I personally think that the main tragedy of America is that they either forget that Australia even exists, or they think we all have thick, north-western accents and march around saying 'G'day mate' (okay people do actually say that) and playing with our kangaroos and our boomerangs and our koala bears. It's just koalas, guys. They are not a bear. They do not look like bears. Nobody calls them bears. You're getting mixed up with drop-bears, which fall on you from trees and slice your heads open. They're scared of the scene of Vegemite, though (who isn't) so stick some of that behind your ears when you walk in the bush. Right. Now that I've gotten all of that rage out (my friends forced me to see Planes with several small children recently. It was bad. I felt bad for Australia) we can get on with the review. Oh and, remember how we learnt that I can't type 'Benson' without typing 'Beckett' about five times? Too much Castle. We'll call her Olivia.
*CHUNG CHUNG*
In the precinct, Rollins (Kelli Giddish) and Olivia (Mariska Hargitay) are simultaneously interviewing two different women. The show does that thing where it switches back and forth so that we get all the information in a less boring way and also understand that the women had the same experience.
Yeah, I didn't really have a caption in mind for this one. I just thought the recap needed a picture at this point and it may as well be one of Rollins because she's awesome.
Both women were followed home by a young, African-American man in his twenties. He wore a hoodie and a baseball cap, caught up to them at their front doors, said "I know you want it," and raped them at gunpoint. Only neither of them saw the gun - they only felt it. Are they setting us up for a fake gun? Possibly. The dude also used a condom. After the interviews, Rollins and Olivia think that it's a serial rapist and tell all of this to Munch (Richard Belzer). They want a sketch artist. Munch says they can do it tomorrow, and that they need to go home and rest. Who put him in charge? Whatever. He's old, that probably automatically translates to authority, right?
Outside, Olivia is walking down a street with a bunch of Chinese signs when a random guy says "Hey gorgeous," and asks if she has a smile for him while grabbing her shoulder. Olivia, quite reasonably, punches him in the face. I'd do that too, if a strange man started being all handsy with me in the middle of the night. Both the guy and Olivia look really shocked by this, although I can't imagine why, and Olivia sort of stumbles around apologising a bit before running off. Title credits roll. Why are we supposed to think this is a problem caused by her assault? Some dude grabbed her, she punched him. Logical, yes?
Apparently logical, no, because Olivia is talking to her psychiatrist about how guys say stuff like that to her all the time and she shouldn't have beat him up. I'm so glad I don't live in New York if that's considered normal there. I mean, Aussie guys are renowned for their lewdness (they wolf-whistle and yell stuff at you across the street) but at least they do it in a friendly, non-grabby way. In fact the only time I've felt uncomfortable with a guy saying something to me was in London, and I totally would have punched that dude in the face if he hadn't been driving past in a van. So... yeah. Not moving to New York, then. Her psychiatrist also seems to think it's normal that guys are randomly grabbing her in the street (weird) and then he gets Olivia to psycho-analyse herself by creating a fictional victim and encouraging her to think of it from her detective viewpoint. So... what does she pay this guy for? He just pointed out that she has all the knowledge she needs to treat herself. We get another few flashbacks of her time with Lewis, and Olivia and her psychiatrist start talking about herself in the third person. That doesn't seem mentally healthy.
This is the sketch. Remember: the sketch is useless.
Fin (Ice-T) says that the sketch is useless. They basically have no leads (although the sketch is a start... Rollins is the only optimist in this group, honestly) and Amaro (Danny Pino) says that the guy sounds like a pro. They also know what condom lubricant he used. Olivia shows up - she's late, but everyone thinks she has the right to be late, but she doesn't want special treatment. I used to think that after I had surgery, but then I realised that special treatment is fun and makes everything a lot easier. Olivia says that the sketch is useless. Thanks, Olivia, we know. Rollins gets a call, and there's a third victim.
Fin and Rollins are at the hospital, and the victim gives an almost identical statement to the previous two. Again, she didn't see the gun but felt it. The fact that they're specifying this makes me a bit suspicious. Back at the precinct, Olivia and Amaro are giving instructions to a bunch of uniformed cops. They all go out into the streets and start handing around the sketch. They also start patting down guys who match the description. None of the guys are impressed. Meanwhile, a woman in a sparkly dress is walking somewhere. Presumably home. A guy in a hoodie and cap wearing an iPod and shorts (I'd make a good witness, okay) is following her. She looks suspicious. She turns around and asks him what he wants, then starts walking faster. He follows her. Or he walks in the same direction as her. Who knows.
Rollins has just found some drugs in a guy's pocket when they hear a gunshot. Olivia and Amaro arrive on the scene. The sparkly dress woman is holding a gun and has apparently just shot the guy who was following her. They instruct her to drop the gun, which she does, and she says that the man was attacking her. Olivia checks and the hooded guy has a pulse. They call for an ambulance. The sparkly dress woman - we'll call her Sparkles - claims that he was following her and he was going to rape her.
