photo: nbc
Bombshell
Original Air Date: Mar 23, 2011
Caitlin- Associate Staff Writer
caitlin@thetwocentscorp.com
Last night’s episode of SVU had it all. And by “all”, I mean promiscuity, plot twists (of course), incest, deception, murders and Eliot and Olivia acting undercover as a couple going to a swingers club.
The opening scenes teach us two things- first, if a guy stumbles up to you with a knife in his crotch, don’t remove it, and second, if you do remove it, please do not panic at the blood and try to put it back in.
Unsurprisingly, our victim, Jerry, winds up comatose. He apparently works for an aviation systems company, but according to his wife, only designs tires. However, he was supposed to be in Washington D.C. and never left. Several people report seeing a disturbed man in bloody clothes near where Jerry was attacked. The suspect is hauled into the station, where it’s revealed that he’s been wandering the streets after cutting off parts of his fingers with a meat slicer and being left by his wife. Huang interviews the man and discovers he has a condition that is basically a form of extreme insomnia that will eventually kill him from exhaustion (he never sleeps). But the blood on his clothes is from Jerry, who our guy found outside a mysterious doorway. Behind the door? A swingers club.
“The Swing Set” only allows people to come when they’ve been invited by another member, so Elliot and Olivia show up saying they have Jerry’s blessing. Olivia winds up with a random couple and Elliot locates Cassandra, the woman Jerry spent all his time at the club with. Cassandra also has a jealous ex-boyfriend named Doug who has made trouble for her and others over her lifestyle. The detectives talk to Jerry’s wife again and learn that the couple were both swingers who knew of Doug. She agrees to describe Doug to a sketch artist and does so just in time, because Doug shows up at the club the next night. He’s quickly apprehended and taken into interrogation, where he complains about Cassandra being manipulative. When it’s pointed out that he has a scar that looks a couple days old, he asks for a lawyer.
At the hospital, Jerry wakes and tells Elliot, Olivia, and his daughter that he lied about a lot of things. Turns out he fell in love with Cassandra. This immediately turns suspicions towards the wife. Sure enough, she’s the one who stabbed him, but she didn’t really care about his feelings. She did it because of the money he was taking from his family to give to Cassandra. She insists that she regretted her actions immediately, and the detectives are forced to let Doug go. Nobody is at ease with this solution and they wait outside Cassandra’s apartment, fearing for her safety. Before long, Doug shows up, but Cassandra welcomes him with open arms and kisses him. Realizing they’ve been played, they arrest both Cassandra and Doug for ripping people off.
We learn that Cassandra and Doug have travelled a string of swingers clubs under different names, him playing an abusive boyfriend and her using pity to get funds out of men. However, one of their schemes went wrong and they’re persons of interest in a man’s death. Cassandra acts calm and confident when she’s interviewed. Just when it seems she might be in trouble, her lawyer walks in, hired for her by Jerry. Her claims that he is in love with her look to be proving true. In court, Cassandra and Doug are both held on bail pending the arrival of DNA results in the case of the man killed in Miami. Sure enough, when they do come in, they’re a match to Doug. But the results also reveal something else- Cassandra and Doug are brother and sister.
Jerry goes into denial when he hears the truth and about his lover. He continues to insist that Cassandra is in love with him. Elliot and Olivia go to talk to Cassandra instead, where they find her packing her things, saying Jerry has invited her to live with him and that he’ll have a surprise for them both when she arrives. Surprises are never good on this show, and when they rush in, they find Jerry standing calmly in front of Doug’s dead body, talking of how he lured the other man in. When Cassandra arrives, he says happily that they can be together as they want now, but seems genuinely stricken when she breaks down over Doug’s body.
As usual, I find myself wondering why the writers seem determined to pack so much into a single week in recent seasons. You could get three separate episodes out of a guy stabbed randomly in the crotch, a swingers club, and an incestuous pair of sibling con artists. On that last point, I also wonder why everyone on this particular show still acts so surprised when they run into people having sex with members of their family. Ah well. Seeing our characters in the club was fun, at least. And we got to hear Elliot use the term “twincest” (because Rose McGowan and Ryan Hurst look so very much alike). Still, I most enjoyed watching the preview for the next episode, where Jeremy Irons will return.
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