Law and Order SVU - Babes (Episode 1006)

Woot!  My first SVU recap!  I’ll try to keep the squeeage to a minimum.  Suffice it to say that I’ve wanted to cover this show ever since I saw “Fault” and nearly swooned for awhile.  We open on a restaurant, where an obnoxiously smoochy couple lingers at a table, keeping the waiters from closing.  Hey rude restaurant patrons!  Time for dessert – Murder Victim Flambe!  A man, screaming and engulfed in flames, comes charging out of nowhere and crashes into the restaurant.  Elliot and Munch arrive, and it’s quickly established that Olivia’s off at a battered women’s conference.  This sets us up for disappointingly little interaction between the two main characters in this episode.  Hmph.   Hopefully they’re just saving up all the good interaction for next week.  Y’all ‘shippers know what I’m talking about.    Dude!  Dead Mr. Flambe’s missing his naughty bits, which were chopped off before he became a human charcoal briquette. Dr. Warner suggests that Elliot “follow the bloody brick road” back to the crime scene.  As I try to say “bloody brick road” five times fast, Munch and Elliot locate the goretastic scene in a nearby parking garage.  The killer wanted this guy to suffer. 

A scalpel found at the crime scene matches puncture wounds in the victim’s groin area.  Looks like the perp missed a few times before… er… getting the goods.  The vic is Joshua Galli, age 22.  He was drunk and cracked out when he died, leading Doc Warner to believe he may have been homeless.  But when Elliot locates Josh’s father, a super kind, gentle man, he hears the whole story.  Josh was diagnosed with Schizophrenia as a teen.  His mother couldn’t handle it, and left them.  “It’s hard to believe something’s wrong with your kid,” Elliot emphathizes, obviously thinking about his daughter.  Speaking of Kathleen, I wonder how her treatment’s going.  Hopefully she hasn’t been discovered naked and singing Irish sea shanties in any more strangers' bathrooms.  Anyhoo, Josh self-medicated with crack, and wandered off for weeks at a time.  His only enemies were some vigilante freaks who enjoyed hunting homeless people as a hobby.  And like seemingly most dumbass young modern criminals, these vigilantes decided to post their hobo-hunting escapades on YouTube.  Brilliant.

Elliot and the team locate the vigilante videos online.  We get a complicated spiel from the computer guys, which boils down to this: the era of Big Brother is upon us.  The fuzz can track your movements via something called “geotags” if you post videos online.  Our heroes promptly set a trap in the thick of bum-beatdown territory.  OMG… funniest undercover operation ever!  Picture this: Munch, sporting dirty, ill fitting clothing, rumpled hair, and what appears to be Sally Jessy Raphael’s trademark big red glasses, goes running down a street in the middle of the night.  The best part?  Munch doesn’t need to do anything to sound like a total paranoid nutjob - he just spouts his usual conspiracy theory lingo.  Except pumped up to shouting volume.  Hee!  And sure ‘nuff, it works.  Two masked vigilantes run at Undercover!Munch with a baseball bat, and even manage to land a solid thwack before Elliot and Fin (heretofore blending in by crouching v.v. inconspicuously behind some nearby garbage cans) come to the rescue.  Fin pull off a perp’s ski mask, and – surprise!  It’s a girl!  This chick is about as pleasant as a box full of used needles and broken glass.  She admits to beating the stuffing out of assorted homeless people, and she’s not sorry, either.  Awhile back her father was sitting on the subway, minding his own beeswax, when a street person randomly bashed in his skull with a brick.  The murderer had been in and out of jail approximately 94837658 times.  “Since you can’t do your job, I will,” snaps the chick.  Okay, usually I hate these venom-spitting perps, but I have to admit this one has a fairly good reason to be pissed.  Although it clearly doesn’t justify the whole whack-a-hobo thing.  Unfortunately for our crew, Miss Venom has an alibi, and it checks out.  Back to the drawing board.

We learn that formaldehyde was the accelerant used to torch Josh, and a lighter printed with the name of a private Christian school was found nearby.  Munch and Elliot head on over to the school of Our Lady of the Sexually Repressed.  They’re given a tour by a kid named Max.  Ol’ Max is a founding member of a school club called the Priggish Virgins Who Preach Something They Know Nothing About Chastity Circle.  He gets plenty of chatty airtime, and I thereby predict he will later become A) a perp B) a vic or C) both.  Max points out another student, Alec Bernardi, who had access to the school’s lab supplies (formaldehyde and scalpels, anyone?).  Alec tries to avoid Elliot and Munch, but they easily outmaneuver him and ask about that nasty lookin’ burn on his hand.  Busted. 