At the hospital, Rollins said that the man who was shot was actually a kid - he was sixteen and he was shot once in the chest. He's in surgery. They have a conversation about something important, but I get distracted by the giant advertisement for the next show which dances along the bottom of the screen.
It's really distracting.
Munch tells Fin and Rollins to talk to the boy's parents and try and find out what he was doing in that neighbourhood... alone... at night. His parents say that he's a good boy and he's never been in trouble. They're (understandably) very angry that someone just shot him. This is why the American gun laws are a really bad idea. Sure, she thought she was defending herself, but what if this kid was totally innocent and now he dies? If anybody thinks that gun laws are stupid but there's no other alternative, go and look up what Australia did after the Port Arthur massacre. It worked. Gun-related homicides in Australia dropped significantly after that (it was in 1996). So... y'know... there's always another option.
Olivia and Amaro are interviewing Sparkles. She's crying and says she was terrified. She describes how he followed her to her house and then through her front gate. She told him several time to stop and get back, then she pulled out her gun and told him again. He lunged at her and she had to shoot him. She reiterates a few times during the interview that she had to shoot him - she had no choice.
Fin and Rollins are still talking to the boy's parents. They think that he was walking home when he was shot, and he was in the area because he plays basketball there. Rollins asks them about the nights of the other rapes, and he was out playing basketball on all three. His parents are annoyed that the police are investigating whether or not their son is innocent. They get angry. They are positive their son wouldn't do this.
Amaro is questioning the most recent rape victim. He's going to show her some photos - including one of the boy - and see if she can ID him. Olivia has done the same with one of the other victims, but she couldn't ID him. The remaining two both picked his photo out. Back at the precinct, they're running through what they know. The boy is called Mehcad. His basketball court was near the scene of the first rapes and he is very tall for sixteen-year-old. Barba (Raúl Esparza) says that the press is picking on the fact that a rich white celebrity (apparently Sparkles is some kind of famous chef) shot a black teenager, so he wants them to make absolutely sure that Mehcad was the rapist. I'm sure they would have made sure anyway. It's nice to know Barba is on the case too, though.
ADA Barba is always on the case.
At the office of the ADA (I love the way this show always tells you where you are. I can never be lost in the depths of fiction again! Ha!) they're interviewing Sparkles. She seems much more calm now, and says that she was shocked to hear that Mehcad was only sixteen. She tells her story again; she told Mehcad to get back once on the street and twice inside her gate. At first she says she only said it once inside the gate but then she claims she said it a second time, after pulling out her gun. She also says that Mehcad was only one or two feet away when she shot him.
At the hospital again. There is a priest waiting with Mehcad's parents, and he reiterates their story; Mehcad is a good boy who wouldn't do something like this. A surgeon comes out to talk to Mehcad's parents, and his mother starts wailing with grief. That means he's dead. Rollins gets a notification on her phone - they caught another rapist in the act. Uh oh. Amaro and Olivia are on the scene. The guy is wearing a hoodie and a baseball cap and he had a gun on him. He claims that the woman he was raping 'wanted it' (same words the other victims heard) and that Olivia 'wants it' too. Naturally, the correct response here is for her to knee him in the groin, even though she thought it was wrong to punch a completely random man earlier. Um. Where is her self-control? Come on. This is silly. She's old, wise, has dealt with hundreds of abuse cases and been abused/tortured/whatever before. Why can't she keep a lid on it?
Amaro covers for her, cos he's a nice guy, and Rollins and Fin interview the new suspect. He's on parole in Detroit but came to New York for a job working with oil or something. He's a bit of a creep. Everyone goes to tell Barba that they think this guy is the rapist. They want to get the suspects to ID the new man, but Barba points out that since two of them IDed Mehcad before, that's reasonable doubt. He says to get the third victim, the one who didn't ID Mehcad, to do it first. She easily IDs the new suspect because she recognises his hands. One of the other victims also IDs the new suspect (and we assume the third does as well, although we don't see it) and she mentions smelling oil.
They go down to autopsy, where Melinda the ME says that there was no stipling on Mehcad's body. There's no way he was as close as Sparkles claimed he was. Before Fin leaves, she tells him how her ex's nephew worked at Sparkles' restaurant and he wasn't allowed to use the customer bathroom. Olivia and Fin go to the restaurant and question Sparkles a little bit more. Olivia explains how they caught the real rapist and gives Sparkles a graceful exit by pointing out that victims sometimes make mistakes. Sparkles refuses to take the exit or feel bad that she killed someone who was innocent. She didn't make a mistake, Mehcad was in the wrong and she had to shoot him. Fin asks how far away the boy was when she fired. He moves closer to her as an example and puts his hand on her arm. Sparkles hisses at him to get his hands off her and jerks away.
