Andy Powers

Residents of a Lower East Side apartment are startled when an intruder breaks in during the middle of the night. It turns out to be "Granny Doe" - an elderly woman who can't remember where she is. Granny has been burned and possibly raped. But she isn't much help when Detectives Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Stabler (Christopher Meloni) question her due to her Alzheimer's disease, which has left her with severe short-term memory loss. Eventually, the detectives discover her identity by researching past tenants of the apartment building. Their victim is Bess Sherman (Jane Powell), who is in her 80's. According to a woman who previously lived in the apartment, Bess used to sneak into the apartment in the middle of the night when she was a young girl. Apparently, she had a "funny uncle." Bess was living at Jubilee Towers; an upscale assisted living facility for adults, but had recently been released to the custody of her son, Joe Sherman (Jay Thomas).

Alicia and Will deal with their growing sexual tension and Diane and Kurt McVeigh continue their flirtation. At the same time, Alicia defends a college student accused of killing her sorority sister while under the influence of a sleep aid.

Danny must determine who murdered a man when multiple women who worked for him all take credit for it. Also, Frank disagrees with his priest about how to handle a local boy who has been stealing money from the church, and Nicky is arrested with a group of friends when the police find drugs in her car.

Lonely, Carter struggles with his unfulfilled dreams in the wake of his girlfriend's departure--and lurches towards a dangerous temporary solution. New doctor Abby deals with resentful nurses and tends to a tearful, injured young woman kidnapped from Mexico and forced into sexual slavery. Meanwhile, Kovac makes a confession to a fleeing Sam. Neela's domineering, old-fashioned Indian parents arrive and are upset that she abandoned her Michigan medical assignment. Later, Carter treats an Iraqi war veteran who was disfigured in combat; Weaver suggests to new intern Ray (new series star Shane West) that he tone down his alternative-punk look in deference to frightened patients; and two staffers recover from their injuries.

On a busy Fourth of July weekend, Carter oversees an understaffed hospital that is flooded with patients. An HIV-positive biker remains brain dead as the result of a robbery, and his girlfriend wants to donate one of his organs to his friend, who is also infected with HIV. After several surgeons refuse, Carter persuades Corday to perform the organ transplant. Meanwhile, Ray is upset with Abby because she bypassed his orders and requested a drug test on his patient, a bicycle messenger. Abby later asks Carter to dinner in hopes of talking to him about his past problems. Pratt performs below his normal capabilities when he returns to work too early after having a craniotomy--a type of brain surgery in which the doctor removes part of the bone from the skull to get to the brain.