Briscoe and Green investigate an attack on a woman. They find Karen Brewster's belongings and track down her parents, who say their daughter is schizophrenic. They find her dead body in the storage container she used to live in. Per the autopsy, she was manually strangled and may have been sexually assaulted. The clues lead to Harvey Bauer, who has bipolar disorder and does not take his medication. He is being represented by Danielle Melnick, who wants to plead insanity. Since Skoda thinks Bauer is faking his psychotic symptoms, McCoy gets an order to first, prohibit that as a defense, and second, get Bauer to take his medication. Harvey reveals that Karen was suicidal and he killed her because she asked him. He pleads guilty to manslaughter one.
Tropes present in this episode:
- Actor Allusion: Briscoe says to McCoy and Carmichael, "Be Our Guest", as he did when he played Lumière in Beauty and the Beast.
- Death Seeker: Harvey Bauer stopped taking his medication because he wanted to die due to the guilt he felt for killing Karen.
- I Cannot Self-Terminate: Karen and Harvey were lovers, and she asked him to kill her if he loved her.
- Obfuscating Insanity: Skoda thinks Bauer is faking his psychotic symptoms.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Karen's biggest fear was her parents not outliving her. She ultimately managed to avoid that.
