This recap contains unmarked SPOILERS. You Have Been Warned
Dr. Isaac Waxman, a psychiatrist working with teenagers, is shot and killed in his office. In a hidden compartment of the victim's desk, the detectives find hidden tapes in which Waxman described sex with an underage patient. Green and Lupo believe his wife Cathy (Moira Kelly), another of Waxman's former patients, killed him. She denies it, but Green makes her think that her patient file from Waxman contained details of their relationship. Mrs. Waxman loses control and says she killed her husband because he was "sick."
Mrs. Waxman's daughter admits to giving her a false alibi, and to finding one of the tapes, which she handed over to her mother. Cutter is disgusted and rescinds a plea deal he'd offered Mrs. Waxman, so she decides to act as her own legal counsel. Her planned defence is to say her husband abused her, and now that she knew he had another victim, she had to stop him. The tapes are labelled with the name "Meredith", but there is no record of Waxman ever having a patient named Meredith.
Olivet testifies as a defence witness and is horrified when Cutter tells the jury she had an affair with Logan when he was her patient. When Mrs. Waxman gives the jury a story of abuse, Cutter reveals that "Meredith" is a town where the Waxmans once spent a romantic vacation. The tapes are Waxman's description of his romance with his wife, and were recorded for a memoir he planned to write. Mrs. Waxman had no way of knowing this, since she had only one of the tapes and the rest were hidden in his office. She accepts a manslaughter plea, but Cutter thinks he had a lucky break and the jury otherwise would have acquitted her.
This episode contains examples of:
- Abuse Mistake: Cathy Waxman hears her husband going on about someone named "Meredith" and fears that he's preying on a young girl the way he did on her when she was only 15. It turns out that he wasn't and that Meredith is the name of the town where they had an interlude.
- Abusive Parents: Many of Waxman's patients had these.
- Age-Gap Romance: Waxman's relationship with his wife Cathy began when she was 15 and he was 35.
- Asshole Victim: Waxman may not have been cheating on his wife, but if what she says about their relationship is true, he still qualifies as this—seducing her when she was only 15 and using threats and intimidation to keep her under his control ever since.
- Call-Back: To Olivet and Logan's romance in earlier seasons.
- A Deadly Affair: Subverted with the revelation that Waxman wasn't having an affair and the tapes related to his early romance with Mrs. Waxman.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Waxman responded to Cathy declaring that she wanted to go away to college by driving her to a mental hospital and threatening to have her institutionalized, then forcing her to have sex with him in his car to solidify her promise that she wouldn't.
- Domestic Abuse: Although he didn't hit her, Cathy Waxman and her daughter's testimony indicates that he was incredibly controlling to her throughout their marriage.
- Driven to Madness: Years of an abusive, controlling relationship with her husband/doctor has pushed Cathy Waxman to this point, finally snapping when she thinks he's abusing another teenage girl, and snapping even more upon learning that he wasn't.
- Driven to Suicide: Brandon Doherty, although the detectives stop him before he can go through with it.
- Ephebophile: Waxman initiated a sexual relationship with Cathy when she was only 15 and she feared he was doing this to another young girl.
- A Fool for a Client: Cathy decides to represent herself.
- Madness Mantra: Waxman taught his patients to say "I am a rock in a sea of chaos", a phrase Cathy repeats endlessly when breaking down in court.
- Misplaced Retribution: Cathy honestly believed that her husband was preying on another young girl the way he'd preyed on her and that killing him was only one way to stop him, only to find out that he was doing no such thing.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Cathy has such a realization when told that she was the subject of her husband's poetic descriptions of an affair on tape.
- Psycho Psychologist: Waxman seduced his wife when she was only his 15 year old patient and used his psychiatric training and education to keep her under his control for years.
- Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Mrs. Waxman fits this trope, and is described as such by the victim on his tapes.
- Romanticized Abuse: Towards the end of the episode, when Cutter makes Mrs. Waxman realize that her husband was discussing her on those tapes, he describes her as "his great love", dismissing the fact that he began sexually abusing her when she was his 15-year old patient (aside from being a crime, this is a major breach of ethics), threatened to have her institutionalized when she tried to break it off so that she could go away to college, and if hers and her daughter's testimony is true, was incredibly emotionally abusive and controlling to her throughout their marriage, something he likely forced/browbeat/manipulated her into. But the fact that he wasn't cheating on her as she thought is somehow supposed to eclipse all that or worse yet, view his horrific actions as "love".
- Waxman himself is guilty of this in universe, preparing to write a memoir as though theirs is a great love story. In particular, the chapter "Meredith", where he goes on about an interlude they had, is described by his wife as a time when he drove her to a mental hospital and threatened to have her institutionalized if she ever tried to leave him, then forced her to have sex with him in his car.
- Title Drop: Cutter gives one in court.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The murder was the result of Emma finding the tape, listening to some of it, and leaving it on the kitchen table where Cathy later found it.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Cutter backstabbing Olivet by revealing her affair with Logan while she was counseling him, in the argument that the Waxmans were no different, just to secure a conviction. Then, telling an abused wife that the man who committed statutory rape and coerced her into marriage did so out of love.
- Woman Scorned: Mrs. Waxman killed her husband essentially because she believed he'd traded her in for a young patient.
