Bullseye - Recap

A convenience store manager is sexually harassing an employee. She throws him off-balance by threatening to tell the boss that the manager lets people eat food without paying. It’s a child, doesn’t appear to be quite a teen - he yells at her. She turns, falls against the counter and he sees she has blood all over her thigh.

The doctor tells Elliott and Olivia that the girl is about ten years-old. She suffered severe vaginal trauma, and has marks on her wrists which were likely from being held down. They haven’t run a rape kit yet as they just got the bleeding to stop. The doctor also states that she is dehydrated, malnourished, and her limited arm movement leads him to believe she has a badly healed break. Elliott thinks maybe she was caged up and the doctor said good luck finding out who, as she has yet to speak a word.

Olivia introduced herself and Elliott to the girl. The girl did not give her name, and would not answer their questions. She only spoke when the rape kit nurse came in and picked up a camera. Liv asked what was wrong, and the girl said “He took pictures of me.”

When they report to Captain Cragen Liv & Elliott state that there was nothing identifying left behind; no fluids, fibers, nothing. They tell him about her not speaking until she saw the camera. Munch, Fin, Stabler and Benson hit the pavement, checking all the houses that showed up as having a 10 y/o non-Hispanic female in them. When they question a pizza parlor owner, he says he’s never seen her but his delivery girl says she has. She positively id’s the photo, gives the home address and says they have a son as well (she’s heard his voice).

They arrive at the apartment of Jeff and Amber Samonsky. Nobody answers, but Liv says she can hear the TV, so Elliott takes it up a notch. Nobody answers, so they kick in the door and enter, guns drawn. There are an obese male and female playing a video game. They say they can’t stop playing because “our boy needs us” but Liv has already unplugged the controllers and they are escorted from the apartment.

In questioning, Jeff claims he can quit anytime he wants, and Amber’s the one with the problem. She tells Elliott that she met Jeff online last year at an X-box tournament hosted out of South Korea. He had the cutest avatar, turned out he only lived three blocks away. Elliott says fate works in mysterious ways. Amber said they started playing 24/7 back in May, after she got her settlement from the city. Jeff says Amber got hit by a bus when they were on their way to Best Buy to get in line for the release of the new EverEarth. While Liv is confronting Jeff about Rose, Elliott is asking Amber the same. Jeff is of course not the father, since they’ve only been together a year, but sometimes Rose calls him dad. Amber says she has a daughter named Rose “somewhere”. She thinks the girl living in her apartment is an imposter who looks like her daughter Rose.

They bring in Dr. Huang, who says Amber is suffering a disorder whereby the patient actually believes that their loved one has been replaced by a duplicate. Rather like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but there was no pod person. Just an acute brain injury that led to this condition. Because she no longer feels anything for her daughter, she doesn’t care what effect Jeff has had on their lives. Dr. Huang says that other than an extreme internet addiction, Jeff is just a jerk. Capgras Delusion involves a visual disconnect in brain circuitry. When Amber sees Rose, she doesn’t believe it’s her real daughter. Liv asks what will happen if Amber only hears Rose. The room is set up so that Amber can hear but not see Rose. She recognizes Rose’s voice, but ignores her when Rose says “Tell them what Jeff did to me, how he hurt me.” Amber asks Rose where she went, and tells her she went looking for her. Rose said Jeff put her in a room, and nobody gave her anything to eat. Amber said she didn’t know, Jeff said she was fine. Some “other girl” came to stay. Rose asked why Amber stopped loving her, and when Amber said I love you with all my heart, Rose ran in from the other room and into Amber’s arms. Amber shoved her away, slapped her and called her a bitch.

