Life seems OK for our detectives when LAW & ORDER: SVU returns for a new season. Olivia has returned from a trip to Paris and she’s enjoyling life with Noah and Tucker. He’s starting work at the Conviction Integrity Unit and while that isn’t a focus of the episode, it’s a story that’s likely to be revisited in the future.
All of this happiness is paused when Olivia gets a call about a lost boy in the park. She heads over with her son and is shocked when the boy pulls a gun out of his backpack. She manages to diffuse the situation, but the boy doesn’t speak English and the police set about finding his parents and trying to figure out how he got his hands on a gun.
This eventually leads SVU to a potential terrorist cell and there’s a lot of timely subjects touched upon in the premiere. The recent mass shootings in San Bernadino, Orlando and Dallas are all referenced, as is the case between the government and Apple over the unlocking of a terrorist’s phone. But as the detectives learn more about the suspects it becomes clear that this may be more of an SVU case than a terrorist case, which leaves Olivia alone on a ledge. She wants to help all victims, but she’s getting push-back from those who just want the terrorists to pay.
LAW & ORDER: SVU returns for an all new season tonight (September 21) at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on NBC (U.S.) and CTV (Canada).
