(TRIGGER WARNING - mentions of SA, murder, and mental illness)
“Uncle” (Law & Order: SVU) - A mother and her 9-year-old daughter are violently raped and murdered after their killer tied them down onto the bed with packaging tape. They find evidence that the mother was struggling to make ends meet, and had decided to sell the daughter’s bicycle for extra cash. The detectives believe that her advertisement indirectly got them killed; the suspect saw an opportunity, given that there was no father or male relative present, and was allowed into their residence under the guise of purchasing said bike.
The first suspect is believed to be a homeless man with severe mental illness. After being placed in a holding cell, he’s revealed to be Andrew, the uncle of Detective Munch who had wandered away from a living facility after going off his medication. Detectives Beck and Stabler soon learn about DNA evidence that leads them to a man named Brent Allen Banks, who was previously convicted of rape fifteen years prior. He had likely seen the bike ad while restocking a vending machine at the supermarket. With his fingerprint on the ad, Brent claims he had lifted it to look at a different flyer. They inform him that the mother and daughter were covered in teeth marks, which is what Brent’s previous victim (who survived) experienced. A technicality, however, results in Brent walking away; a judge throws the bite mark evidence out, and there’s no legal reason to hold him.
Munch’s uncle, who had gotten to know the mother and daughter when they saw him in the park, is outraged over this and (despite being medicated) demands that Brent be “euthanized.” Beck and Stabler monitor the suspect and inform Andrew that they’ll handle it. Since he was temporarily housed at Munch’s residence, Andrew caught glimpses of the case files - he saw the brutality of the murders and found Brent’s address.
Beck and Stabler follow Brent when he appears to be taking a young woman on a date. They trail him to the subway and quickly realize that Andrew is there too. As the train approaches, Andrew shoves Brent onto the tracks, killing him instantly. When confronted by Stabler, he repeatedly says: “We did it! We did good!”
The episode ends with Andrew in a psychiatric facility, refusing to take an insanity plea. He tells his nephew that he needs to own up to his actions, and that he’d “rather die” than be on those medications again. (We never see Andrew after that and it’s implied that he’ll never go to trial, as it was determined he experienced a psychotic break.)
“You Can’t Handle the Truth” (Supernatural) - Sam and Dean investigate a small town in Illinois where several people feel compelled to tell the truth, no matter how horrible it is. It begins with a waitress serving customers; one of her patrons reveals they committed a violent hit-and-run years earlier and didn’t feel bad about, while a male co-worker rudely tells her she’s “not as hot” as the new employee. Already stressed out (and implied to be depressed), the waitress calls her sister to vent. The sister casually tells her that she’s a burden, and always has been. The waitress then hangs up the phone, pulls out a revolver, and shoots herself.
But (in my opinion) the most disturbing moment comes later in the episode. A dentist is making small talk with his patient, who just so happens to be a good family friend. The patient begins blabbering on about how he’s nervous to get his teeth checked… and then goes on about how his wife is aging poorly and he’s no longer attracted to her. The dentist is confused and taken aback, but proceeds with the appointment. The patient then admits to raping the dentist’s underage daughter when she visited his own kid for a sleepover; he even says he did it because “I knew I could get away with it.” Without thinking, the dentist proceeds to shove the drill down the patient’s throat, killing him. (The dentist later commits suicide after being placed in a holding cell.)
“Slaughterhouse” (CSI: Miami) - A family is massacred in their own residence with a shotgun, and the sole survivors are the father and toddler daughter. After awakening from surgery, the father claims he arrived home from work in the middle of a home invasion, before admitting that his wife is the one responsible (as her fatal injury appears to be self-inflicted). The team scopes the house to determine what likely occurred before and during the shooting. They theorize that the mother may have been experiencing postpartum psychosis, and evidence shows that she was on antidepressants at the time. Horatio soon doubts this, arguing that family annihilators are often men, and even when a woman is responsible, it’s unlikely for her to use a gun.
After the medical examiner takes a deeper look into the mother’s wound, she informs the team that she was murdered too; the position of the shogun was also inconsistent with how one would hold it when taking their own life. Believing that the father is hiding further information, he breaks down and says their 17-year-old son was the shooter and that it was an act of revenge for the discovering that dad was having an affair. After the mother gave birth to the youngest victim (the 8-month-old baby), all responsibility fell onto their son; with his father being a workaholic and mom struggling with her emotions postpartum, he was left to help out with his three younger siblings. (His teeth are examined for excessive grinding and the examiner remarks, “Good Lord, what kind of stress was this boy under?”)
When actually retracing the pattern of events - and who died in what order - the team realize that dad is the killer. He took the day off work and came home when nobody was expecting him to. Earlier that morning, he had spiked his wife’s drink with a higher dosage of her medication and she was passed out on the couch when he found her. He shoots her before going after the 13-year-old son, who wasn’t in school because of the flu; dad shot him in the back as he played video games with noise-cancelling headphones. He detoured to the garage to remove the life insurance policies from the safe, and that’s when the 17-year-old came home with dinner. The son found his toddler sister on the couch with mom, covered in blood, and quickly took her to backyard so she could hide. He goes back inside to retrieve his baby brother when he encounters dad with the shotgun; a fight ensues - the son manages to grab the gun and shoots dad in the lower back. He drops the weapon and takes his brother from the carrier to flee. Before passing out, dad grabs the gun and shoots the teen as he attempts to run towards the front door. The buckshot goes through him and into the infant, killing them both instantly.
After arresting the father, Horatio asks him if he really thought he could get away with this. The man blames his wife for being neglectful and says that he “just snapped.” He informs Horatio that a jury will sympathize with him once they “hear the whole story.”
“Stranger” (Law & Order: SVU) - A young woman appears on the doorstep of the Hallander family, and they realize she’s Heather - the youngest daughter who went missing a few years earlier when she was fourteen. Detectives Stabler and Benson are hesitant to believe the young woman’s identity, but she appears to know things about the family that make it difficult to prove she’s lying.
Halfway through the episode, she attempts to slice her wrists and is taken to the hospital; because she needed a blood transfusion, the doctors took note of her blood type and inform Stabler that it’s not possible for her to be the biological daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Hallander (“Heather” is Type B, but the Hallanders are both Type A). They confront the woman, accusing her of being a con artist. She professes that everything she previously told them was true: she was kept in a basement, forced to urinate in a bucket, and was raped repeatedly every day. Her identity is soon determined to be that of Kristen Vucelik, who was abducted by her father years earlier after a nasty custody dispute. Kristen’s father is arrested and she’s soon reunited with her mother. Before she’s due to travel back to Ohio, however, Kristen stops by the Hallander residence at the request of Nikki, the middle daughter.
Because Nikki had been acting “off” throughout the episode, Benson and Stabler attempt to locate her but find that she’s disappeared with Kristen. Mrs. Hallander denies knowing anything, but oldest daughter Erica confronts her and asks why she’s lying about Kristen leaving with Nikki. The mother quickly breaks down, revealing that she’s known the real Heather has been dead this whole time - and that Nikki was responsible. She explains: “I already lost one daughter, I couldn’t lose another!”
The episode ends with the detectives and Erica confronting Nikki on the rooftop of the apartment building, where they rescue Kristen. Nikki implies that she pushed Heather into the giant chimney stack because the latter caught her doing drugs and “she was going to tell on me.” She’s arrested and coldly tells Kristen: “Why did you pick us? The police stopped looking for my sister a long time ago.”
