The BEST episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit season 3
Every episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit season 3, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit season 3!
Delves into the dark side of the NYC underworld as the detectives investigate and prosecute various sexually oriented crimes, including rape, pedophilia, domestic violence, and the abuses of children, the disabled, and elderly victims of non-sexual crimes who require specialist handling, all while trying to balance the effects of the investigation on their own lives as they try not to let the dark side of these crimes affect them.
#1 - Guilt
Season 3 - Episode 18 - Aired 3/29/2002
When A.D.A. Cabot is faced with a reluctant witness in a child molestation case, she goes above and beyond the normal scope of duty in her search for evidence to convict the serial abuser. But her passion supercedes her compliance with the law as she misrepresents herself to Benson and Stabler to bring them into an illegal search of the traumatised boy's home -- jeopardising not only her case, but the careers of all involved. SVU Bureau Chief Elizabeth Donnelly is faced with the frustrating task of bringing Cabot in line to preserve the integrity of the Special Victims Unit.
#2 - Monogamy
Season 3 - Episode 11 - Aired 1/4/2002
The wife of a psychiatrist, seven months pregnant, is found unconscious and bleeding in a parking garage with her fetus missing. The attending paramedic reports to Benson that the victim "sustained massive abdominal trauma" that looks "like an emergency C-section". The investigation leads to infedility and uncertainty as to the paternity, adding fuel to the fire of an already aggitated Stabler.
#3 - Counterfeit
Season 3 - Episode 14 - Aired 1/25/2002
A woman is found raped and killed by her car. Benson and Tutuola try to figure out why there were drugs in the victim's trunk but then find that a similar rape was committed. This victim says that a police officer raped her after pulling her over for a supposed driving violation. The D.A. now has to zero in on the corrupt cop.
#4 - Care
Season 3 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/23/2001
The battered body of a five-year-old girl in foster care is discovered, and suspicion soon turns to the girl's foster brother, who is into violent video games and doesn't seem quite right in the head. The investigation turns to the girl's biological mother as well as to her foster mother and grandmother as the team tries to figure out who is the real guilty party, and who is only a red herring.
#5 - Greed
Season 3 - Episode 20 - Aired 4/26/2002
Investigating the assault of the wife of a restaurateur during a robbery, leads the detectives to a similar assault, and to a locksmith.
#6 - Execution
Season 3 - Episode 15 - Aired 2/1/2002
As an inmate gets closer and closer to his death penalty sentence, Stabler struggles to find out whether that man was the perpetrator of a different crime with an unidentified murderer. Dr. Huang assists Stabler but the investigation goes haywire to mixed results.
#7 - Repression
Season 3 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/28/2001
After therapy uncovers repressed memories of abuse and fearing her seven-year-old sister is currently being molested, an eighteen-year-old girl brings charges of rape against her father who winds up murdered when those charges are dismissed.
#8 - Competence
Season 3 - Episode 22 - Aired 5/10/2002
The investigation into the rape and impregnation of a young girl with Down's Syndrome uncovers a serial rapist who preys on handicapped young girls under the guise of being their benefactor.
#9 - Prodigy
Season 3 - Episode 13 - Aired 1/18/2002
When an animal rights activist is found decapitated in the park, Benson and Stabler must determine which of their two main suspects -- a sociopathic teenager and a recently paroled rapist -- is responsible for the murder.
#10 - Tangled
Season 3 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/26/2001
When arriving party guests find a prominent doctor murdered and his wife raped, the investigation starts with his estranged son and a former patient, then moves to his mistress and her neighbor and the realization that the wife was the intended victim.
#11 - Popular
Season 3 - Episode 16 - Aired 3/1/2002
Stabler's wife tells him that her friend (a nurse) treated a young girl for rape by a teacher. Despite being advised not to find out further details, Stabler, with help from Benson, crack open the case to disturbing details. The girl had been part of a club in which sexual favors were given for drugs in a group of teenagers.
#12 - Inheritance
Season 3 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/16/2001
The search for a serial rapist leads to a suspect who was himself a product of rape, and whose father was convicted of that crime. The young man's attorney blames his genetics as the reason for his actions.
#13 - Surveillance
Season 3 - Episode 17 - Aired 3/8/2002
The sexual assault of a cellist leads the detectives to a stalking case where the suspect uses surveillance equipment.
#14 - Sacrifice
Season 3 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/9/2001
A shooting outside of a gay bar leads the detectives to the victim's family, which includes a bitter feud with his parents, and his wife's involvement in pornographic movies.
#15 - Stolen
Season 3 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/12/2001
The kidnapping of an infant at a grocery store leads to a scheme of snatching and selling babies for adoption which brings back a case from twelve years ago that involved Captain Cragen and his partner, the late Max Greevey.
#16 - Denial
Season 3 - Episode 21 - Aired 5/3/2002
When a heroin junkie is found raped, Tutuola takes an interest in Claire, but he's not the only one. When they find a finger in her purse, it opens a can of worms that spans back thirteen years, to when a teenaged Claire witnessed her mother beating her baby sister Lisa to death, and even further back, when Claire's grandmother, Rose, turns Grace in for the murder of her first-born son, Anthony, years before Claire was born.
#17 - Justice
Season 3 - Episode 19 - Aired 4/5/2002
In investigating the sexual assault of a 16-year-old, it's discovered that the victim is the rebellious stepdaughter of a judge.
#18 - Protection
Season 3 - Episode 12 - Aired 1/11/2002
A 6-year-old boy wounded in a shooting is brought to the hospital ER but abandonded by the brother who reported it and their mother. The case leads the detectives to a woman who is on the run for her abusive lover, a drug dealer whom she saw kill a rival.
#19 - Ridicule
Season 3 - Episode 10 - Aired 12/14/2001
What appears as an accidental death leads to a case involving a male stripper who claims that the deceased was one of three women who raped him at a bachelorette party.
#20 - Rooftop
Season 3 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/19/2001
When an HIV-positive male with a record of assaulting underage girls is discovered in a sexual clincher with a young woman on a rooftop, the detectives are determined to put him back inside. After a series of rapes and murders that cannot be traced to him, though, they begin to wonder if they've been looking the wrong way.
#21 - Silence
Season 3 - Episode 23 - Aired 5/17/2002
A murder in a church leads Benson and Stabler to an alleged cover-up involving sexual abuse by a priest.
#22 - Wrath
Season 3 - Episode 2 - Aired 10/5/2001
The detectives investigate three murders that seemingly have with no connection to each other, but each one has ties to Benson's previous cases and the detectives worry that Benson is the intended target.
#23 - Redemption
Season 3 - Episode 6 - Aired 11/2/2001
Stabler is teamed up with John 'Hawk' Hawkins to capture a serial rapist/murderer whom Hawk originally convicted years earlier. The more investigation done, the more unlikely it becomes that the convicted culprit was innnocent. Hawk is then at a crossroads about his life and his prestige as an officer.