Key Takeaways
- Season 28’s “Midway” explores how emotionally taxing SVU investigations impact Captain Renee Curry personally, especially as a single mother raising her teenage son Gabe.
- The episode highlights the balance detectives must strike between pursuing justice and showing compassion, as the case involves both grieving parents and a traumatized kidnapper who was herself a victim.
- Aimé Donna Kelly says Curry’s close relationship with Gabe adds depth to the character, emphasizing the trust, emotional connection, and fears of an approaching empty nest that many parents can relate to.
The latest investigation on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Season 28 hit close to home for one of the elite squad’s finest and Aimé Donna Kelly is breaking down why October 15’s episode not only “deepens” her beloved character, Captain Renee Curry, but how the storyline will resonate with any parent watching at home.
Law & Order: SVU Season 28, Episode 2 (“Midway”) was an emotional rollercoaster as Curry answered a panicked mother’s call after her son was abducted at a carnival. After discovering the boy’s body, the detectives come to a haunting realization that the kidnapper was a brainwashed woman abducted as a young girl whose captor spent decades training her to “save” other children. The tragic chain of events is hard for the entire squad to navigate as they balance their duty to provide justice to the boy’s parents while also offering compassion for the traumatized perpetrator, a victim who was never saved.
As a single mother to her teenage son Gabe (Jay Mack), the investigation visibly struck a chord with Curry throughout the episode. Unpacking “Midway” with NBC Insider, Kelly says SVU’s latest gives viewers a closer look at her character’s life outside of the precinct and how these investigations take a “toll” on the detectives.
“So many of the episodes are about the victims and the cases, but I think the part that the audience is really going to enjoy, especially this season, is you’re going to see how those cases affect us at home,” Kelly tells NBC Insider. “How do they take a toll on these human beings?”
Aimé Donna Kelly explains how SVU’s tough cases “really do affect” the elite squad
Aimé Donna Kelly as Capt. Renee Curry Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Season 28 Episode 2. Photo: Virginia Sherwood/NBC
While the SVU detectives are forced to keep their wits about them at all times, that doesn’t erase the traumatic events they experience on the job. Season 28’s “Midway” explored how the detectives’ personal lives often mingle with the latest case on their radar. Curry is a mother as much as she is a captain, and Kelly loved exploring that familial connection in “Midway,” which began with Curry insisting on dropping off Gabe for school.
“It just really deepens [Curry’s character],” Kelly says.
In the episode’s final moments, Curry was eager to connect with Gabe, managing to intercept him on his walk home from school and offering to give him a ride for the rest of the way. Gabe found it a tad silly, but he’d been at the top of Curry’s mind throughout the entire case.
“We’re not superheroes; we play superheroes, but these things really do affect us,” Kelly explains. “[Curry’s family life] deepens the characters; it deepens our connections to specific cases, so it just makes everything more specific, which is just so much more fun to play as an actor.”
SVU‘s episode “Midway” highlights Curry’s close relationship with her son Gabe
Gabe Curry (Jay Mack) and Capt. Renee Curry (Aimé Donna Kelly) on Law and Order SVU Season 27 Episode 10.Photo: Virginia Sherwood/NBC
Gabe and Curry’s connection was a heartwarming bookend to “Midway,” as Gabe is just as eager to accept his mom’s love as she’s willing to dish it out. Knowing she’ll face an empty nest soon, Curry is eager to connect with Gabe more than ever.
“I think this is true for any mom or parent who has a child at home in high school and is probably about to leave the nest,” Kelly tells NBC Insider. “There’s this really lovely relationship that Curry has with Gabe, and being a single parent, I think Curry really connects with her son. They’ve become kind of like best friends, which is the part of this episode that I really connected to. I’m the same way with my mom, so it was really fun to play that and have that represented in these two characters.”
“I think when you’re raising a child by yourself, there’s a lot of trust that has to happen,” Kelly continues. “There are those nights where you stay up talking about all the things because it’s just the two of you, and I think this episode really shows that relationship between Curry and Gabe, which is just lovely.”