Darlings, Last Night's 'SVU' Was So Sick And Twisted!!!!!!!!!!!!

Girls, I am telling you, last night's 'SVU' episode, "Totem" had everything going for it--Jeremy Irons returning in a wonderful performance as Doctor Cap Jackson, a bevy of disturbed femmes, a compelling case and lurid outcome--that should have added up to one of the best in the series, like "Bully" or "Mean." But too many questions here go unanswered.

Let's start with what we saw. There is a traditional opening of two little girls running down a street--from a perp, or what??? Turns out they are playing a game, when one finds an abandoned travel case in front of this church. They unzip it, and inside is a little girl's body. The victim, eight-year-old Marnie Wilson, had been missing since Monday, though we never learn what day she was found, or how many days have elapsed since her disappearance. Flaw number one.

It turns out the victim, Marnie Wilson, was left there, allegedly by the killer. A video camera surveys the scene, but a truck blocks the identity of the person who left it. They talk to sex offenders, Marnie's piano teacher, June Freye, the boyfriend of Marnie's mother. No go. So they decide to stake out the
funeral, thinking the perp will be there. Things look clear, until they catch a
woman running from the scene. It is June, the piano teacher. She is questioned.

At June's house, they look the place over. Jackson notes how everything has stopped in June's house at a certain childhood point--preserving it that way, a la Miss Havisham, because something happened to her, then. Something that brought June's life to a screeching halt. Elliot and Jack go outside, sifting through garbage, and find evidence, along with doll's hair and pillows found indoors, suggesting June might have been Marnie's killer. Meanwhile, Olivia is with June, playing the piano. She excuses herself for a minute, and, using the drug found in Marnie's system, tries to kill herself. She feels guilty--"tell Marnie's parents I am so sorry," she says, but we don't know of what she is actually guilty.

Marnie's schoolmates and teachers are questioned. Nothing. Same with June's other piano students--until a teenage girl says June brushed her off one day, following Marnie's disappearance, when she saw her arguing in front of her house, with an old woman, wielding a cane. The old woman turns out to be Elaine Freye Cavanugh, June's mother, whom June said, had been dead. She lives in a townhouse with a second daughter, Katie, from a previous marriage. Elaine is one piece of work, girls, cold, unyielding, voicing her position on perfection and using discipline to attain it. The SS would have loved HER!!!!!!!!!

Suddenly, Katie, whom I would judge to be in her early twenties, comes in, and, eyeing the police, runs and hides, saying she did not do anything. They find her cowering in a closet. Olivia asks if this is her bedroom, and Katie says yes. Then Elaine finds them, and orders them out--of HER bedroom!!!!!!! Olivia gets it; mother and daughter share the same bed, and have all along, because mother is a sexual abuser. Sick!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Haul this bitch off to the canner's !!!!!!!!!

So they get Katie in the interrogation room, a disturbing mixture of cunning adult and disturbed child. You get the impression that, had this dirty little secret not gotten out, Katie would have gone on living with Elaine, being hopelessly dependent on her. In which case institutionalization would have been inevitable, as something would have to be done with Katie, once Elaine died. A confession is coaxed out of her--she showed up at June's, she saw Marnie waiting, thinking she was there for a lesson, invited her inside.....and her impulses took over, resulting in Marnie's death. June got back, discovered what Katie had done, and covers it up by encasing her in the bag and leaving it in front of the church.
Jackson says Katie will be placed in a psychiatric facility, where she will be given help, but she will never be free. Elaine is going to prison for ongoing abuse. June, while absolved of murder, is charged with, however unwittingly, aiding and abetting a crime.

Sick fucks, darlings!!!!!!!! But so many things unanswered, chiefly about Elaine--was she abused herself, and what made her into such. She abused, but she never killed. How much did Elaine know about Katie, prior to her going to June's house, the day of Marnie's death. Did she realize Katie had the capacity to be an abuser and killer herself?????? You have to feel sorrow and revulsion for Katie--getting back at her mother by stealing from Marnie the innocence stolen from her--but how sick and disgusting, at the same time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, lambs, more ground had to be covered in order for this to be one of the best episodes. It came darn close, though. And it is based on the Sandra Cantu case from 2009, which is something else in itself!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sick and twisted, darlings!!!!!!!!!! Now, let us go have an ice cream soda, and make ourselves feel like Lana Turner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!