'Law and Order: SVU' Premiere Recap: Season 23, Episode 1 - TVLine

But she rushes back to the office, because Chief McGrath is gunning to take down Congressman Howard, the big fish connected to the ring of sleazebags who are making women living in public housing have sex with them?

So they work to set him up at an upcoming fundraiser, even though Garland is wary and wants to make sure everything is 100 percent certain before they shoot their shot — and McGrath, already not his biggest fan, doesn’t want to hear it.

Liv and Carisi later see Howard’s lawyer slapping him (!) after Howard demands that his legal counsel make all of his problems go away.

McGrath holds a press conference about the arrests — and Garland only learns about it when he turns on his TV and sees Liv and Carisi standing next to the big boss.

(For what it’s worth, Liv did not know that Garland had been iced out. But she did know about — yet did not divulge to the rest of her squad — the presence of Joe Velasco, a secret undercover officer McGrath placed at the fundraiser.) Before he leaves, he thanks her for having his back!

So Carisi and the SVU team get busy prepping the people who are going to testify at the grand jury in Howard’s case: Velasco, Machado, Ortiz, Jenna the intern, Paulie the super who was hooking Howard up with women, and Rosa, the mother living in subsidized housing whom we met in the Season 22 finale.

It goes smoothly — so smoothly, in fact, that Carisi is feeling good enough about the cast to ask Rollins out for dinner the night before the court date.

So that means nearly everyone who can take Congressman Howard down is either dead or missing.

As Rollins and Liv stare at Catalina’s lifeless body, Liv says, “Find Rosa and find Jenna — now!”?

Rollins and Velasco eventually find Jenna trying to run away via the roof; Velasco realizes that she’s afraid of what her father, who he inferred is abusive, will do when he finds out about her involvement with Howard.

Back at the station, Jenna’s father refuses to let her cooperate with the case against Howard, maintaining that “nothing happened” between his daughter and the congressman.

As it turns out, Howard got Jenna pregnant when she was 15 — and Jenna’s mother also has one of Jenna’s dresses that incriminates him.

Terrible story short: Howard slept with Jenna on her 15th birthday (though more likely, it was under dubious consent at best), then became pregnant.

And when Howard finds this out — while Carisi and Liv are watching, no less — he says that his lawyer is responsible for all the dirty work, including the hits on his witnesses.

None of the higher-ups — like, higher than McGrath and Carisi — want to go after Gold.

And then Kat comes to visit Liv to tell her that she doesn’t want to be part of the police department’s broken system anymore.

On a related note: Chief Garland puts in his papers to leave, telling Liv that he’s going to go before the department can bloody him up any more!

McGrath nearly does a tapdance in his joy over Garland’s departure, informing Benson that he thinks SVU should focus on the “real rapes” (rather than acquaintance rape, etc., which he deems beneath the department) and that, until they fill the deputy chief position, she’s going to report directly to him.

“So am I,” she concurs — but she doesn’t want to tell anyone else, not yet