Law and Order: SVU Season 17 ended with a shocker, something that has become quite common in the past few season finales in the series. The story not only came up with a shocking twist, but the fans also got to see Law and Order: SVU Season 17 carry on for two consecutive episodes with the same story while this was a first, it was required for the plot that was at hand.
The finale of Law and Order: SVU Season 17 saw correctional officer Gary Munson (Brad Garrett) charged for numerous counts of rape after many inmates at Rikers testified to him raping them repeatedly. While Munson was being taken away from court, Sergeant Benson (Mariska Hargitay) approaches Munson’s wife and asks her to take a real look at her husband and the relationship they shared.
Observer reports that Benson doesn’t stop there. She encourages Lisa (Karina Logue), Munson’s wife, to go for a test to check for sexually transmitted diseases. With Munson taken into custody, Lisa gets the results of the tests and on the basis of that decides to pack up and leave with her two children. Benson, on hearing the plan, encourages her to leave the house before Munson can return.
While all this seems to be running smoothly, Benson soon gets a call from a tearful Lisa that Munson had applied for a bail too fast for her to wrap her whole life up and leave in such a short notice. She desperately asks Benson for help. Benson immediately gets her team to go and help the victim of domestic violence.
In doing so, she interrupts a going away party for Sergeant Mike Dodds. Dodds ends up accompanying her to the Munson house. Once the two of them reach the house they get a clear idea that Munson will not let his children and wife leave without putting on a fight. While Benson sends the kid out of the house, Munson puts a gun to Dodds and his wife’s head and threatens to shoot them.
On being altered about the problem at hand, the whole team of Benson arrives at the spot. Dodds Sr. (Peter Gallagher), tries to grab Munson’s gun, a fight is shot and Dodds Jr. ends up getting shot. He is rushed to the hospital and undergoes a surgery, but things go from bad to worse and he dies because of a brain stroke that the doctors couldn’t identify.
Benson is shocked by this sudden turn of events and she feels that she is responsible for the death of Dodds since she was the one who made him go to Munson’s house. Unable to deal with her emotions, Benson heads to her therapist. Benson’s therapist tells that she isn’t at fault since no one could know that this would be the outcome of the incident.
While the season finale deals with a sad demise, the last part of the episode does show Olivia Benson and her partner, Ed (Joh Burke) working things out in their relationship.
There is a moment when the viewers gasp since Ed sits down one of his after having spoken about going to Paris for a vacation, but then the viewers find out that he had only bent down to check on little Noah. This moment seems to throw light on what the fans can expect between the two.
Warren Leight spoke about his decision to kill off Dodds’ character. He said that he had never killed any of the main characters in the plot before, but Dodds story seemed to come out naturally. He has always had a very plausible explanation for when they leave the show and he felt that only way to end Dodds story was to have been carried in a coffin by his team.