Law & Order: SVU Fills In A Crucial Detail About Curry's Past

Warning: This post contains spoilers from Thursday's "Law & Order: SVU." Please proceed accordingly.

A spooky case-of-the-week winds up delivering some important intel about Capt. Renee Curry in this week's "Law & Order: SVU." 

The episode, titled "Arcana," involves a clairvoyant named Beatrice (played by Susannah Flood, "For the People") who reports a sexual assault in her home. But when Capt. Benson and her team show up to investigate, what Susannah's saying doesn't quite make sense. There's no evidence her alleged attacker ever was in her home. And the fact that she at one point says she felt "possessed" by something that helped her fight him off also makes her seem a little off-center.

During the course of the investigation, it becomes clear that Curry doesn't care much for Beatrice's profession. And when Beatrice calmly confronts the captain about it, we get a major piece of information regarding Curry's personal life.  

As Capt. Curry stands in Beatrice's kitchen, she lets her know why she generally doesn't trust anyone who claims to be able to communicate with the dead. And that's how we learn that her husband is no longer alive.

"When my husband died, my mother-in-law made an appointment with a psychic, and she insisted I go," Curry bitterly recalls. "Wanna know what the psychic said to me? He said my husband missed me." She scoffs. "But I know what cold reading is, right? It's patter. It's sizing someone up and making a series of high probability guesses, emphasizing when you're right and then glossing over when you're wrong so that it seems like you have some kind of superpower. But that's called being a conman."

A short while later, Benson & Co. realize that Beatrice wasn't making up what happened to her; the man who attacked her was her mentally ill high school boyfriend, who'd been living in her attic (!) unnoticed (!!) for months (!!!). So they caught and arrested him. Soon after, Curry stops by the house to update Beatrice on the case, and the pair have a much friendlier conversation.

Beatrice apologizes to Curry for how the other psychic treated her years ago, and Curry admits that her previous ire wasn't really directed at the other woman. "My husband and I were already separated when he died," she says quietly. "We hadn't told anyone yet — not his mom, and not even our son."

She continues: "So when she wanted me to go see that psychic with her, I mean, I get it. But I was so angry and frustrated at her, at the psychic, but mostly at myself for not telling her the truth."

Before this revelation, we only knew that Curry is a single mom to a teenage son, Gabe (Jay Mack), who has shown up in two previous episodes.

Were you surprised to learn that Curry's husband is no longer alive? What other questions do you have about the personal lives of Benson's squad? Let us hear 'em in the comments!