is done?