‘Law & Order: SVU’ Finally Reveals Secrets of Fin’s Mother and Past

Detective Odafin Tutuola has been on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit for almost as long as Olivia Benson, but fans still know very little about his backstory. That all changed in this week’s episode “Diss,” in which the team took on a case that cut almost too close to Fin.

The episode centered on the assault of pop star Dallas Monroe (Stevens West), the wife of rapper Justin “Snake Eye” Anderson (Orlando Jones). At first, the team believed Snake was behind the assault, especially after they learned about their difficult relationship.

Fin could not believe Snake would be behind this, since Snake was a childhood friend whose mother Jo (L. Scott Caldwell) took him in after he personally witnessed his mother get killed outside a bodega. Fin became a member of their family, and Jo helped Fin stay off the streets. Fin lived with Jo for six months until his grandparents came back to New York.

Snake’s alibi – he was not home at the time of the crime and performing at the Apollo – checked out, which was a sigh of relief for Fin. Through their detective work, Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and the SVU team discovered that Andreas Harper (Deandre Leatherbury), a young man Carisi (Peter Scanavino) saw outside Snake’s apartment, was the real criminal. He told Benson he was a Snake superfan. Benson believed Andreas was more of a Dallas fan, which would explain why he did not go to Snake’s show that night.

However, this was far from the truth. When the crime lab discovered that Dallas’ gun was also used to kill a gang member named Malik Harper 10 years ago, Fin kept this news to himself. It turned out that Malik was the boyfriend of Vickie Lewis (Elizabeth Tate), a woman Jo was paying off because Vickie had a one-night stand with Snake. Vickie and Malik’s son was Andreas and when Andreas discovered who killed his father, he sought out revenge.

Fin kept all of this information to himself and hinted to Snake what he discovered. Fin warned Snake that the past would catch up with him eventually, even if he was not going to jail for his crime yet. However, Fin said he was not about to turn snitch – that’s why he never identified the man who murdered his mother. He did not have to. The killer was eventually killed himself 30 years later.

During the investigation, the SVU team ran into P.T. Banks, a rival of Snake’s. The rapper was played by real-life rapper Snoop Dogg.

“Diss” was the latest episode to provide a look at Fin’s private life. Unlike Benson, the second-longest tenured character on the show has received little focus outside the squad room. It was not until the November episode “Mea Culpa” that we finally saw the inside of Fin’s apartment.

We have met a few of Fin’s family members in the past. We know he has an ex-wife, Teresa Randall, and a son, Ken. Rapper Ludacris also played Fin’s stepson, Darius Parker.

Ice-T joined SVU during the show’s second season. Since the show was renewed for a record 21st already, he will definitely be back.

“Unfortunately, there’s still storylines,” Ice-T told Variety last year. “Unfortunately, the stuff we deal with is going on more than ever. We were pre-the #MeToo thing, we were talking about that 10 years ago. So, I mean, you can’t make this stuff up. Life has unfortunately given us unlimited amounts of material.”

SVU airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET on NBC.

Photo credit: NBC