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Jalen Brunson came up clutch again.
This time, with a key piece of evidence.
The Knicks superstar made a guest appearance in the latest episode of “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit,” which aired on Thursday.
Brunson, playing a character named Detective Madison, meets with Captain Benson, played by Mariska Hargitay, to talk about a rape case she is investigating.
Brunson’s real-life father, Rick (an assistant coach for the Knicks), makes a brief appearance during the scene as well — walking into the restaurant just before Benson does — before meeting Madison.
Their cameo comes 20 minutes into the episode, titled “Forsaken,” and lasts about one minute.
Madison is a peripheral character, but the scene represents a turning point in the episode and a twist in the plot, pointing Benson in the right direction in her investigation.
Madison had previously pulled over two other characters — a father named Rick (no correlation) and his son Tyler. Rick’s stepdaughter (and Tyler’s stepsister), Chloe, was violently raped at a wedding the whole family attended, and Benson and her team are working to identify the culprit.
“Your boy Rick, real pain in the ass,” Madison, who is eating pizza at the bar in the scene, tells Benson. “Blew a .25 [BAC] and started yelling at me.”
“That tracks,” Benson replies.
“Plus, he had a kid in the car,” Madison says. “Teenage boy. Too old to charge [Rick] with endangerment.”
“Tyler,” Benson says.
“Felt bad for the kid, at first,” Madison says. “But then he starts screaming at me as well. Anyway, we searched him, I found a pocket knife and some kind of metal bar thing on the keychain.”
“Did you seize it?” Benson asks.
“Took the knife,” Madison says. “The metal bar thing, my partner said to let go. Legal gray area.”
But that was enough to break the case open.
Earlier in the episode, Chloe said that her attacker used a metal bar against her. Benson explained to her that it was a kubaton — a self-defense keychain tool. That Tyler possessed one turned Benson onto him and allowed her to obtain a warrant to search the family’s apartment, where they found a kubaton with Tyler’s fingerprints on it. They subsequently arrested Tyler.
Eventually, key testimony from the youngest brother, named Evan, helped prove that Tyler raped his stepsister, Chloe.
Brunson appeared natural on screen. He and Hargitay have developed a close relationship, given her Knicks fandom. She is a regular on Celebrity Row at Madison Square Garden during games and was on the team’s championship float during the parade.
“Fun,” Brunson said about his experience on the show. “Really fun. A lot of fun. It’s a lot of fun.”
It’s part of an exploding media presence for Brunson, who earlier this year hosted “Saturday Night Live.” This, though, was his debut in an actual drama.
Now, he can officially call himself an actor.
