‘Law & Order: SVU’ Season 27 Finale Recap: Benson faces off with Chief Tynan again as Griff is shot
The long-running battle between ‘Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’ captain Olivia Benson and Chief Kathryn Tynan finally hit its breaking point in the Season 27 finale that aired on May 14. The finale opened with what looked like an ordinary investigation into a traffic accident. Uniformed officers responded to a minor crash and noticed a firearm inside one of the vehicles. After pulling the driver out and placing him in handcuffs, officers realized the gun was unloaded. Then came the real horror show. A terrified young boy was discovered inside the trunk with duct tape binding his hands and covering his mouth. The driver, Richard Caine, was immediately arrested. Six months later, the case landed in court. ADA Sonny Carisi watched it fall apart after the defense presented a video showing an officer leaning into the suspect’s car before spotting the gun.
Because the search took place without a warrant, all evidence collected was ruled inadmissible. The judge had little room to maneuver, even though Benson had previously obtained a full confession from Caine during questioning after his arrest. Back at the squad room, Benson was still reeling when Griff revealed new information about his late father. He traced a gun from his father’s storage unit to a 1997 robbery. That led Benson to realize Griff’s father had kept the weapon after shooting a mob associate years earlier, with Chief Tynan allegedly helping cover it up. When Griff confronted Benson, she defended his father as a good man who shot a dangerous criminal. Griff argued that both she and Tynan broke the law to protect themselves, while Benson admitted she knowingly made that choice and believed he would have done the same.
Griff claimed he would have acted differently, though the conversation clearly shook him. Meanwhile, the squad threw themselves back into the Caine investigation. Amanda Rollins and Kate Curry discovered that he had used another identity linked to an old missing-child case. Meanwhile, another detective connected him to several murdered and missing boys over the years. The investigation led Benson and the team to Staten Island, where they found the bodies of three young boys on the beach, all bound the same way as the child rescued from Caine’s trunk. Benson wanted Caine arrested immediately, but Carisi warned they still lacked enough evidence, so the team instead got a warrant to track him. After DNA from a victim’s shirt matched Caine, police finally had probable cause.
But, he tricked them by attaching the tracker to a taxi and disappearing while kidnapping another boy. Using a tip from Caine’s ex-wife, the squad tracked him to a rainy campground. They rescued the kidnapped boy unharmed, but things got violent when Caine opened fire inside one of the buildings. Griff was shot in the abdomen during the confrontation. Even after being wounded himself, Caine managed to stagger into another room, where Griff cornered him alone. Caine began taunting him, bragging that authorities still had no idea about the extent of his crimes. That was when Benson rushed in. Caine was ultimately neutralized and taken back into custody. By the episode’s final act, doctors confirmed Griff would survive despite the severity of his injuries. But the drama was still not finished.
Outside his hospital room, Chief Tynan confronted Benson one last time and threatened to take away her badge for endangering the unit. Tynan coldly declared, “Your career is over, and I am no longer sorry about that.” Benson, however, finally had leverage. She said, “I don't think that's going to happen.” When Tynan dismissed whatever Griff may have revealed as unprovable, Benson calmly asked, “You sure about that?” The realization instantly hit Tynan: “He recorded it.” Rather than destroy Tynan publicly, Benson made her position clear. She told the chief she had no interest in ruining her career, but she would not stand by and allow her own life’s work to be destroyed either. Tynan walked away after that, ending their ugly season-long war.
