TVSquad

(S08E01) Good Lord, how disturbing was that opening scene? A girl shows up to the emergency room with a shaved and wounded head. She won't give her name or allow a rape kit even though it's obvious that's what happened to her. All she wants is a morning after pill. Det. Olivia Benson (a very pregnant Mariska Hargitay) catches her as she's leaving the hospital and trails the woman to her apartment. From the super, she learns the girl's name is Hailey. She gets into Hailey's apartment but the woman refuses to give any information and she cries as she gets into the bathtub and washes away all evidence of her rape. Luckily, Olivia is snoopy. As she's leaving the apartment, she swipes the girl's underpants for evidence.

Olivia continues her snooping the next day as she tracks down Hailey's boyfriend, Justin, a self-righteous government-hater who works with his girlfriend at a food co-op. He starts to warm up to Olivia when she tells him what happened to Hailey but then he clams up again when Olivia starts asking for names and a DNA sample.

Det. Benson returns to Hailey's apartment, to find it's been ransacked and, as she's looking at grotesque photos of animal testing, a gun is pointed at her head. It turns out it's our old friend Star (Marcia Gay Harden), an FBI informant from a few seasons ago. Star was undercover in a neo-Nazi group but had to blow her cover in the courtroom when the son of a man on trial drew a gun and started shooting (that was a spectacular episode).

Even though Star and Olivia are buddies now, Star resists telling her what she's doing in Hailey's apartment. She does say that Justin is being watched by the FBI because he's a suspected eco-terrorist, the nation's "number one domestic terror threat." Star believes Justin's group is funneling money to an extremist eco-terrorist group called Earth Defenders Group (EDG). Hailey was Star's informant. Side note: what was with all the different locations for this story? First they're in Hailey's apartment, then Star continues her story downstairs, then at some FBI slide show and finally at a coffee shop. It was really weird. I guess they're trying to figure out ways to hide Mariska's baby belly.

Anyway, during the weird storytelling sequence, we discover that the EDG kids probably found out that Hailey was wearing a wire. Star and Olivia decide to work together and pretend Star is with SVU, so she doesn't totally freak out the boyfriend who already thinks the government is following him. However, Olivia gets pulled off the case because she broke protocol by stealing those panties... but the DNA on them do end up matching someone in the system, we just don't know who since the evidence was obtained illegally.

Star continues with the investigation and brings Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) with her to check out the cabin of an EDG member who could have raped Hailey. Inside the cabin, which I imagine to be much like the Unabomber's cabin except with a toilet, they find tofu patties, garden burgers and... dynamite! Star and Stabler run out of the cabin, make a joke, and then it explodes. Elliott is knocked out. When he wakes up, he tells Star that she's a jinx. "Everytime you show up, I nearly get killed" (he was shot at the courthouse).

Elliott's concussion puts Olivia back on the case. She and Star make quite a pair, don't they? They arrest Mitchell, the guy with the dynamite in his freezer, and question him about his last meeting with Hailey. He says she got into an SUV with some guy near her apartment. They threaten him with jail and Mitchell reveals that there's a big ass attack planned by the eco-terrorists.

The episode takes a twist when Hailey's rapist shows up in the morgue. His DNA matches the DNA in her panties. He's a newly freed drug dealer with a shot to the head. Now it looks like Hailey got revenge against her rapist... who probably raped her because he figured out she was the informant who sent him to prison. Star has yet another great line her, admonishing her fellow FBI agent for not covering up Hailey's identity very well: "You did a piss poor job on this one, Lockwood. It's obvious Hailey's the informant. She's the only one in the gang who didn't go to prison."

Hailey ends up calling Star and they meet up, where Olivia confronts her and arrests her for the murder of the drug dealer. But they decide that the murder isn't really that important compared to whatever EDG has planned. Reluctantly, the Asst. DA allows Olivia (now undercover) and Hailey to continue with the EDG plan and they deliver diesel fuel and fertilizer to some eco-terrorist in a subway. They get into a van with him and arrive at GEN ENG, where a security guard lets them inside. Olivia and Hailey go upstairs to deliver the fertilizer to the ring leader and, as Olivia radios back-up to make arrests, Hailey knocks her on the head and she falls to the ground, unconscious. I actually shrieked when that happened!

Olivia regains consciousness and discovers that Hailey is actually the ringleader. Star arrives and they try to talk Hailey out of it but she's mixing the bomb in the CEO's office of GEN ENG and is willing to die over genetically engineered food and animal testing. Star kills her and then quickly sends Olivia downstairs to be arrested with the other eco-terrorists, who don't know she's an undercover cop. The episode ends with Star asking Olivia to remain undercover and follow the group leader, Andy Dell, to Oregon (what can I say? they did their research). She goes, leaving Stabler and the other fellas to wonder what's happening. Un-freakin'-believable.

Next week: A new partner for Stabler and a woman who poses as a child?

Best line: "Oh no, he's not paranoid. He is being watched by the government" - Star