Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (or SVU, as those in the know call it) is one of those shows that’s seemingly never ending. With 23 seasons and 502 episodes, it’s not a short watch by any means. It’s been airing since 1999 and shows no signs of stopping any time soon, so there really is no time like the present to dive into this crime drama and get to know some of the world’s favorite detectives, attorneys, and specialists. Is 502 episodes too much for you? Completely understandable. Instead of trying to do it all at once, here’s a guide to some of the best episodes in the series to get you started and introduce you to the major players, plots, and cases of the series.
Season 1, Episode 18, “Chat Room”
Going back to SVU’s first season, “Chat Room” is an episode that truly captures what the series is all about. It starts with a young girl coming to the precinct and disclosing to Detectives Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Elliot Stabler (Chris Meloni) that she had been raped by a man she met in a chat room called Yachtsman. Once the detectives begin investigating, it comes out that she had never made contact with the man, but can give them his information. In order to catch the man, they begin chatting with him with Detective John Munch (Richard Belzer) posing as a 12-year-old girl. They arrange a meeting and are able to apprehend the man behind the Yachtsman username. Even with him in custody, things become increasingly more difficult as the detectives discover his ties to a large pedophile ring. The episode has all the ingredients of a compelling SVU episode: a seemingly cut and dry case that turns out to be complex; difficult battles between police and lawyers; interpersonal drama; and that ever-so-frustrating fade to black without a solid conclusion. “Chat Room” is a great introductory episode for anyone new to the series or for anyone who maybe hasn’t seen the older seasons and just wants to see where the series began.
Season 2, Episode 20, “Pique”
“Pique” is an essential episode for a few reasons, but none more important than the fact that it is the first appearance of beloved forensic psychiatrist George Huang, played by B.D. Wong. The episode is an especially disturbing one, dealing with a woman’s rape and murder by the son of a wealthy New Jersey socialite. Stabler is tasked with forming a rapport with the man to get him to talk and manages to do so, getting a confession to the murder and later, a separate confession of stabbing multiple women with hatpins. Benson and her team find the hatpins he used, along with clothing from the man’s mother. She decides to go question the mother, now suspicious that she might be abusing her son. Huang notes that this means the man has piquerism and has most likely kept the knife he used to stab his victim. When they go to search the house, they find a grisly scene. “Pique” is one of the more difficult to watch episodes of SVU because it’s meant to make you sympathize with the perpetrator while also condemning them, but it is definitely a compelling one, and remains one of the most memorable episodes of the series.
Season 3, Episode 9, “Care”
A heinous crime. A family with dark secrets. A failing system. “Care” definitely puts the special in Special Victims Unit due to its focus on a family with multiple foster children, one of whom is found dead at a construction site one morning after going missing in the night. Next to her body, a sword with a braid is found, and the detectives assume the crime has ties to a local gang. However, they soon change gears when they see the symbol in a video game called SwordQuest, which the family’s son plays often. The son is sent to a treatment facility, and as the detectives continue to investigate, they find that the foster parents had children previously taken out of their care for neglect and abuse. Captain Cragen (Dann Florek) then tries to connect with the son through his love of video games, and finally reveals who the real monster is. This episode uncovers the more empathetic side of the cast and their willingness to fight for the victims and also serves to portray Cragen as more than just the hardass captain of the squad.
Season 4, Episode 10, “Resilience”
An episode that is sickeningly depraved, “Resilience” follows the case of a girl who attempts to jump in front of a train and is saved at the last second. When SVU questions her, she claims she was blindfolded and raped, and a medical examination confirms that she had most likely been restrained and assaulted repeatedly. However, each suspect they bring in is eventually let go due to insufficient evidence, and the closest lead the detectives have is the body of an unknown woman with similar markings to the victim. After being questioned again, the victim admits that her father had artificially inseminated her with sperm from men he paid to rape his now infertile wife. As the detectives investigate further, they begin to realize that the family is some kind of fertility cult. Seeing a father that would do something so awful to his family makes your stomach churn, and it’s hard to forget the way the daughter sobs as she confides in Stabler.
Season 4, Episode 12, “Risk”
A canister of baby formula laced with cocaine causes the death of a baby. A wealthy circle of dealers trafficking drugs. Huge undercover operations with tensions running high between two departments. “Risk” is an episode that implies the far reach of some of the crimes the SVU takes on. This "ripped from the headlines" episode follows the detectives as they try to take down a drug trafficking ring that is mixing cocaine into baby formula in order to get it across the border. Stabler goes undercover to get close to a suspected dirty cop who is aiding in smuggling drugs, and manages to arrange for a meeting with a detective named Kendall, who is the aforementioned dirty cop. This episode is one that really centers on Stabler and helps the audience understand his character.