Yay, Olivia’s back!  I figured she’d be at the “conference” for the whole episode.  As Cragen fills her in on the case, a woman who can best be described as “Queens Long Island personified” arrives.  Meet Mrs. Bernardi, Alec’s mom.  She starts screeching in a Fran Drescher-esque fashion about her son’s innocence, but Alec’s singing a different tune.  Not only does he admit to stabbing Josh in the junk and torching him, but he’s proud of it.  According to Alec, Josh raped his sister, Tina, and got her pregnant.  Hence the naughty bits revenge.  Of course, Olivia heads over to talk to Tina, using her best Cajole the Victim voice.  She tells Tina that she needs to be tested for STDs – they could hurt her baby.  Mrs. Bernardi’s all, “Baby?  What the eff??”  Yep, Tina’s knocked up.  But she insists that the sex with Josh was consensual, and Alec misunderstood.  She ran into Josh during one of his good periods, and they started talking – the rest is history.  Olivia wonders why on earth they didn’t use a condom, and Tina says… that she wanted to get pregnant.  “We all did.”  Ohhh, I get it.  This is a retelling of that pregnancy pact scandal a work of fiction that has absolutely nothing to do with real life events.

Four good lil’ Christian schoolgirls are in on the pregnancy pact.  They think it’ll be “fun” to raise their babies together.  Honey, if by “fun” you mean stretch marks, 3 AM feedings, diapers filled with God knows what, and spit-up on every item of clothing you own, then by all means, go for it.  It turns out that there’s a ringleader to this posse: Fedelia, who got pregnant first.  Fedelia is not only stupid as a bag of wet cement, she also manages to immediately find Olivia’s weak spot: the fact that her biological clock is ticking.  “You’re old,” flounces Fedelia.  “Old chicks are totally jealous of me.” She flaunts her belly in Olivia’s general direction, and Benson’s just about had it.  She goes off on a tirade about how life as Fedelia knows it is over.  No more mall, no more hanging out with friends, no college.  Her new reality is food stamps, cankles, and a lame-ass GED.  And how about health risks for babies born to teen mothers?  I laugh out loud as Fedelia’s bitchy little face crumples and she hides behind her daddy.  Go Liv!  Just then, in walks Mr. Anti-Sex himself, Max.  He’s Fedelia’s boyfriend!  So much for the Chastity Circle!  Max sobs and hugs Fedelia, saying that he forgives her for cheating because even Christians make mistakes.  He’s not the dad – so who is?

All that skank Fedelia knows about her baby daddy is his klassy street name: Dizzer.  Munch checks records and comes up with Dizzer’s (a.k.a. Donald Zuccho’s) record.  Here comes ADA Kim Greyleck, her hair lacquered with the usual can and a half of Aqua Net (gotta keep that no-nonsense bun just so!).  She wants to charge Dizzer, who’s 23, with statutory rape.  Elliot and Fin head down have a chat with Dizzer.  And Dude, this guy is such a douchebag.  He’s white as a snowbank in a blizzard, but is rocking some horrible faux-‘hood slang.  Fin looks like he wants to punch Dizzer in the teeth.  Instead, they serve him with the DNA paternity test warrant, and head over to Fedelia’s to get permission for an amniocentesis on the baby.  Minor snafu: Fedelia’s locked herself in her room.  Stabler breaks down the door with neat efficiency (HOTTT).  And… Fedelia is hanging from the ceiling fan, clearly deceased.  She was a ho to Olivia, so I can’t really feel too sorry for her. 

Fedelia’s parents and Max are beside themselves, and her mother thinks the internet is to blame.  Apparently Fedelia received some anonymous harassing emails, calling her a useless slut and telling her to "end it."  At first they suspect Dizzer, but he has a truly disgusting alibi that involves sex with twins and more fake street-talk.  Munch tracks down the internet café where the emails were sent, and discovers that none other than Mrs. Bernardi got some money from an ATM nearby.  She sent the emails?!  When confronted with the evidence, Mrs. Bernardi admits that she wanted revenge because that slut Fedelia ruined her family's life.  And she's pretty sure they can't arrest her for writing emails, either.  So there. Kim Greyleck confirms that cyberbullying isn’t against the law, but they can charge her with a slew of other petty felonies.  Meanwhile, an angry mob gathers outside of the Bernardi home to protest the emails.  Rabble!  Rabble!  And then, who should show up but the one man you'd think would really have cause to hate this family - Mr. Galli, Josh’s dad. But since he is awesome and wonderful, Mr. Galli instead asks everyone to calm down and leave the Bernardi family alone.  Stabler and Fin escort the Bernardis from their home amidst much pushing and shoving. 

