From camp bitchery to male schmucks, there are no lengths to which the "Law And Order" franchises will not go. The other night, 'SVU' and 'Criminal Intent' featured two episodes with such pieces of scum, I just wanted to put my fist through the television set. You know that feeling, girls!!!!!!!! Though at least one of the scumbags had a point!
Let's start with 'SVU'. The episode shown, "Conscience", featured Kyle Maclachlin as Dr. Brett Morton, and let me start by saying if Isabella Rossellini were to catch him hiding in her closet now, she would scream and call the cops!!!!!!!! And I would not blame her, because Time has not been kind to Kyle. He will never be Jeffrey in "Blue Velvet" again.
But, as Dr. Morton, he has more pressing problems than age and career decline. The action starts at a children's birthday party, held in one of these commercial NYC juvenile party venues, with hundreds of prepubescents running around silly. What a nightmare, already! One of these kids, Henry Morton (Dr. Morton's son), runs off, followed by a woman (presumably his mother) chasing after him. Suddenly, she turns--and Henry is gone!!!!!!!!
Now, this being 'SVU', it isn't long before Henry's murdered body turns up in a construction site. Shades of the regular "Law And Order" episode, "Killerz", featuring Jenny Brandt. Keep your eyes peeled, darlings, for, while this one is similar to the Jenny Brandt story, it examines the issues therein in an altogether different way.
There are suspects a' plenty to choose from, and that includes the Good Doctor. But the best candidate is Billy Turner, a known pedophile. Meanwhile, across the street from the Mortons, live the O'Haras (not of Tara), namely Jake (played by Jordan Garrett, in a performance to keep your eyes on), and his mother, played by Johanna Day. Young Jake is all empathy and condolence to Dr. Morton for Henry's death, and he just laps it up, but let me tell you, after a few minutes of young Jake's butter-wouldn't-melt-in-his-mouth routine, I was beginning to wonder.
It turns out Jake has behavior problems, and, thinking it would help, his mother sends him to one of these Tough Love camps for problem kids, where he alleges the others abused and sodomized him. But when the SVU team talks to camp officials and members, guess who they discover did all the abusing????? Jake!!!!!!! So, at the very least, they know Jake is a pathological liar.
If only it were that easy. For, under interrogation, Jake chillingly reveals his true colors, saying how Henry saw him in the act of killing a neighbor's cat (red flag, darlings--serial killer aspirant on the prowl!!!!!), and threatened he was going to tell. So Jake followed Henry to the party, where he lured him away, and did the dastardly deed. When asked what was the last thing Henry said to him, before he was killed, Jake gives a chilling response--"I want my Mommy!" Sick kid!!! Dr. Morton is devastated, but still thinks the troubled Jake still deserves a chance.
Everyone wants to try Jake as an adult--including myself--but he is remanded to family court. Due to his age, and the fact that he is a cute kid who knows how to manipulate everyone in sight (I am telling you, if Jake had been less than cute, it would have made a difference, because American justice, especially when it comes to children, goes only skin deep!!!!!!), Jake is going to be remanded to a juvenile psychiatric facility, where he will remain till the age of 18, when he will be released. Things take a turn here, when Jake turns, stares Dr. Morton straight on, giving a look, indicating he is not a bit sorry. You can see the horror on Morton's face, as the truth registers--Jake is a dangerous sociopath, a textbook serial killer in the making, (just like Jenny Brandt) who, given the chance, would kill again.
Dr. Morton weighs his options, and, in a scene, where things almost happen too fast, Jake and his mother walk out of the courtroom, followed behind by Morton. Before we can register what happens, he grabs a court officer's gun, aims, and point fires at Jake, killing the boy on the spot!!!!!!!!! Darlings, this was something I did not for a second see coming, and, if I were hooked to a shock register machine, I am sure, I would have broken the apparatus, at this point!!!!!!!!!
And--get this, lambs--we are only halfway through the episode!!!!!!!!!
Now, it is Dr. Morton who is on trial. Among the evidence prosecution tries to work against him is an article he wrote years before, detailing his beliefs, and why, that sociopathic children are incapable of being cured. That they should be given lifelong incarceration, because, if released, they will go on to do their dastardly deeds again and again.
Let me say up front, I am with Dr. Morton on this!!!!!!!! I am not a bit sorry he gunned down Jake, though I do not advocate vigilante execution. Unless, of course, I am directly attacked, darlings, because no sick bitch is gonna get the best of ME!!!!!!!!! But Morton is right--if released at 18, Jake most certainly would have killed again. As proof, I offer the real life South Jersey case of Sam Manzie, whose parents recognized early on how disturbed he was, and who correctly tried to get him housed somewhere, for both his and society's good. But they were turned down, and as a result, Sam, at 15, went on to murder and sodomize his 11-year-old next door neighbor. Now he IS incarcerated for life, but, due to bureaucratic negligence and denial (no one ever wants to believe that minors can be evil!!!!!) an innocent child had to die, before the correct action was taken!!!!!!!
The jury here has to decide--did Morton act as a grieving father, or as a psychiatric vigilante?????? I guess they felt his grief was palpable, which I did, and they issue him a "Not Guilty" verdict. I would have voted the same way, let me tell you!!!!!!