Careful, Sparkles, your inner racist is showing.
She tries to brush it off by saying she's still jumpy, but Olivia and Fin exchange suspicious glances. Olivia says that the ME thinks Mehcad was further away, but Sparkles shows zero appreciation of science and retorts that the ME wasn't there so she can't possibly know. Oh, and she's also claiming now that Mehcad said "I know you want it." Olivia points out that she didn't mention that before, and Sparkles says she just wasn't comfortable repeating it. Suuuure. Fin makes a startled frog face.
There's a protest going on outside Barba's office or something (the words at the screen deserted me) and a bunch of people are pissed at Sparkles. I'm not surprised. She is very annoying. Amaro, Olivia and Fin go to talk to Barba. They've proved that the other suspect committed all three rapes. Barba wonders why Mehcad would follow Sparkles if he was innocent. It's possible that he was a fan of her cooking show and wanted an autograph. Hm. Olivia says that Sparkles is embellishing her story. The end result of the conversation is that they decide the crime was racially motivated and they want to prosecute Sparkles.
In the precinct, Sparkles is having her mugshot taken. She's almost a whole head taller than me, that's concerning. She says that New York is full of blacks, Jews and liberals. I dunno who or what liberals are in America - here they're a really annoying political party led by a really annoying douche-face who happens to be PM. Yuck. I may move to New Zealand. Anyway, she's not doing a great job of disguising her prejudice. Rollins takes her fingerprints and Sparkles guesses that she's from Georgia. She says that they both know if they were down south she'd be getting a medal. Rollins looks really awkward, because this lady be insane.
There's a bunch of protesters and interviewers outside the supreme court (oh words on the screen, where did you go?). People walk through them. That's pretty much it. Inside the court, Melinda the ME says that Sparkles had to have been at least 5 feet away when she shot Mehcad. I don't understand feet, so I use Google. It's about a metre and a half. Mehcad's priest testifies to how he was well-behaved and very good, but the defence lawyer points out that he only saw Mehcad on Sunday at church, where he was well-behaved. Mehcad's mother says that her son was a fan of Jolene, and he took his mobile (cellphone) and cherry-flavoured bubblegum with him when he went out. Olivia goes on the stand next, and the defence uses her to make the point that even SVU briefly thought Mehcad could have been the rapist - so there's no way Sparkles could have known.
Hmm, that guy's good. I'm totally better though.
Outside the courtroom, Mehcad's parents are annoyed. Amaro and Rollins have found statements Sparkles made some years ago in which she accused black employees of stealing and referred to them as 'fieldhands'. I don't know what that means but I assume it's offensive. It sounds offensive. Barba takes the statements to the judge, who says they can't be used but if the defendant 'opens the door' he can question her about them.
Back in the courtroom, Sparkles says that she loves all her employees, black and white. She also has a gay Chinese assistant. Okay then. Barba mentions the 'fieldhands' issue and Sparkles claims it was blurted out in a moment of duress and she meant no disrespect. They talk more, and Barba brings up a quote from a magazine interview Sparkles did, in which she said the New York subway was "...like a jungle train through the Congo." Sparkles says that if Mehcad had been white she wouldn't have been afraid. Outside the courtroom, Fin is surprised that the defence wants him to testify. The defence lawyer is questioning him about how he stopped and frisked people on the night Mehcad was shot. All of the men were young black males, because that was the description of the suspect. The lawyer draws a parallel between Fin being suspicious of men who fitted the profile and Sparkles being suspicious of Mehcad. It's a pretty compelling argument.
It's time for the closing arguments and the defence goes first. Suddenly the lawyer keeps having weird pauses in weird places in the middle of sentences. It's a bit distracting. Barba goes next, and he gets sort of emotional. I can't tell if he's faking it or not but it's effective anyway.
In the bathroom, Olivia is washing her face when Sparkles marches in. The bathroom seems kinda dirty for the supreme court. No, wait, it's just the colouring of the marble walls. Haha, oops. My bad. Sparkles says this is awkward. I agree. They talk briefly, and Sparkles winds up saying that she hated the look in his parents' eyes and she feels bad. I don't know whether to believe her or not.
Back in the courtroom, Sparkles is found not guilty. Everyone is outraged, but too bad. As she leaves, an interviewer asks her what she wants to say to Mehcad's parents but she doesn't reply. Mehcad's parents, further up the stairs, are asked by another interviewer about protests and they say that they don't want any more senseless violence and that they want this to end now. The team (minus Rollins and Amaro) all stand at the top of the stairs and pose as the episode ends.
Barba's pose wins.