Law & Order: SVU (10/09/2007) - Impusive (Episode 903)

The show opens with a young boy going through that awkward rite of passage of being diagnosed with an STD. He was lucky enough to draw Gonorrhea for his first dance partner and that is probably one of the better ones to get. He is visibly shaken and I just want pat him on the head and explain that the non-lethal and non-permanent STDS are no more serious that your drunken loser brother…it shows up every now and then, leaves a mess, makes it hard to get girls to come over, and you spend a lot of time trying to hide it but eventually it leaves and you just have a few bills to remind you of it’s visit. The boy doesn’t want to tell his parents (then don’t) and reluctantly informs his doctor that he got it from sleeping with his teacher. The next moment we see Detectives Benson and Stabler arresting a young teacher named Sara at school who is none other than Melissa Joan Hart.

In the following interrogation scenes both Shane, the gonorrhea rookie, and Sara explain it all. Not surprisingly, there are some discrepancies between the two stories. They both agree that Sara came over to Shane’s house to tutor him for the PSAT (not an STD but probably worse). Shane claims that Sara came on to him and he got excited and couldn’t resist and Sara claims that Shane raped her. The detectives seem to be siding with Shane but I can’t help but find it suspicious that a 15 year old boy would recount his story of his sexy tutor seducing him through tears and sobs. At fifteen, I would have high-fived Stabler, asked Fin to call me Pimp K, and asked if I could give her conjugal visits if she really was prosecuted.

Without any real evidence except the usual she said / he bragged the detectives decide to use the Gonorrhea as a link between the two and Benson and Stabler are off to search her house for medication. While in the house they get a surprise visit from her husband. Her husband is shocked and doesn’t know her whereabouts because he is a firefighter and has been on duty for 48 hours. He doesn’t know her whereabouts but he is concerned for her safety because she used to be a cutter. For those of you who don’t listen to Goth music or haven’t caught one of the Dateline type shows that cover it, “cutters” are usually young girls who mutilate themselves to get back at their parents for getting divorced or not buying them a pony.

Detectives Fin and Lake use some crazy high-tech cell phone tracing technology to trace her to a “Family Planning Clinic” (abortion joint where you can usually score free rubbers or get Plan B pills, you don’t want to know what Plan C is). I am a bit surprised that the Patriot Act doesn’t allow law enforcement officials to kick down the door during an abortion to make sure the fetus isn’t wearing a Turban (in which case they would just say “proceed”) but there are still a few privacy laws on the books. Luckily, Benson corners a judge in an elevator and gets him to sign a warrant. We see Chester Lake cheerfully carrying the abortion “evidence” in a red cooler that looks like it could be holding a twelve pack that he is taking to the beach. When they tell Sara that she is being arrested for tampering with evidence she faints. The husband turns up and, oh shit, he is a Christian and starts yelling at his wife for murdering the rape-baby. He gets carried away and even smacks Stabler, but he is a firefighter and fellow Catholic so Stabler lets him go rather than shooting him like he normally would.

The Court rules against arresting Sara for tampering with evidence and so the cops are back to square one. After a long-winded Public Service Announcement by Dr. Huang about “cutters”, they decide to follow both Shane and Sara and see where it leads them. For Sara, it leads them to a church (yawn). For Shane, it leads them to a skanky motel where he is caught with what my vast experience tells me is about a $300 outcall escort from the Midwest who came to New York to go to beauty school and ended up in a topless bar before getting hooked on Xanax and having to support her habit decided to go all the way. She lacks the weathered lines of a seasoned pro, she is clearly dressed to well to be a crack addict, but she lacks the bodyguard outside the door and she is willing to go to a skanky hotel so she can’t be a class A professional. I digress.

The cops start talking to all the hookers that Shane has been frequenting and it turns out there are a ton. They all talk about Shane “wanting to pretend like he was forcing them” and one even mentioned that he bragged about doing his teacher. This kid should be further investigated….maybe not for rape but robbery or some other money crime because to have had fetish forced-sex with that many prostitutes isn’t cheap my friend. The detectives have heard enough and arrest Shane for raping Sara.

In Court, the defense claims that Shane is a sex addict, or more technically, a 15 year old boy with an internet connection in his room. They claim that he did rape his teacher but it was under “duress” and that he was psychologically and physiologically incapable of stopping himself. Shane’s testimony reveals that he is now taking Prozac and it has killed his sex drive (but freed up memory on his hard drive). Sara, being the guilt ridden sexually repressed Catholic that she is, requests to visit Shane in jail at which point she forgives him and asks that he not be sent to prison. District Attorney Casey Novak agrees to allow Shane to spend 18 months in a sex offender rehab and, if he completes, will expunge his record.

Shane gets raped while in the Rapehab. Casey Novak arrives on the scene and is pissed to find a janitor already cleaning up the crime scene. She puts pressure on the Center’s Coordinator and he is defensive and blames the rape on another “patient”. Casey isn’t convinced and she interviews every young rapist in the joint and many of them claim that a staff member named Pete might be the culprit. The junior rapists claim that the Rehab is dangerous because there are all these sex offenders running around sex offendering each other. Casey looses it when she takes this information to the slimy Coordinator and gets a little rough with him and Benson interferes and lectures Casey about professional conduct. Easy there, Benson, it’s not like Casey is aiding and abetting a fugitive convicted rapist . Go ahead and throw stones though Benson, I am sure no one remembers last season.

Further investigation into “Pete” reveals that although his file claims he is a retired cop that transferred from a Florida Sex Rehab he is in fact a convicted boy-raper that merely stole the real Pete’s identity. Christ, I got a background check at the temp agency that sent me to a warehouse where I made $8 and hour putting stamps on packages and they don’t even fingerprint you to be a counselor at this Rape Camp? They arrest him for the rape of Shane.

In the interrogation room the man readily admits to raping Shane but uses Shane’s own defense and claims that he is just a blameless sex addict like Shane. Casey watches the interrogation with fire in her eyes and open disgust towards the defense attorney that opened this can of warms. She is clearly revolted and it is nice to see her so caught up and losing her cool just like the rest of the people working SVU. Her eyes focus in on the rapist like she is trying to use her hateful glare to burn through his skin….burn like Gonorrhea.