Law & Order: SVU - Savant (Episode 904)

A man sits irritably in the back of a cab while the cab driver drones on and on about how much he hates his wife and how he would get a divorce but it is just too expensive. The man interrupts the cab driver to tell him to shut up and the cabbie responds by telling the man that he is sick of circling the block. The man hands the cabbie more money out of a giant wad of cash when a little elf-looking girl covered in blood and clutching a phone darts into the middle of the street and the cab barely screeches to a halt. The cab driver begins yelling and cursing, shockingly in English, and the man jumps out and comforts the girl that is obviously his daughter. He rushes up with the girl into their apartment and finds mom face down in the bedroom with a crushed skull. I am glued to my television in shock, not that this woman was murdered but by the fact that they chose a white man to portray the cab driver. Edgy casting indeed.

Fin shows up to the crime scene a little miffed that they called him down for a simple attempted murder when he is in SVU but everyone breathes a sigh of relief when we find out that, thank god, the woman was raped before being beaten so his presence is justified. At the station the young girl, Katie Nicholson, walks around being pretty cheerful considering the circumstances and goes from cop to cop asking silly questions and requesting hugs. We find out that Katie has Williams Syndrome. Williams Syndrome is a form of mild retardation (see American Inventor Season Two for examples of retardation) where the afflicted is often very affectionate and has trouble with memory but also often has superhero like abilities such as perfect pitch, extreme hearing and x-ray vision. With the help of Mr. Nicholson the detectives interrogate her and she gives a one-man play rendition of what she heard. I can sum it up as "there was yelling, a smack, blood, dialed 911". The detectives are only mildly impressed by her revelations but they are really interested in why dear old dad was paying a cab driver to circle the block. Nicholson tells them that he was just killing time (and maybe his wife?) because he didn't want to go home to an inevitable fight with the wife. Stabler presses him about anyone else that may have it for his wife, aside from God who gave her a retarded daughter. The unhappy couple's social life was dominated by coping groups and they weren't real popular there because of a pending lawsuit against the doctor that many of the other couples' loved.

Stabler and Benson decide to go to the Williams Syndrome counseling group to dig up more dirt on Nicholson. All of the couples that the detectives interviewed were resentful towards the Nicholsons for their lawsuit but they all seemed to have serious problems of their own. Apparently having retarded children kills a marriage. At first I didn't get the connection, I mean, it would seem that a retarded child would be easier than a regular one. Sure, I can see how the couple probably fights about who has to clean out the cage or whose turn it is to put fresh water in the drinking bowl, but isn't sharing the responsibilities and showing mutual love and respect the basis for marriage (ahem, straight marriage). As the detectives walk out of the clinic Stabler is clearly tripping about his wife's pregnancy. Benson calls him out on it and he responds that his wife is over 40 and pregnant. Benson tells him that he should just take her to a doctor but he reminds her that he is Catholic and they don't believe in science.

Munch has done a little research of his own while the cops were attending the Bad Luck Anonymous meetings. Nicholson claimed to be coming back from the airport after a business trip the night of the attack on his wife but airport security cameras tell a different story. They show him being dropped of by his wife and mild but he never gets on a plane, instead he walks out of the terminal and jumps into a cab. Stabler sees this as the smoking gun and begins to lean heavily on Nicholson but Nicholson won't admit to where he went. Just as Stabler is about to shoot him, an FBI Agent (the same old FBI Agent for every other episode needing a Fed) bursts into the interrogation room and tells the detectives that Nicholson is under their protection and that they are not to speak to him again.

Casey Novak advises Stabler to put pressure on Nicholson by trashing his reputation. Stabler is to talk to neighbors, friends, and TMZ until the whole world is convinced he attacked his wife. Stabler and Benson go to the hospital and run into Mr. and Mrs. Parvin who they met at the Williams Syndrome support group. The doctor rushes out and explains to Nicholson that there were complications with his wife and that she lost the baby. Nicholson didn't have any idea his wife was pregnant again but Mrs. Parvin looks very suspicious. Nicholson walks out and Stabler tries to get Mrs. Parvin to explain why she looks like someone just peed on her leg but she won't budge.