Season 5, Episode 17, “Mean”
What happens when bullying escalates to murder? That’s the question “Mean” focuses on by telling the story of three girls that brutally torture and murder their friend and leave her in the trunk of a car after taking her valuables. Though, at first, her friends aren’t the prime suspects. It’s another student instead, a girl considered an outcast that was often bullied by the victim and her friends. The detectives are sent in circles as they comb through chat rooms and texts to discover who is behind the threatening texts the victim received until they finally trace it back to one of the friends. The other two quickly blame their friend and say they were just bystanders as she mutilated the victim’s body. However, soon the trio get caught in their own web of lies and drama and the truth comes out. “Mean” is one of those convoluted episodes where every twist makes you more and more intrigued and when it blows up, it comes to a relatively satisfying conclusion (unlike some episodes of the show).
Season 6, Episode 6, “Conscience”
When the son of a psychiatrist goes missing, the detectives are on a time-sensitive race to find him. Their search leads them to a known pedophile as well as a civilian vigilante running a campaign to get offenders off the street that keeps interfering with the investigation, and eventually, time runs out. However, every suspect seems to have a solid alibi. After the medical examiner returns the autopsy report, she mentions that she found pebbles in the throat of the victim and this leads the detectives to a new suspect: a teenage boy that lived next to the victim’s family. Another episode filled with twists and turns, it’s hard to predict who will be put behind bars at the end. And no matter who you think it is, you’ll probably be surprised.
Season 6, Episode 22, “Parts”
Unlike a later entry on this list, “Parts” isn’t solely about organ procurement. It’s about a body chop operation, with cadavers being illegally traded and dismembered for parts to be used in everything from medical dissection to transplantation. The detectives track down the person running the operation, but they have a separate issue to deal with: the sale of organs to people on the national transplant waiting list. The team struggles with whether or not they should let a kidney from one of the illegally traded cadavers be transplanted into a sick patient. Some of SVU’s best episodes are the ones that don’t involve sexual crime, and this is one of them, not only because of the fascinating case, but also because of the personal toll on the characters, particularly John Munch.
Season 7, Episode 6, “Raw”
Heed this warning: “Raw” is not an easy episode to stomach due to its dealing with white supremacists, racism, and violence toward children. The episode is about a shooting at an elementary school in which two children are maimed and one is killed. The investigation leads John Munch to a gun shop that is running a white supremacist propaganda propgram out of its basement, which in turn leads them to the gunman, whose correction officer was the father of the boy who was killed. He’s put on trial, and during the proceedings, a disturbance at the courthouse results in another death and leads the detectives to an unlikely collaborator in the shooting. This episode is heartbreaking and blood boiling, but it’s one that won’t leave you once you watch it.
Season 8, Episode 18, “Responsible”
We see lots of dysfunctional families and less than great parents on SVU, but the mother in "Responsible" is pretty high on the list of bad parents. A teenage girl is found dead in the apartment of a couple away on vacation, and after being examined by a medical examiner, the dectetives are called due to an important detail: the girl's high blood alcohol level. When Stabler and Benson invesitigate, they are shown a world of wild high school parties and frequent binge drinking that is enabled by the mother of one of the teenagers. Not only is she supplying alcohol to minors, but she is also sleeping with one of her daughter's classmates. This episode is both an example of the dangers of underaged drinking and a question of how far the argument of "I know what's best for my kid" can go.
Season 9, Episode 14, “Inconceivable”
Another episode that puts the special in special victim, “Inconceivable” follows the detectives as they attempt to find 100 cryogenically frozen embryos that have been stolen from a clinic. Their search leads them to a family values advocacy group that protests what the facility does with the embryos and demands they allow the adoption of embryos that won’t be implanted. In addition to the embryos, there’s a number of people affected by their theft that tell the detectives that without their embryo, they may never be able to have children. The detectives manage to find the embryos, but will they still be viable? This episode is a great example of how SVU is capable of taking on some less black and white issues and balancing that grey area with the drama and thrills that show is known for.
Season 10, Episode 7, “Wildlife”
Tigers, birds, and other exotic creatures are at the center of this episode, which see Stabler going undercover in an attempt to bust an animal smuggling ring that may be connected to an earlier case where a woman was found dead with a tiger bite on her neck and a dead bird in her purse. Things become messy when another undercover cop gets involved and explains to SVU that the guy they’re after is only a small part of a large prison gang that is smuggling exotic animals. This episode is distinctly different from many other episodes of the series due to its unusual (but important) subject matter and focus not only on violence against people, but also animals.
Season 10, Episode 19, “Selfish”
“Selfish” tells of the case of a grandmother who comes to the precinct to report her granddaughter missing and accuses her daughter (played by Hilary Duff) of being the cause. After the daughter denies again and again, the detectives find the baby’s body buried in a lot and she finally admits she buried her there after the baby died in the night. Before she’s charged, though, the medical examiner explains that the baby didn’t die of causes inflicted by her mother; she had measles. The case turns to a hunt for the cause of a growing measles epidemic, and it leads them to a mother that refuses to vaccinate her child. “Selfish” is the first episode in the series about anti-vaccination, though it compares two types of parental negligence: refusal to vaccinate and refusal to take responsibility.
