“Law and Order”: SVU Penetration

Agent Diana Lewis, a friend of Benson shows up at her apartment seeking to have a rape kit run. She is secretive about the details until she divulges she was raped. She would not relent to the details. She gives the excuse that is she working undercover to investigate an anti-government militia that plans on protesting building of the mosque near Ground Zero. Benson tells Stabler and the join her in the investigation.

Stabler reluctantly shows them the scene of her rape. She was injected with a paralyzing drug when she was at home. She doesn’t want to come forward because it will blow her cover. Lewis gets snatched and taken away in a van. The detectives track down the van and find it on fire. The van driver is dead and Lewis is missing.

Stabler and Benson go to Lewis’s FBI supervisor. He tells them she left the agency a year ago and he has not heard from her. They eventually find Lewis. She tells them her boss lied to keep her cover. The SVU team discovers another crime matching Lewis’s where the perp also injected a paralyzing agent. The victim of the crime was corresponding with an inmate through the prison pen pal program, Seth Coleman. Coleman was recently let out of jail. Lewis gives a positive ID on Coleman.

Stabler and Benson arrive to question Coleman and he bolts. Lewis arrives later on the scene and gets into a standoff where she is holding a gun directed at him. Coleman holds a nail gun on her. Lewis panic and pulls the trigger, and the bullet hits Stabler in the shoulder.

When Lewis goes to see Stabler in the hospital to apologize, he tells her that Coleman will admit to the first victim but denies raping her. Stabler wants Lewis to confront Coleman. She doesn’t want to at first, but finally gives in. Coleman maintains that he did not rape her.

In court the defense tries to attack Lewis’s character. Benson combs through the case details and realizes that when Lewis described her assault, her attacker called her “Star”. Star was a codename used in a previous investigation where Lewis caught Brian Ackerman. Benson discovers the rape was set up as retaliation by Ackerman. Ackerman and Coleman were cellmates in prison. The show ends as Ackerman and Lewis face off in jail. Ackerman seems pleased his revenge was well executed. Lewis can only retort by telling him to enjoy his life in solitary confinement.