Law & Order SVU – Recap & Review – Bang

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Law & Order SVU
Bang

Original Air Date: May 4, 2011

Caitlin – Associate Staff Writer
caitlin@thetwocentscorp.com

If the trending topics on Twitter immediately after last night’s episode of SVU are any evidence, I’m not the only one who still thinks of John Stamos as Uncle Jesse from Full House. The episode, though, may have put an end to that.

We start out with a baby found abandoned in the cold outside. He turns out to be Jasper, the adopted child of Dede Aston, who, according to neighbor Wade, has disappeared herself after yelling was heard coming from her apartment.

A visit to Dede’s house shows Olivia and Elliot Imelda, Jasper’s nanny, crying and praying for his return. She says she spent the night with her boyfriend, Ken Turner. Ken himself is a former ADA who loves babies and says he checked on Jasper and left the night before. It doesn’t take him long to turn on Imelda, and it takes even less time to learn Dede is his fiancé, unaware of his affair. Ouch. She remains in denial as she talks with Olivia, telling her she didn’t even know Ken before 7 weeks ago, when he helped her adopt Jasper. Only when Olivia tells her flat-out about the affair does she turn on Imelda, who responds with equal anger. People on television always seem to attack the person their significant others had an affair with as opposed to the person who actually cheated on them.

I had some hope Dede would hold Ken accountable for his actions, but it was quickly dashed. She stands by him, and then tells him she’s pregnant with his baby. This would be because Ken’s been poking holes in her condoms, but he leads her away before she can be persuaded to see him for who hr is. It soon turns out Wade took Jasper to save him from his environment- a good thought, but who in the world would leave a baby outside in icy weather, assuming he’d be saved? Still, Wade’s suspicions of Ken are well-placed. New York records (this is important) show 20 other babies he’s fathered. Dr. Audrey Shelton, an expert in reproductive abusers, who are apparently far greater in number than I realized, says he’s the worst case she’s ever seen.

A search begins for all the women Ken impregnated. One was a drug addict until he got her rehab to guide her into motherhood, but his sweetness disappeared when she slipped up. He took her baby- Jasper- away from her, and she desperately wants him back. In interrogation, Ken is unapologetic. Finally, Elliot leads him out to a squad room full of women and children. The detectives have gathered every single one of Ken’s victims, none of then knowing Ken fathered all their kids. The phrase “What could possibly go wrong?” comes to mind here, especially since one woman is actually the mother of another who killed herself and her child when Ken abandoned them. Ken is still unashamed, and says he actually fathered 47 kids, including ones outside the city. He’s been a busy little psychopath. Given the nature of this show, he’s clearly signed off on his own death, but isn’t killed there. Instead, he’s killed later on, his chest blown open in one of the most gruesome deaths we’ve seen on the show.

Now we get to learn about a “wasp knife”, a special knife divers use that allows them to stab, say, a shark, and have an bubble of CO2 injected into the creature, which rises in the waters and bursts open. For some reason, there is apparently a great need for a video demonstrating this with a fish. (Don’t eat while watching this episode). Wade and Dede used to dive together, so he’s looked at as a suspect, but the knife was Dede’s- and Ken was killed at her home. Dede, though, was with all the women Ken “gave” babies to- though her story of someone probably breaking into her home is hard to believe, she has a lot of alibis. So who killed Ken? It was Audrey, the doctor who I’d totally forgotten about by this point. Apparently Ken invited her to Dede’s place and hit on her. With a calm smile, she tells the detectives how she stabbed him and watched him die for everything he did.

Just in case you weren’t disgusted enough by the notion of a knife that explodes people from the inside, the episode title comes from a neighbor’s description of hearing “a wet bang” when Ken was killed. As Craig Ferguson might say, you’re welcome, everyone worried about Cinco de Mayo ruining their diets. Overall, I liked the episode, but I have several nitpicks. Foremost amongst these is just how little we saw of Audrey before we learned the truth about her. Of course the writers shouldn’t have given away the ending, but a shock twist is less shocking when you’re looking at murderer thinking “Wait, who?” This could be partly because I have memory span of about 10 minutes, but her first appearance could still have been more memorable. I also want to know what happened to Jasper and his real mother. Although I’m not a fan of SVU custody battles, it was obvious one was going to have to go down eventually, but we got no hint of it.