Olivia caught Rose and walked her back out again while Elliott restrained Amber. Rose asked Liv what happened to her mom, and Olivia tried to explain. She also told Rose Jeff would never hurt her like that again, and Rose said another man hurt her ‘down there’. She said another man grabbed her when she escaped to get something to eat. He was wearing something over his face, and he had a mean voice. This happened at the jungle gym at Laffy Time. A chat board said ‘don’t go to laffy time, a guy there touches kids.’ They went back and questioned the owner, They have no male employees, but there was one working there, a young male with Noonan Syndrome. He is Stuart, the owner’s son, and he is a registered sex offender. His mom says it was a mistake, because the restroom was closed so he peed in the bushes. Stuart happily announced that some people saw his weewee. Liv mentions the people posting on the Laffy Time website, and Stuart’s mom says they are from COAP, which Elliott tells her stands for Citizens organized Against Predators. Liv says they know one of the members, so they go talk to Eric.

Eric is responsible for the wanted posters all over the neighborhood. Stabler tells him there are different levels of sex offenders, and Liv chimes in to let him know that not everybody on that list is actually guilty. She gives Eric her card to call if he finds out anything. He says he’ll need her cell number as well, and he’s still open for that coffee he asked her out for. Over at the crime site, a dark-haired boy eating an ice cream cone vomits in front of Munch and Fin. As Stabler and Benson approach the precinct, they are stopped by a TV news reporter. She holds up a picture of a nine year-old victim who was raped two nights ago and reminds the detectives that they are on live TV. Liv tells her she can’t break a victim’s privacy, and tears up the picture. The reporter says Liv violated freedom of the press.

As they enter their floor, Liv says she is going to kill Eric. The Captain tells them they gave quite a performance, and Stabler tells him they were provoked. The captain then tells them to get back out there, because another little girl was raped. Her name is Mandy, and her mom was late picking her up from the Y. When she arrived, Mandy was sitting on the ground, bleeding and crying. Liv talks to Mandy, who says that the man was wearing a mask, and the only time it wasn’t dark was when he was taking her picture.

The COAP people show up at the crime scene, handing out cards. Stabler has it out with Eric, who said he only shared the picture with fellow members, but Stabler retorts that then one of them gave it to the press. As he’s walking away, Eric confronts Stabler about feeling safe in the neighborhood. He runs through the perverts on his app, and Stabler removes it from him and tosses it away. Liv tells Elliott that Mandy’s mom has a question for him, and she goes to confront Eric. She tells him that she understands this is personal to him, because of his sister being raped and committing suicide. She says it’s personal to them, too. He says he has information for her, but she refuses saying that they will get this guy the right way.

The squad brings in all the perpetrators living in a radius of the crimes, for questioning. All of their alibis check out. Since they’ve gotten nowhere, Liv decides to go have coffee with Eric and see if he has any information she can use. She fears anything they get can be enough to get the case thrown out of court.

Eric is out of coffee, so they have wine. He’s a graphic artist, and Liv says he’s very good. He painted a beautiful portrait of Grace, his sister, which showed how happy she was before the rape. A few months after, his mother found Grace hanging in the closet. He felt that as the big brother, he should have protected her, even though he was just a kid himself. It was her death that made him realize he could make a difference.

He says he wants to show Liv something. She tells Eric that they have to be really careful. He set up a system to keep computer systems safe from prying eyes, but it puts a Trojan on their systems so he can see everything they do. Liv says there’s nothing she can do with it, but he tells her that a sitting judge was brought down by a hacker who accessed his kiddy porn collection. She is watching the images fly by and sees a picture of Rose. Eric tells her that the image was from a computer on the Upper East Side. Liv notes that the time stamp is 90 minutes after the attack. Eric then points out Mandy, the little girl attacked yesterday.

The Detectives arrive at the home in question. A businessman is kissing his very pregnant wife good-bye, and as he arrives on the street, Elliott arrests him. Olivia gives the search warrant to the wife, and tells her they’re going to inspect the computer.