Time for the "Order" part of Law and Order.  I guess that means more Kim Greyleck.  Sigh.  Mrs. Bernardi pleads Not Guilty to Criminal Impersonation, Endangering the Welfare of a Child, and pretty much every other random charge Greyleck can find in her handy-dandy copy of "Law for Dummies."  Speaking of Greyleck, she seems to have a deeper issue with Mrs. Bernardi, because she keeps making snarky little comments about her, right there in the courtroom.  Like, when the Judge tells Mrs. Bernardi to calm down, Greyleck mutters, "You might need a stungun."  Dude!  Since when is that acceptable court behavior from an ADA?  Whatev.  When it comes time for the trial, Greyleck makes Mrs. Bernardi read back everything she wrote to Fedelia in the emails. It's kinda mean, but I personally don't think it's anything that would cause the girl to hang herself.  Greyleck rips Mrs. Bernardi a new one, calling her a bad mother.  But when it comes time to read the last email, Mrs. Bernardi's daughter Tina, sitting in the audience, stands up.  Fedelia had written "Fath is knocking, gotta go." Everyone assumed that "fath" meant father, but Tina hollers that it's an acronym used in the Chastity Circle.  It means First And True Husband.  As in... Max.

Elliot and Munch go back and interview Max.  The night Fedelia died, he snuck in the fire escape to see her.  They'd made a committement to each other and to God, and although she'd broken it, Max insists that he forgave her.  Elliot's voice gets all low and silky and he starts working his perp-riling magic, telling Max about how Fedelia let that douchebag Dizzer take off her clothes and touch her.  She made love to a stranger, and maybe Max couldn't forgive the way he wanted.  Max, who's gettin' a little sweaty, tells Elliot that Fedelia was blowing off his emails and texts.  When he came over to her place, he tried to hug her, and she slapped him.  Fedelia told Max she'd never loved him, and would never marry him.  She accused him of being chaste because he was scared to have sex.  (By this time, Max is not only sweating, he's also crying, causing him to drip all over the interrogation table).  Max put his hands around Fedelia's neck, to stop her from yelling.  Her parents couldn't hear because they were drinking in the kitchen.  When Max finally stopped squeezing, Fedelia was dead.  He hung her from the ceiling fan to make it look like a suicide.  Max has asked God for forgiveness every night since, but God doesn't seem to be able to come to the phone right now.  "I'm the one who kept my promise," Max sobs as Stabler looks at him with an expression of pity and disgust.  "I'm not the bad one.  Why won’t God answer me?" 

Max is sentenced to four years for manslaughter, and Alec Bernardi gets  fifteen years to life for murder.  The charges against Mrs. Bernardi, on the other hand, are about to be dismissed.  That is, until Kim Greyleck hollers across the courtroom that Mrs. Bernardi should wash the blood off her hands before holding her grandbaby.  That about does it for sassy Mrs. Bernardi, who lunges straight at Greyleck and grabs her in a chokehold.  By the time they pull her off, Greyeck's bleeding where Mrs. Bernardi's Cougar Red Lee Press-Ons gouged into her neck.  "Collar that bitch for assault," says Greyleck.  Okay.  This is exactly what I don't like about her.  This scene was supposed to be dramatic and show Greyleck's passion for what she does.  But it isn't, and it doesn't.  First of all, Greyleck seems to be carved out of the same extraordinarily boring piece of wood as Chester Lake.  And secondly, she's so pretty and stiff that she just comes off as an icy bitch.  I'm sorry, L&O: SVU.  I still love you.  But it's true.  

Poor knocked-up Tina Bernardi is the only member of her family that's not getting tossed in the slammer, and she blames herself for the whole thing.  Elliot sits down beside her in family court; she thinks she's going to have to go into a foster home.  But wait!  Who should show up but... sweet, kind Mr. Galli.  He takes Elliot's place next to Tina, and tells her that a baby shouldn't grow up surrounded by strangers.  Her baby needs a home, and it's his grandchild, too.  Awww!  "I’m so sorry about what my brother did," Tina says.  Mr. Galli, bless his heart, says it’s not about the past.  It’s about right now.  The two of them hug, and I have to admit that I tear up just a lil' bit.  These two coming together to raise the baby is a surprisingly satisfying end to the episode.  Elliot and I both think the world needs more Mr. Gallis.