The detectives still don't have any real evidence that Nicholson is the attacker and so far their tactics haven't gotten him to agree to an interrogation. They decide to interrogate Katie again. They figure that maybe her super-tard hearing powers may have caught something that she didn't mention during the first interview, and plus, they knew it would really piss her dad off. Katie does another reenactment of what she heard but this time it includes the lines "You're ripping our family apart" and "Come here baby....you smell gooooood". It doesn't take much for the detectives to piece together the fact that Mrs. Nicholson was cheating and that Mr. Nicholson knew about it. Their guess is substantiated when Mrs. Parvin comes forth to make a statement. She tells them that Mrs. Nicholson had to have been cheating because Mr. Nicholson had a vasectomy after finding out the kind of damage his sperm could do.

Benson and Stabler rush to the hospital because Mrs. Nicholson has regained consciousness. Too bad she has retrograde amnesia and she believes it is six months earlier and that she is in the hospital for her daughter's surgery. And there it is. It is written all over Stabler's face. This woman, with her retrograde amnesia, is going to be as helpful as dick to this case. She doesn't remember anything, not her attack, not her affair, not the director's instructions to not over-do the acting. Stabler is probably thinking that it would have been better for him if she died because at least then the perp would be up for rape and murder rather than just sexual assault. No, Stabler didn't say any of this and there was nothing on screen that would even hint at this line of thinking, but I know Stabler. Yep, that freakin' guy wishes she had died because he is that serious about busting the bad guy....tough sonofabitch. Don't fuck with Stabler peoples.

Munch has been doing more research of his own. The sperm they found at the crime scene matches up a Marine DNA database of one ex-marine named Mr. Parvin. They interrogate him and he admits the affair and admits to being angry about the pregnancy. I can't say I blame all of these reluctant fathers. I mean, after you have been in a violent car crash it takes a little time before you are ready to hop back into the driver's seat. No, I am not calling these Williams Syndrome children car crashes but I am not calling them "miracles", "angels", or any of those other flowery words used to describe children either. They get Katie to do a voice line-up and she ID's Mr. Parvin's voice as the one that said "You are breaking up our family" and "Come here baby you smell good". However, she says that there was a third voice after his that said "stupid bitch". Everyone is surprised by this and they know that whoever was the last person to call Mrs. Nicholson a stupid bitch was the attacker. As they all walk out of the interrogation room Katie hears Mr. Parvin talking to his son and she ID's his son as the attacker.

Case closed? Hardly. Casey Novak is optimistic but everyone has their doubts about Katie's ability to testify and stand up to a cross-examination. Her super hearing may be what is making the case but what if an ambulance drives by with it's siren on and she starts howling like a dog? At the first Hearing to establish if Katie will be allowed to testify Katie doesn't even show up. Stabler has a drink with his least favorite FBI Agent and he admits that he doesn't know where Nicholson is either. Nicholson has gone "off grid" and no one knows where to find him. Well, Stabler does. Stabler tracks down Katie at Mrs. Parvin's house and brings her to the courthouse to testify.

While Katie is doing crazy feats of hearing that resemble a magic show or circus trick from the witness stand, Stabler is grilling her father. He wonders how a man so deep in debt could have such a large wad of cash to pay the cab driver the night of the attack. Stabler is convinced that Nicholson has flipped on his FBI handlers and possibly sold secrets to "the Enemy", whoever the fuck that is. Casey Novak is confident and is now in court asking Katie questions from the back of the courtroom while also drinking from a glass of water like a famous ventriloquist and Katie mentions that daddy told her not to mention that he gets money in briefcases from Mr. Kim. The judge is convinced before Casey has to do her final stunt where she was going to ask Katie to count the heartbeats of the hot dog vendor outside of the court.

Stabler announces to Nicholson that Mr. Parvin's son has accepted a deal so that he doesn't have to go to trial and thus Katie won't have to testify. Stabler, knowing that Nicholson didn't attack his wife but may have sold secrets, treats Nicholson like a piece of shit. Nicholson, out to prove Stabler's point, grabs his daughter and walks out on the very confused and screaming Mrs. Nicholson. She still had no memory of the affair or the attack and she yelled for her husband to explain why he wouldn't talk to her. Katie screams too that she wants to be with her mom and I am stuck wondering why her own screaming doesn't destroy her ears since she has such sensitive hearing.