‘Law & Order: SVU’: How’s Rollins Doing After Being Shot? (RECAP)

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[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Law & Order: SVU Season 24 Episode 2 “The One You Feed.”]

Knowing that Law & Order: SVU is about to say goodbye to Kelli Giddish’s Detective Amanda Rollins and she was just shot in the premiere crossover, we’re obviously keeping an eye on what’s going on with her in Season 24.

Nearly halfway through the third hour of the crossover, Rollins was leaving a safe house with a victim and witness when men started shooting at them. In the process of saving the victim, Rollins was shot (and nearly killed, if not for another detective’s intervention). By the time Captain Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) arrived on scene, Rollins was on the way to the hospital, having lost a lot of blood. “Amanda is a very strong woman, and if anyone can survive a gunshot wound, we both know she can,” the captain assured her boyfriend, ADA Sonny Carisi (Peter Scanavino), and she was right. The episode ended with him by Rollins’ side at the hospital, and she was on her way to recovering following surgery.

And now, in “The One You Feed,” Rollins picks “a hell of a first day to come back,” as Benson remarks when the detective and Velasco (Octavio Pisano) arrive at the crime scene of a rape and attack on a family in a subway by gang members. “What doesn’t kill you,” Rollins replies. Then it’s business as usual for Rollins. Benson has her and Velasco talk to the family at the hospital; the rape victim, her sister, and her mom are able to identify some of the attackers, but her father dies of injuries from a machete. Rollins and Fin (Ice T) handle one of the arrests. But when Rollins is in Carisi’s office to talk about the case, he notes she looks a bit beat. “Don’t push it,” he insists. “Let me take you home.”

Later, Benson insists Rollins sit down to talk to her considering she’s missed a few department shrink appointments. “I don’t want you to have to be worried about me,” Rollins says, but the captain has been for six weeks. Sure, she recovered quickly the last time she was shot, but “these things can be cumulative.” Rollins asks, “Do you not want me back?” That’s obviously not the case.

Michael Greenberg/NBC

And that’s when Rollins talks about what happened to her. When she was shot, “I couldn’t breathe,” and not knowing where the girl she was protecting was, “it made me think about my girls, losing them.” When the shooter came up to her to kill her, Rollins thought of Carisi, “how I’m never going to see him again. I’ve been so careless with my life. … I let my guard down. I just let myself be happy, for once. And this is what happens. I guess the difference is …” Benson finishes for her: “Never had anything to lose before.”

But Rollins doesn’t seem to be completely recovered, given that Benson suggests she go home when she stops in her office at the end of the day. “I’m fine,” Rollins insists, but it does look like her injury is bothering her. We’re worried.

Meanwhile, Benson has to deal with Chief McGrath (Terry Serpico) ordering her to work with Captain Duarte (Maurice Compte) from the Bronx Gang Unit. Any rumors she hears? Ignore them, McGrath says. Sure, he went too far while undercover, but he pulled himself back. So what exactly happened between Duarte and the gang member who’d had the machete on a roof that led to the latter’s body falling to the ground by Benson and Fin?

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When those rumors come up in the captains’ ensuing conversation, he delivers a low blow: “You would know all about that from your ex-partner. I’m pretty sure what you’re doing here is called projection.” (Wow.) The gang member’s death is ultimately ruled an accident, but there’s another issue for the captains to discuss: Duarte offered Velasco a job with his gang unit. Velasco does ask Fin about his switch from narcotics, but he ultimate decides to stay at SVU.

Also during the case, Benson not only asks Detective Muncy (Molly Burnett) about her boss — she has no reason to doubt him and says he’s a good cop — but also watches the way she interacts with a victim. “You were good the other day,” Benson tells her after, and Muncy explains that she usually deals with gang members’ girlfriends on the job. “Listening is probably the most valuable skill you can have as a cop,” the captain says. The detective remarks it’s nice to talk to another woman, and Benson agrees, which we can’t help but see as the show setting up for after Rollins is gone considering the episode ends with Muncy making the move over to SVU.

Law & Order: SVU, Thursdays, 9/8c, NBC