BWW Recap: LAW & ORDER: SVU - Billy Porter Gives Astonishing Performance as Accused Music Teacher

*This Article Deals With Sensitive Subjects*

Last night's episode of NBC's LAW & ORDER: SVU titled 'Dissonant Voices' featured an X-Factor parody with Carly Rose Sonenclar (Broadway's Wonderland,X Factor Runner-Up) portraying a contestant at an audition. Tony Award winning actor Billy Porter (Kinky Boots) plays her vocal coach, Jackie Walker, and we're immediately thrown into the drama where a young boy watching accuses "Mr. Jackie" of making him play Doctor in the bathroom.

The four year old boy, Jonah, continues to tell Detective Olivia Benson that the Jackie 'played Doctor' with him when he has to go to the bathroom. Then we find out that Jonah confided in his sister, who believed that she was making it up.

Jonah describes that they played in a 'special bathroom' decorated with bluebirds and flowers, which Detectives Finn and Rollins find when they investigate the school. When they go into the music room, they find the 'purple egg that tickets' that Jonah described in the percussion cabinet, which turns out to be a vibrator.

Detectives Amaro and Benson bring Jackie back to question him at the police station. Jackie is adamant that he never did anything. When Benson asks him about why he would still continue to work with children when he has a thriving career as a vocal coach, Jackie lawyers up saying that they're refusing to listen to him.

When they hit a dead end with nothing against Jackie in his history, they go and interview other kids. Another boy, Cooper, says that Jackie does bad things in the bathroom, and then quickly corrects to the sink, and tickles him with the eggs, just like Jonah's story, but the detectives acknowledged the bathroom he described was different. When they go to a worried mother, she remembers that he came home without underwear one day.

The detectives find Jonah's saliva on the 'magic eggs' (sex toys) that were found in the classroom, leaving the ADA no choice but to arrest Jackie Walker. They come back and Jackie Cops that Cooper fell into the toilet, which is why he told Cooper their time in the bathroom could be their secret.

When he's brought in for arraignment, his bail is set at one million dollars. Detective Benson still refuses to believe that there are holes in his story, despite Dectective Rollins' doubts.

The next scene opens with Detective Benson at her therapist's office, where she describes her job as a game of 'whack-a-mole'. The therapist brings up the idea of her wanting to save everyone, but did anyone ever take care of her?

There is a montage of allegations saying that Jackie Walker was a bad man, boys and girls admitting that Jackie touched him. When ADA Barba comes in (played by Raul Esparza), he tells them to go back to Jonah's sister, who describes a story similar to that off the preschoolers, and told the Detectives that she put them inside herself while Jackie watch.

When going to Cooper's house, they realize that the bathroom Cooper was describing was his own, and that only his baby sitter and Jonah's sister came and gave him a bath. It's revealed that Brooke told him to tell the story about the 'magic eggs', essentially framing Jackie Walker.

With this new information, they realize that Brooke and Rachel framed Jackie. They went to talk to Jackie, who told them that he had dropped both girls recently to focus on Grace who was seen on in The X Factor parody at the beginning of the episode. They interrogate both girls, and Rachel gives up Brooke, that the entire idea was hers after they had been dropped by Jackie because they didn't have the talent Grace had.

Billy Porter gives a stunning scene at the end of the episode, a type of scene we don't normally see when a person is falsely charged. He portrays the emotions of a man charged falsely and refused to be listened to because of his sexuality amazingly and heartbreakingly. His character hears the girls who framed him won't be charged because they have no one to testify against them except their brothers who are "too damaged." All he says is "They're damaged?" and leaves the scene. Detective Benson and ADA Barba both say it was a mistake that wasn't their fault, but only Detective Rollins says "No, it didn't have to happen this way" as the episode ends.

Photos by: Michael Parmelee/NBC

To post a comment, you must register and login.