In the telling final scene in front of the courthouse, Elliot Stabler goes up to Morton and asks him just when he decided to kill Jake. Knowing he cannot be retried, Morton is forthcoming, saying he decided to do it in court, when Jake gave him that evil look, and, measured against the evidence, he realized truly what Jake was. "Even though you knew it was wrong?" asks Elliot. Morton's answer provides for one one unforgettable ending. "Yes," he says, rightfully. "But one things is certain. Jake O'Hara would have killed again. And I never will." Then he walks off!!!!!!!!!!!!
All I can say, darlings is--WOW!!!!!! Go Dr. Morton! Again, neither I nor this episode is advocating vigilante style execution; what it is pleading is the need to recognize the signs and dangers of juvenile socipathy, and that such an illness cannot be cured with a Band Aid, or even psych medications. Had Jake been permanently consigned, he never would have been killed, and he might have gotten some help.
So, who are the schmucks, here????? Jake, of course, Dr. Morton, to a large degree, Jake's mother, to a lesser, who really cannot be blamed for her inability to discern her son's true nature, as she hadn't the tools or guidance, plus he was pulling the wool over her eyes, too. The bigger of the schmucks I maintain was the entire Justice System, who cannot see beyond the visual innocence in a child, and thus comes down easy every time, despite indications that warrant the opposite.
What a story, darlings! Then we turned to 'Criminal Intent' in continuance of our Dinner With Schmucks!!!!!!!!!!!
This episode, entitled "Yesterday", featured two pieces of scum, Rick Morrissey (Danton Stone) and Jay Lippman (Jim True-Frost). And Johanna Day, featured in the aforementioned story, also appears here as Jay's wife, Ann.
A woman's body washes up along the Bronx River. It is two decades old, but carefully wrapped, and well preserved. Marks on the women's body indicate she was tortured, and the autopsy shows she had been raped. Chemical residue on the body leads Goren and Eames to discover this body was placed in the river, after being moved from somewhere else. Their search leads them to a deserted house, once owned by the Morrissey family. The parents have moved away, but their adult children, Rick and Sally, still live in the area. Sally is a functional adult, trying to put her life together, or maybe keep it so. Her brother, Rick, is a problem to her and everyone--a drug addicted loser, who cannot keep a job, drifts from place to place, and is not above being dependent on others, chiefly his sister, for monetary handouts.
But there is another figure in this story--Jay Lippman, an arrogant, snarky corporate type (you know the kind, girls!!!!) who works for a high powered engineering company, with the wife, the suburban house--all the trappings America says one is supposed to have, and which he fervently, almost pathologically, believes. It seems Rick and he met during college, when both were in their Chess Club; Jay was Chess Master, and Rick his protege. An unholy, and unbroken, alliance, was formed between them, when Sally, then still in high school, said she wanted to date a college man, and Rick fixed her up with Jay. Not knowing what the outcome would be, Jay drugged and date raped Sally, word got back to Rick, and, while no real charges were pressed, and Sally never said anything, Rick was given something to hold over Jay.
As it turned out, he had a good deal more. Once Rick began with Sally, it unleashed in him a sexually sadistic side that was used to calm him whenever stress became too much. So, Rick was enlisted to help Jay find, and then dispose, of these series of victims, binding one to the other in a kind of Leopold-Loeb connection.
Once they hear Sally's story, Goren and Eames go talk to Jay at work, and Goren gets his number right away--all about entitlement and control!!!!! Uhm, hmm!!!!!!!!!!! The tables are turned once Rick turns up dead. Jay, tired of having this twenty year albatross around his neck, decides it is time to cut Rick loose. So, he lures the gullible, addicted, brain-addled Rick, to the top of a building in construction (and Rick is dumb enough to go!!) and pushes him off, making it look, as it does to most, that Rick committed suicide!!!!!!
Goren and Eames are not buying this for a second. They have spoken to Jay's wife, Ann, and learn of his little flaw--when things get too much for him, he goes off missing for several days, and returns, as relaxed as having been at a spa!!!!!!!! What I want to know is, how come Ann takes this so blithely???? She just matter of factly thinks Jay is working off steam with an affair somewhere????? And that is OK, with her???? If only it were that, darlings!!!!! Well, girls, if she wants to keep the house and ride the gravy train with Jay's money, it had damn well better be OK with her, which is how Jay gets away with it.
But now, with Ann's admissions and Rick's murder, they can haul Jay into the interrogation room, where things get really interesting. The minute this arrogant prick takes his seat and scowls, it is apparent he is on the verge of cracking, any second. And Goren, in his best Vincnent D'Onofrio fashion, splits this guy wide open, psychologically, saying how he was nothing but someone who was unloved and abused by his family, and had no friends; at least till he got to college, and discovered two things he was good at--math, and chess, which, incidentally, are both about manipulation and control. How the only person he was able to hook up with is loser Rick, whom he used as a patsy. And how, whenever Jay would go mysteriously wandering off, suddenly a young woman somewhere would go missing, only to turn up raped,tortured, and murdered. Jay is a serial killer-rapist.
Poor Jay! Boo Hoo! He breaks down, crying, "I couldn't help it," "You have no idea what it was like," meaning his life had been so hard; he had done everything to make it perfect and eradicate his imperfections, but he just couldn't!!!!!! Yeah, Jay, I feel real sorry for you!!!!!!!! Roll up his sleeve, stick the needle in his arm, and good riddance to this arrogant schmuck.
Brett Morton, Jay O'Hara, Rick Morrissey and Jay Lippman. Real pieces of work; genuine schmucks, superbly embodied by the actors who played them.
Dinner was served up well, girls, but I wouldn't want to eat the leftovers!!!!!!!!!
See you in court, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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