Law & Order: SVU Finale Recap: Benson And Tynan's War Comes To A Decisive End — Plus, Corey Cott On Griff's Dark Temptation

The war between Capt. Olivia Benson and Chief Kathryn Tynan came to an end in Thursday's Season 27 finale — and while it's good to have some resolution to this season-long fight, we don't get there without a little blood. 

Read on for the highlights of the episode, then keep scrolling to hear Corey Cott's thoughts on Griff's moral quandry in the heat of the moment. 

During a routine fender-bender investigation, uniformed officers find a gun in one of the cars. They make the driver get out and handcuff him. They find that there are no bullets in the weapon, but there is a scared boy in the trunk with his hands bound with duct tape. There's also a piece of tape over his mouth. The man, obviously, is arrested.

Six months later, one of the officers is on the witness stand in court. Carisi questions him, then the defense attorney uses a video shot by a witness to point out that the officer stuck part of his head into the car that night via an open window, and that was how he saw the gun. But because he didn't have a warrant before doing so, everything the cops found in the vehicle is inadmissible. And since Carisi has no more admissible evidence — despite the driver making a full confession to Benson in the hours after his arrest — the judge has no other choice than to let the driver go free.

The driver, whose name is Richard Caine, is so smug that he follows Benson and Carisi outside afterward. "I really hope we can put all of this in the past," he tells Olivia, while Carisi grabs her arm to restrain her.

While Benson is back in her office, reeling, Griff comes by to let her know that he traced the gun he found in his father's storage unit: It's tied to a robbery from 1997. "My dad must've held onto it," he reasons. "And then dropped it on some low level Mob guy he just shot in the knee?" Benson wonders. In short: Yep, and Chief Tynan helped him cover it up. But Griff is going to sit tight with that info right now, because the whole unit is determined to get Caine arrested again.

Also important: Griff decides to confront her about what he knows. She maintains that his dad was a good guy who "shot an unrepentant criminal." He counters that she broke the law and chose the action that was going to save both her and his pop. "Absolutely," she responds instantly, "and you would have done the same thing." He says he would've done the right thing, but it's clear that the conversation has him rattled.

Everyone pitches in to re-investigate the case. Rollins and Curry discover that Caine had another identity, that other identity was questioned three years ago about a missing boy who is still missing. A cop who previously investigated Caine alerts the team to three other missing and dead boys he suspected were Caine's handiwork. After clues lead to a beach on Staten Island, Benson and her team find the bodies of three boys, all bound the way that the boy in the trunk of Caine's car was..

Benson wants to bring Caine in. Carisi says she doesn't have enough evidence to do so. But they can get a warrant to track him, so they do.

"Maybe you were right about the whole retiring thing," Benson tells Fin when he finds her in her office, going over a recording of her interrogation of Caine. He says he wasn't right, and he's never going to retire — or die. He also brings some good news: DNA found on one of the victim's t-shirts matches Caine's, which is enough to arrest him.

But when they go to grab him, he's gone: He placed the tracker on a cab, and he's in the wind. And now there's another young boy kidnapped! Off a tip from Caine's ex-wife, the team tracks him to a campground where Caine's grandfather brought him when he was a child. In the pouring rain, they find the boy unharmed. But when they track Caine into a building, he fires on him, hitting Griff in the abdomen. One of the returned shots hits Caine, who limps into a back room, where Griff find him. Caine taunts him, saying that they don't know how many kids he killed, and Griff is nearly overcome with the desire to kill the perp. Benson comes in just as he's at the breaking point. Of course he doesn't, but he does collapse, and Benson has to hustle to keep him from hitting the floor.

In the end, Griff's injury is severe, but he will be OK. Benson is waiting to go into his hospital room to see him when Tynan arrives and announces, "I'll have your badge for this." The chief scolds Benson for putting her entire team in danger. "Your career is over," she says with vitriol, "and I am no longer sorry about that."

Benson is unfazed. "I don't think that's going to happen," she says. "Because you think you have some dirt on me?" Tynan spits. "Whatever Jake told you is not relevant, and can't be proven, in any event."

"You sure about that?" Olivia wonders, which surprises Tynan — and then the chief realizes: "He recorded it."

Benson says she doesn't want to ruin Tynan's career, "but I'm not going to let you ruin mine." The chief walks away, and Benson goes in to see Griff. Fin, Bruno, Rollins, and Curry join her, and they all chat with a wrung-out but happy Griff as Bruce Springsteen's "Blood Brothers" plays in the background.

TVLINE | First off, congrats on Griff making it through this season. How early did you know he was going to get shot — and live?
COREY COTT | I heard on set a rumor that someone was getting shot and I was like, "Oh no." And then I convinced one of our writers to tell me. He said, "Yeah, you're getting shot," and I was like, "Oh." But he immediately was like, "But you survive!," and I was like, "OK, thank God!" [Laughs] ... Obviously, we're always aware that we could, get the ax at any time. But thankfully,, they're keeping Griff around. He made it through. We'll see what's in store for him in [Season] 28. But yeah, it was a little bit of whiplash. I was devastated, and then I was excited.

TVLINE | The last time we talked, Griff's allegiances were a little less solid. But it's clear here: He's fully #TeamBenson — even before the start of this episode.
At this point in the season, it's clear that there's a complete lack of trust [with Tynan]. There's been lies. There's been negligence. There's just been flat-out breaking of procedure. And the only one who's consistently been challenging him and pushing him — but a source of truth, encouragement, expertise, strategy, and just a good person — has been Benson. So at this point, there's really no choice for him but to join alongside her fully.

TVLINE | How do you think Griff is doing with everything he's learned about his father?
A big part of maturing and growing up — and I'm just saying this as a human, myself, and let alone a character, but I'll get to that point — is accepting and surrendering to the notion that good people do bad things, bad people do good things, and life is full of volatility and unpredictability. Very few things are black-and-white.

... So applying all that to the situation with Tynan is really, really important to him and valuable to see his arc because he has to go: OK. Yes, I'm pursuing the truth. At at the end of the day, that's what matters. And I can also sit here and accept that my dad made some really bad choices, and that's a really complicated position to be in.

TVLINE | Near the end of the episode, Griff is shot and he's on the verge of shooting Caine as Benson comes in. Before Griff's injury flares, it seems very possible that he might kill Caine. Is that an accurate read on that scene?
Definitely. I think you could argue that if Benson hadn't walked in there, he probably would have killed him. Mariska [Hargitay] and I, we talked about that a bit. That look, when I look at her as she comes in, it's almost me asking, "Do I have permission to kill him?" I saw what she did to me was I think she's giving me permission to do what I think is right — not to necessarily killh im or not kill him, but to do my job. And whether you wanna argue that Griff made a conscious choice not to kill him, or the injury took over, that's kind of up to the audience member to interpret.

If you think about the arc of Benson and Griff throughout the season, a lot of it is her telling me I'm going against protocol, instructing me to do better, educating me in good faith, but teaching me how to be a better detective. [In the finale], instead of giving me the options of what to do, there was a huge growth moment for our relationship there — of her going, "I trust you. You do what you think is right."

Now it's your turn. What did you think of the finale? Grade it, as well as Season 27 on the whole, via the polls below. Then make sure to hit the comments to elaborate upon your choices!