"Chicago Crossover" is the seventh episode of the sixteenth season of the American police procedural-legal drama, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and the 350th overall episode of the long-running series. It originally aired on NBC in the United States on November 12, 2014. In this episode, the SVU team meets up with the Intelligence Unit of Chicago P.D. to solve a decades-old child pornography ring case, which is personal for CPDs Detective Erin Lindsay (Sophia Bush).
The episode was written by Ed Zuckerman, Warren Leight, and Dick Wolf, and directed by Steve Shill. This episode marks an unprecedented crossover in Law & Order franchise history where three shows (all three created by Wolf) crossover with one main storyline. The story began in the 7th episode of season 3 "Nobody Touches Anything" of Chicago Fire where a fire victim was found with child pornography. The Fire Department turn the case over to the Chicago Police, who take on the initial investigation that leads them to Manhattan, where the detectives from Chicago P.D. team up with the SVU in "Chicago Crossover". The story concludes in the CPD episode "They'll Have To Go Through Me", where the main suspect returns to Chicago after leaving behind clues in New York. Filming on "Chicago Crossover" began on October 9, 2014 in New York City. NBC began using the hashtag "#CrossoverWeek" in their on-air promos for the three shows' episodes.
"Chicago Crossover" was seen by 10.01 million viewers making the second most viewed program of the night on NBC and the second ranked program in the time slot. Critical response to the SVU episode of the crossover was generally positive, many critics praising the tension-filled scenes and 'fireworks' between lead actors Mariska Hargitay and Jason Beghe, who portrayed Sgts. Olivia Benson and Hank Voight, respectively; Lou Taylor Pucci was also praised for his portrayal of Teddy Courtney.
Plot
The episode starts where the Chicago Fire episode "Nobody Touches Anything", left off—where the CFD firefighters rescued a man from a burning building and in his possession, he held a box full of child pornography, a box that was dropped during Lieutenant Kelly Severide's (Taylor Kinney) attempt to save the man's life. The CFD then turned this evidence over to the Chicago police. Detective Erin Lindsay has a personal stake in the case: her half-brother is involved somehow and in New York City. Benson gets a call from Voight that his team is on a plane to Manhattan to help the SVU solve the case.
Lindsay explains to the SVU about how her half-brother Teddy Courtney (Lou Taylor Pucci) went missing when they were younger and how her mother thought that somehow he ran away to New York. Benson tells Lindsay that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) ran Teddy’s face through their system and they found more images, and concluded that he was connected to a pedophile ring. While searching for Teddy, they learn from the NCMEC that another young boy, Henry Thorne (Christian Goodwin), is being victimized on a live stream—although at the time, no one could track down where the feed was originating from. They learn from the photos found in the Chicago fire that the ring is called the "Chess and Checkers Club" and that it originated out of Chicago back in 2004; NCMEC pushing the federal government to shut down the website, but to no avail.
Later, through advanced facial recognition, the detectives discover that Teddy went under the name Teddy Voight, and has a juvenile record, having been arrested for solicitation five years ago. Lindsay explains to Detective Jay Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer) that they knew Sgt. Voight before. SVU detectives Nick Amaro (Danny Pino) and Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish) go to a youth center where Teddy was remanded and learn that Teddy frequently ran away from the center. Security guard George Turner (Danny Mastrogiorgio) doesn't remember Teddy, but Miss Bagley (Donnetta Lavinia Grays) recommends that the detectives talk to Jocelyn Cerpaski (Isabel Shill), who left the center to start a better life. Jocelyn initially doesn't want to talk to the detectives, but she directs them to the piers where Teddy solicits. Rollins and Halstead find him and bring him in.