Episode
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: Ritual
Overview
Two garbage collectors discover what they first think is a scene of animal sacrifice but is the body of a young boy who appears to be the victim of a ritualistic killing. The investigation leads to the discovery of international child slavery.
Details
- Series
- Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
- Season
- Season 5
- Episode
- Episode 14
- Air date
- 2004-02-03
- Runtime
- 42 min
Episode context
Ritual is Episode 14 in Season 5 of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. It aired on 2004-02-03. The runtime is 42 min.
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Episode 13: Hate
A young Arab woman is brutally raped and burned, and after identifying her, the detectives suspect her husband and mother-in-law. After a man accused of the murders of three Arabs, he claims that he was genetically and biologically predisposed to hatred and violence, but soon they uncover the real impetus to the slayings.
Episode 15: Families
The investigation into the death of a pregnant high school student exposes a long-held family secret, which precipitates yet another violent death and eventually the destruction of two families.
More episodes from this season
Episode 12: Brotherhood
When the body of young man is found in a tank at a wastewater treatment plant, the medical examiner identifies a tattoo that says TE, the symbol for the fraternity Tau Omega. The investigation into the murder and sodomy of this local fraternity pledge master leads the detectives to his pornographic website featuring college girls at a local bar.
Episode 16: Home
A young, emaciated boy is found by neighbors scrounging for food; detectives suspect the boy is a victim of abuse and are reluctant to let him go home.
Episode 11: Escape
When a convicted pedophile, desperate to prove his innocence before his terminally ill mother dies, escapes from a Virginia Correctional Facility and kidnaps his accuser to force him to recant his story, a Deputy Marshall teams up with Benson to track them down. Benson eventually finds herself in the middle of a hostage situation beginning to believe his story.
Episode 17: Mean
The conviction of a group of sociopathic high school bullies who turned on one of their own escalates into even more violence and death in their exclusive private school.
Episode 10: Shaken
The discovery of a beaten infant leads detectives on a search for the attacker, who may be a pedophile. When the medical evidence shows the injuries were a result of shaken baby syndrome, their focus shifts to those closest to the child: her mother, the mother's boyfriend and the nannies.
Episode 18: Careless
When a young foster child dies due to a religious ritual gone awry, the detectives unravel a mysterious pattern of violence, abuse and murder within one foster care family.
Episode 9: Control
A subway commuter is found castrated and bleeding profusely, leading the detectives to discover their "victim" may be the perpetrator in abducting women and forcing them to live in his dungeon for several years as his bride. As the detectives prepare to arrest their victim turned suspect, Benson arrives to find him murdered.
Episode 19: Sick
A wealthy toy mogul is the suspect of the sexual abuse of a child. His prosecution impeded by the child's parents who refuse to produce their child for questioning to avoid losing the millions paid through a non-disclosure agreement, and by the discovery that a second accusation was falsified in an attempt to extort a settlement.
Episode 8: Abomination
Benson and Stabler have trouble identifying a male murder victim in his 20's found in a pile of sheets in the West Village; they later suspect an outspoken minister who was in the process of flooding the victim with hate mail and death threats. When the activist's alibi checks out, the detectives turn their attention to a professor who objects to the victim's thesis on the failure of sexual re-education groups.
Episode 20: Lowdown
Detectives try to decipher a motive for the strangulation of a Bronx assistant DA in an area where hookers stroll. When the death of the prosecutor looks staged using information gleaned from a co-worker's caseload, Novak endangers her career to obtain a confession.