Between seasons of Law & Order: SVU, Captain Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) has added a new detective, Kate Silva (Juliana Aidén Martinez), to the unit. And the Season 26 premiere, “Fractured,” her first episode, quickly gives us some information about her and shows us how she is as a detective.
Since Silva (who moved over from Brooklyn homicide) doesn’t have a car assigned to her yet, Benson picks her up, and we learn that the detective’s father—”good police”—was a cop for 35 years and deputy commissioner for 10. Silva’s surprised it took Benson a few weeks to mention him, and the captain explains she didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. She’s a good shot, the unit sees, with Benson taking everyone to the shooting range, to make sure they’re all on their game, as she explains.
Silva’s first case with SVU is a home invasion of law students after a threesome: One woman was raped and another (in whose room a camera is found) murdered. The prime suspect appears to be the fourth roommate, who came home in the middle, saw the others, and left. He liked the woman who was killed; was he angry enough to have done this? But he has an alibi.
The investigation then leads SVU to the victim’s friend who installed the camera in her room; he, too, liked her, and he watched the video of the threesome multiple times. He insists he was home, asleep, but no one can verify that. However, camera footage shows he was out after the time of the murder, carrying a dish towel, which could be concealing the murder weapon, a hammer. While searching the park, Detective Joe Velasco (Octavio Pisano) asks Silva if she always wanted to be a cop like her father. Since 9/11, she reveals, watching scared people running from the Towers and seeing who was running towards them, working-class heroes. She wanted to be one of them. She realizes that their suspect, as a law student, would know where cops search and finds where he dumped the hammer: in the cart of a homeless man.
The investigation uncovers that the victim had been attending women’s empowerment meetings and practicing saying no—to the suspect. Between a video testimony from the victim herself and ADA Sonny Carisi’s (Peter Scanavino) questioning of the suspect on the stand, they get a unanimous guilty verdict.