As they are questioning Edwin, Liv brings up that in Connecticut in 1997, he was brought in on charges of inappropriate contact with a ten year-old girl. Elliott says Edwin was in a Maryland police station in 2002 for forcible fondling of a nine year-old. Edwin says he admitted to those and went away. Liv says “Not long enough”, and asks where he was yesterday at 4:30. He said he was on break, reading in a park near his office. Elliott says that’s where Rose and Mandy were raped, and Edwin says “Who?” As they continued to question him, he asked for his attorney.

His attorney arrived, and while she was singing his praises, she learned that he was a registered sex offender. Everybody stopped talking when one of the police officers began beating Edwin. He was hauled away by two of his fellow officers. Edwin was on the ground bleeding and crying ‘help me’.

The officer who attacked him pretended to be a transfer so he could get to Edwin. His daughter was on the swim team with Mandy, and Mandy had been to sleepovers at their home. He said he got “creep tweets” from a watch group in his neighborhood.

At Edwin’s arraignment, the beating was brought up. The prosecution stated that it was regrettable, and that Captain Cragen had assured her it would not happen again. The judge asked Captain Cragen to step forward so she could question him. She asked him how many police personnel he has in his precinct, and he answered approximately 100. She asked how Officer McCutcheon got past all of them, and he answered that the officer entered under false pretenses, with faked paperwork. She asked him for a simple yes or no, and he said “yes”. The prosecution said Captain Cragen was not the one being arraigned here today, and the Captain said with all due respect, please do not release this man on bail, he is a serious flight risk. Edwin’s attorney said that with a baby due in a month, he has a significant tie to the community. The Captain said the community needs to be protected from Edwin Edelson, and Edwin said no, I need to be protected from the police, and the judge agreed. Bail was set at $50,000 and Mr. Edelson was ordered to surrender his passport.

He didn’t want his wife Louise to know about it. When he was released, the COAP members were outside giving a televised interview. As Louise got out of their car, Edwin got in, did a U-turn and drove head-on into a semi-truck. His car then burst into flames.

The reporter from Channel 3 who attempted to break victim privacy on Rose covered the death of Edwin Edelman. Liv said if COAP keeps it up, it will save the City a lot of money. Mandy overhears and asks if it’s true that the man is really dead. Olivia brings Mandy and her mom into the interrogation room just as Eric enters to speak with Detective Stabler. Elliott tells him it’s not a good time, but Eric insists on handing over the hard drive so the people who can actually use the information will have it. Elliott thanks him.

Liv gives Mandy’s mom the contact info for Safe Horizons. She also asks Mandy if she’d like to learn Karate, to which Mandy responds “Cool!” Liv calls Eric in and asks him to teach Mandy to defend herself, and she agrees. However, when Mandy hears Eric’s voice, doubt and suspicion are written all over her face, and Liv catches that. She asks Mandy if she’s okay and Mandy says yes and asks to go home. When she leaves, Liv sees that Mandy urinated on the chair. Liv says “Mandy told us who really raped her”. She goes to confront Eric, who continues to try to convince her he is an honest man. She doesn’t believe him. They play cat and mouse for a bit, and he states he’s going to call the police. She says “And tell them what? That you fingered Edelson for a crime you committed?”

Eric says everything he has told Liv is true, and that Edelman killed himself because of guilt. She said it wasn't guilt, he drove himself to it, just like he almost drove Grace to. He told Liv that Grace died in 1982, and Grace said "Then how can I be standing right here." Stabler said she was easy enough to find, right there in the Delaware phone book. Grace says he raped her when she was nine years old and he told her it was only a one-time thing but how many more times did it happen? How many more girls did he rape? Eric said he's sick, he fights against it but he can't help himself.

When Olivia attempts to arrest him, he says he has to hold his breath because she stinks. When she says he can tell the truth, and orders him to turn around so she can arrest him, he raises a fist to attack her but she knocks him out first. Elliott pulls his weapon on him, and Grace grabs a weapon which they fear she will use on Eric - but she attacks her portrait and destroys it. She then bursts into tears.


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