Law and Order SVU season 19, episode 19: Peter Stone highlights

How did Peter Stone do in this week’s Law and Order: SVU? Check out the highlights in our Philip Winchester-centric SVU season 19, episode 19 recap.

Now that Philip Winchester is officially a series regular on Dick Wolf‘s Law & Order: SVU, we’re keeping tabs on what Peter Stone gets up to.

SVU season 19, episode 19 was called “Sunk Cost Fallacy” and saw Peter coming face to face with one of his predecessors, Alexandra Cabot (guest star Stephanie March). He also had a big choice to make regarding his mentally ill sister.

If you missed any of Philip Winchester’s latest episode, or you’re a Chicago Justice fan who wants to know what Peter got up to, we’re breaking down the installment for you with the highlights for his character.

Here are the highlights from Peter Stone’s seventh SVU episode:

1) An impossible choice

Peter appears right away in “Sunk Cost Fallacy,” as he’s at his sister‘s mental health facility and learns that she is “severely psychotic.” He’s now got to choose what to do as her condition worsens, and he doesn’t have a lot of time to make the decision.

"Stone: She doesn’t even know who I am.Doctor: She’s still your sister."

Philip Winchester is an absolute pro at showing us everything going through Peter’s head in a very short period of time. No matter what he chooses, it’s not going to end well, and it’s clear that he knows that. And this is before he’s got a case to prosecute. How much worse could this week get? Well…

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2) Speeding up the process

The case of the week involved the abduction of a woman and her daughter. But it didn’t take SVU long to drag the skeletons out of the closet and prove there was a lot more going on underneath. Suspicion immediately fell on the victim’s unfaithful husband, and Peter returned to watch the man’s first interrogation, to size up the sole suspect. He had an interesting idea for how to get to the bottom of things:

"Stone: A guy like Hunter? A night in Rikers should make him talk. Arrest him for murder."

3) It’s not a real murder

If you were thinking the end of Act One was a bit early for SVU to be wrapping things up, you were right. As the victim’s husband was beaten up in prison, the cops found a man named Caleb Pierce, who led them to their former ADA, Alexandra Cabot. Yep, now you see where this episode is going. The victims’ deaths were faked, so they could get away from the unfaithful and abusive husband, who was innocent and sitting in a cell.

Well, that naturally made Peter Stone’s brain cramp a little bit. Especially when he was personally named in a subsequent civil lawsuit:

"Benson: He’s suing me?Stone: You, me, the department, the DA’s Office and the city, for $50 million dollars."

Hey, that never happened on Chicago Justice. Could you imagine the massive fit that Mark Jefferies would have had it if it did?

4) Getting his shots in

Fans didn’t see Peter Stone again until the final minutes of “Sunk Cost Fallacy.” Being deposed in the civil lawsuit, he turned it into a cross-examination.

"Stone: A man who gave a damn about his wife would’ve postponed this deposition until after her body was in the ground."

He subsequently compared notes with Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) as they admitted that the bad guy might get away with murder, but Peter still empathized with Benson’s choices and tried to tell her tomorrow would be another day. The discussion then struck a chord with him as he had to still figure out to do with his sister. He chose not to take her off her medication, and decided he’d spend some time with her even though she still looked at him like a stranger.

“Sunk Cost Fallacy” provided Peter Stone his first loss as SVU‘s prosecuting attorney (since the first time he lost he wasn’t actually working for them), but even the best lawyers can’t win every case. As he told Benson, now it’s just time to get up tomorrow and try again.

Next: Here's where Peter Stone left off last week

New episodes of Law & Order: SVU air Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on NBC. For more show coverage, follow the Dick Wolf category at One Chicago Center.

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