Season 11, Episode 17, “Disabled”
A truly heartbreaking episode, “Disabled” is about a former opera singer with multiple sclerosis that is raped and abused. The detectives immediately assume the abuse was carried out by the woman’s sister and nephew, though both of them insist they weren’t home at the time of the assault. After investigating, they come across video evidence of the sister abusing the woman by hitting her with a sock filled with bars of soap. However, it’s neither the sister nor the nephew that sexually assaulted the woman. The perpetrator in this episode will make you see red, especially when you realize the rate at which individuals in assisted living facilities are abused.
Season 12, Episode 4, “Merchandise”
“Merchandise” is an episode that concerns human trafficking for both forced work and sex. When a teenage girl is struck and killed by a taxi at a farmer’s market, the SVU detectives are called in due to unusual circumstances; she’s malnourished and seems to have been recently pregnant. They manage to find her father, who had no idea about any neglect or abuse; he had sent her and his son away to work at a farm because of the family’s tough financial situation. The episode sees Benson and Stabler teaming up with the US Attorney to bring down the family working the forced labor farm. The nature of the crimes in this episode is especially appalling, which is standard fare for SVU, but it’s more difficult than usual to see the way the son breaks down during the interrogation.
Season 13, Episode 5, “Missing Pieces”
A panicked mother contacts SVU when her car is stolen with her baby still inside. However, when she and her husband are interrogated, the detectives become suspicious that the couple is lying when they notice how agitated the husband is. When the police find the car, they also find a cooler with evidence that the baby had been put inside. The mother finally breaks down and tells the detectives where she and her husband had buried the baby. However, it eventually comes out that the baby might not have been killed. This episode has an unexpected ending that might leave some audiences angry, but nonetheless, it’s an incredibly interesting episode.
Season 14, Episode 3, “Twenty-Five Acts”
“Twenty-Five Acts” marks the first appearance of fan-favorite A.D.A Rafael Barba (Raul Esparza). A woman that writes erotic S&M novels is assaulted by a TV personality, but doesn’t come forward right away due to her profession. After the same man assaults her a second time, she decides to move forward with a trial. During the investigation, Detective Nick Amaro (Danny Pino) visits the school the victim attended and meets a professor whose writing bears a striking resemblance to that of the victim’s. This episode is particularly compelling due to the intense courtroom scenes that showcase Barba’s ability to argue and find the truth, and it has a truly unforgettable scene where the perpetrator chokes Barba with a belt in the courtroom.
Season 14, Episode 19, “Born Psychopath”
Sometimes, the perpetrators the SVU brings in aren’t adults or even teens; they’re children, and that’s the case in “Born Psychopath.” When a school nurse discovers bruises all over a young girl, detectives are called in to investigate possible child abuse. She claims that a monster pushed her down the stairs, and the girl’s brother blames the nanny. However, there’s no evidence that the nanny is responsible, and as the investigation moves forward, it’s soon discovered that the girl calls her brother “the monster.” This puts the detectives and Dr. Huang on a mission to get the brother help before he hurts his sister again, but they may be too late. This episode is a tough one to watch between the actions of the brother and the heartbreak of the parents, but it definitely asks a few interesting questions and will leave you with a lot to think about.
Season 15, Episode 7, “Dissonant Voices”
The episode features guest star Billy Porter as a music teacher who is accused of pedophilia and molestation by two of his students. The children seem credible and describe the bathroom where the assault took place in great detail, and the detectives find the vibrators the kids mentioned in the classroom. The teacher denies the accusation, and Detective Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish) believes him and asks Benson to keep the case quiet until they have more evidence. As the case wears on, the children begin to change their stories and it’s discovered that their older sisters were once students of the teacher as well. Eventually, the truth comes out, and despite the verdict, the teacher’s reputation is destroyed. Billy Porter gives an excellent performance in the episode and though it’s frustrating to see how the episode ends, it’s still a compelling watch.
Season 15, Episode 23, “Thought Criminal”
Can you convict someone just for thinking about doing horrible, illegal acts? That’s the central question of “Thought Criminal,” which follows a case about a photographer who spends time online talking about torturing and sexually assaulting young boys. The detectives of the SVU go undercover to catch him in the act of trying to buy a boy, but he continues to deny that he was doing anything wrong; he’s simply indulging in a fantasy. He’s never hurt anyone. The jury doesn’t convict him on any charges and he is seen back on the streets, photographing children at a local school. This episode is a frustrating one, because the man on trial is despicable and while he does get what he deserves in the end, it just feels irresponsible to let him go. This is one that will leave you with a lot to think about.