Law & Order: SVU season 25 episode 13 recap — Olivia races to free an innocent man

In Law & Order: SVU season 25 episode 13, "Duty to Hope," Olivia (Mariska Hargitay) and her squad are desperate to stop a serial rapist as his attacks are escalating. Their efforts are complicated when new ADA Heidi Russell (Kate Loprest) rushes to judgment and is content with sending the wrong man to prison for the crime. Will SVU catch the real assailant in time, saving an innocent man from years of imprisonment in the process? 

Here's what happened in the Law & Order: SVU season 25 finale.

Meet ADA Heidi Russell

Olivia is briefing a room full of New York’s finest on a patterned assailant known in the press as the Wire Hanger Rapist, when Heidi bursts into the room announcing herself as the assistant district attorney who is now the chief of the trial division, making her Carisi's (Peter Scanavino) boss. She apologizes for being late and sits down to hand the meeting back over to the SVU captain. Oddly enough though, Heidi continues to interrupt her, which obviously bothers Olivia. 

Handing the floor to the rest of the SVU team, they share that the suspect targets single women in low-income neighborhoods, where the buildings have little to no security. He unscrews lightbulbs in apartments to fake a power outage, waits for the victim to show up, ties the person up with a coat hanger and then uses the barrel of a gun to sexually assault his victim. Additionally, all the women assaulted identify their assailant as a white man between 20 and 30 years old with brown hair. 

ID'ing the wrong man

It's late at night and Ariel (Amber Stonebraker) is on the phone with her roommate as she walks into her dark apartment. She attempts to flip the switch, but the lights don't come on. Ariel tells her roommate she'll figure things out, then proceeds to burn some candles before hopping in the shower. As she finishes up, she is attacked by a man in a ski mask. 

When SVU shows up to work the crime scene, Olivia notes the amount of blood found signals their suspect is escalating. However, they manage to find a fingerprint on a sliding door window. At the hospital, Olivia and Curry (Aimé Donna Kelly) speak with Ariel, who describes her horrific ordeal, which fits the pattern of the previous cases SVU has been working on. Ariel does add a new piece of information to the case when she mentions the suspect had on thick tan gloves. 

Later a hit comes back on the fingerprint, and Fin (Ice-T) tells Carisi the print belongs to Billy Hedges (Spenser Granese), a sanitation worker in the city. Bruno (Kevin Kane) interrogates Billy, who insists he didn't commit any crime. Unfortunately for Billy, he doesn't have a great alibi and has a previous charge on his record for groping a girl at a nightclub. Ariel also picks him out in a photo lineup. Heidi pressures Carisi to take what he has to trial, a decision Olivia isn't fond of as she believes they don't have the right guy. 

Carisi doesn't have to take the case past an arraignment hearing, as Billy's public defender convinces him to take a plea deal for the assault of Ariel, as there's not enough evidence to pin all of the previous assaults on him. Billy is sentenced to serve seven years. When Carisi shares with Olivia the news of the plea deal, Velasco (Octavio Pisano) walks in and informs them that another woman has been victimized and the attack fits the MO of the Wire Hanger Rapist. 

At the home of victim Sara Gomez (Paloma Dominguez), the press asks Olivia if they arrested the wrong guy. Olivia and Fin brush them off, claiming to be doing all they can to work the case. Heidi then shows up and theorizes they have a copycat on their hands. Olivia vehemently disagrees and thinks Billy was charged and pressured to plead guilty by his incompetent public defender. Heidi stands by her decision and refers to the fingerprint and the victim's ID before telling Olivia she doesn't want to hear excuses. 

SVU gets its first real break in the case when Sara informs detectives that during her assault, the suspect stopped when he heard her neighbor banging on her door. In the process, the assailant dropped his gun holster and before he could pick it up, she kicked the holster under her stove, which the crime lab opts to test for DNA. 

Fin is shot and the case ends in dramatic fashion

Fin goes home and takes out the trash. Once he puts a bag in the can, he's confronted by Toby Hedges (Max Malas), Billy's son. The teenager holds a gun on Fin and expresses how angry he is that SVU arrested his dad for a crime he didn't commit. The sergeant wrestles with Toby for the weapon and it goes off, shooting Fin in the shoulder. Thankfully, Fin is only grazed and sends Toby home. When Fin tells Olivia about the incident, he swears her to secrecy. 

The next day, Carisi tells Olivia that Heidi is still not willing to release Billy from prison despite the mounting evidence that he's innocent, not unless they can find more. Carisi decides to go speak to Billy in prison to see if there is something they missed, and Olivia advises he take Fin with him. 

Billy reveals that before he started his job as a sanitation worker, he worked at a home improvement store where he commonly handled glass sliding doors and loaded them into delivery vans. This seemingly explains why his fingerprint was on Ariel's window. Bolstering Billy's case, the crime lab calls and says they found DNA on the gun holster belonging to ex-marine Glenn Duncan (Eric Olsson). 

When SVU goes to confront Glenn, a shootout ensues between him and the police. Although Olivia tries to negotiate his peaceful surrender, Glenn is resistant. Police break into his apartment and kill him. Later, Billy is released from prison. 

Olivia makes a touching gesture

Putting this case behind her, Olivia goes to Maddie's (Allison Elaine) 16th birthday party. She is doing much better in her recovery after her harrowing kidnapping ordeal. Maddie and her parents take the time to thank Oliva for all she's done to help them. 

Taking Maddie's mom Eileen (Leslie Fray) to the side, Olivia asks how she's doing. Eileen admits Maddie is doing better but things are still rough and she's trying to navigate it all. Eileen then gestures to the compass necklace Elliot (Christopher Meloni) gifted Oliva and claims perhaps she needs one of them. This prompts Olivia to let Eileen borrow it until she no longer needs it. 

When Olivia goes back to her office, she makes a call to Elliot. She explains how much she appreciates the compass necklace and shares she let Eileen borrow it. He understands Maddie's mom may need it more than Olivia right now, which Olivia thought he might. The episode ends with the two "friends" laughing on the phone. 

All Law & Order: SVU season 25 episodes are now streaming on Peacock.