That Deidre Miller!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                          Deidre Miller is a "Cold Case" culprit from one of Season 3's better episodes, "The Promise."  What is done to Deidre is horrendous, but how she handles it is worse.  As I watched this episode unfold, my regard for Deidre went from sympathy to hate.

                           In "The Promise," Lindsay Hollister, (who played Agnes Linsky in the 'SVU' classic, "Mean")  gives a brilliant performance as Laurie Dunne, a freshman Foreign Film Major at her local college.  With her is her childhood friend, Dirk, and her girl friends Deidre and Shirley.  Like Laurie, they are plus sized,  yet hopeful about their futures.  Despite my feelings toward Deidre, there is no mistaking Kristina Sexton's brilliant performance, in this role!

                          My feelings were also ambivalent toward Dirk.  Why would an obviously unpopular, non-jock type, who had hung out with a crowd like Laurie and Deidre, want to venture into the dog-eat-dog word of fraternity life?  This is one reason why this episode is short of being one of the great ones.  Some things just don't make sense!

                           So, Dirk pledges, and, thinking he is being friendly, invites Laurie and her girls to the year's first party.  Laurie is happy her social life is on the rise, and her outfit is stunning.  One thing this episode DOES do is teach plus-size girls that they can look attractive, too!  And all of them are!

                            But their size, and Dirk's naivete, is about to be the downfall of all.  Dirk and the girls have no idea what the night holds.  As the party goes on, the girls are blindfolded, and lead to a secret room, where a surprise is in store.  When the blindfolds come off, the girls are on some sort of exaggerated scale, their weight numbers around their neck, underneath a banner that reads "HOG CONTEST."  The girls are mortified, the frat boys laugh, and Dirk's passivity annoyed the hell out of me,  In a blistering monologue delivered by Laurie, she derides Dirk for wanting to be part of a crowd that never gave them the time of day in high school--and she is right!  Laurie and Dirk eventually come around, when she realizes he knew nothing about this plan.

                           The girls are outraged; Deidre especially, because, at some point during the melee, she is raped.  An angry Laurie insists they burn the house down, and Deidre lights the match.

                            Laurie goes in to get Dirk.  During the melee, she becomes trapped in a room to die, locked by frat leader, Manny, who blames the whole thing on Laurie.  In an excruciating scene shot through a window, a dying Laurie makes Dirk promise to watch over her father, and hands over to him her mother's scarf, which she wore to the party, that evening.

                              Manny and Deidre are arrested.  Some may quibble with Deidre's arrest.  No, she did not deserve to be raped, and justice should be done, and will, with Manny's arrest, but Deidre vengefully set the fire that killed the more forgiving Laurie.  When her ghost appears to Dirk, it is as moving an ending as one could ask for.

                                But that Deidre.  What a piece of work!  She needed and deserved justice, but not by way of being a vigilante bitch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                  Spank those frat boys' butts beet red, girls, that is what you do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!