Written By Jeff Eckerle
Directed By Jud Taylor
As a 7-year-old girl lies comatose in a hospital bed, detectives Benson and Stabler investigate which member of her family placed her there.
Tropes
- Abusive Parents: Jamie was abused by her father and she continues the cycle by abusing her daughter Emily.
- Jamie's mother counts as one too, physically abusing her daughter for "discipline", and willfully ignoring the fact that her husband was abusing their daughter.
- All Abusers Are Male: The suspects for Emily’s abuse are male, but it’s later revealed that Emily’s abuser was her own mother.
- Annoying Younger Siblings: Justin thinks of Emily and Michael as these.
- Attention Whore: Jamie admits that after she was abused, she fills her emotional emptiness by constantly seeking attention.
- Break Them by Talking: Munch's interrogation of Jamie is to speak gently to her and offer the sympathy she's craving. After she admits to injuring Emily, Munch drops the sympathy and wordlessly walks away.
- Cassandra Truth: Justin is the first one to suggest that the abuser is Jamie, but no one pays attention to his words.
- Daddy's Girl: Emily adores her birth father Denny, to Jamie’s frustration.
- Downer Ending: While Emily is still in a coma, Munch comes in and reads to her from Dr. Seuss Oh the Places You’ll Go.
- Dysfunctional Family: The McKennas to a tee. Though "dysfunctional" is kind of an Understatement.
- Everyone Has Standards: Justin, despite being an arrogant prick, seems to care about school on some levels as he doesn't want to miss taking his trigonometry quiz. Justin would never abuse his stepsister and told the detectives the truth about what happened. Doesn't make him less of an asshole since he excuses that she was asleep even though he wasn't supposed to leave alone in the apartment.
- Hate Sink: This episode has a few of these.
- Jamie's father Avery Huntington was a disgusting man who sexually abused his daughter when she was 11 and used his connections to make any investigations go away.
- Jamie's mother Lois Huntington is just as bad. She ignored her daughter being abused and was jealous so she sent her to a boarding school just so she can have her husband to herself rather than divorcing him or calling the police. She even looks down on Jamie's ex-boyfriend simply because of his class and race which also makes her racist as well.
- Justin is a selfish prick because he doesn't care if his stepsister is abused and was more concerned about missing out on his trigonometry quiz rather than her wellbeing. He also left her all alone in the apartment two minutes after Jamie left, simply because Emily was asleep, which led Jamie to abuse her daughter when he was gone and framed Justin for her crimes.
- It's All About Me: Randall McKenna and his 15-year-old son Justin.
- Jerkass: Justin behaves like an arrogant prick to just about everyone, and it doesn't do him any favors. It later emerges that Jamie is taking advantage of Justin's bad attitude to pin her own abuse on him.
- Lack of Empathy:
- Jamie actually has the gall to accuse Emily of crying just to spite her, even though Jamie's the one physically abusing Emily.
- The mother in Munch's story got sent away for murdering her own daughter, and when Munch and his mother visited her, all she complained about was having to pay for the window she threw her child through.
- Justin gives off this vibe when Emily is taken to the hospital.
- Like Father, Like Son: Randall McKenna and his son Justin are shown to be complete sociopaths. Justin isn't worried in the slightest when his stepsister falls into a coma. Randall laughs at Denny's pleas of not getting the latter deported, which proves to be a mistake because it leads to him nearly getting beaten to death by Denny.
- My Greatest Failure: Munch relates a story from his teen years about a young neighbor of his who was abused by her mother, but could not tell anyone about it. Munch would often see the girl on her porch giving him a look that would seem like she's crying out for help, but couldn't say anything. Days later, the girl was killed by her own mother, and Munch is angry at himself for not being able to help (or, as he puts it, "being too full of his own crap" since he was a teenager).
- Never My Fault
- Jamie's mother had the nerve to say that she thought Jamie would come to her senses after that rehab that she attended, not accepting responsibility for what she did to her after Jamie's father abused her and sending to the boarding school so she would selfishly save their family repuation. Not to mention in Jamie words. What mother wants. Always gets. Chances are Jamie wasn't lying about that one since her family are completely screwed up people.
- Jamie made an excuse saying that she wanted her daughter to stop crying despite knowing what she had done to her.
- In Munch's childhood, the girl who Munch saw, was murdered by her mother and the only thing she was more concern with, was how much she had to pay for the window even though she was the one who threw her daughter at it.
- No Ending: While Jamie is put away for her abuse. Emily is still in her coma, with no indication of whether she’ll wake up again.
- Not So Stoic: When Munch is telling Olivia the story of the girl he knew as a teen, it's very clear he's trying hard not to break down as he tells it. We've already seen Munch isn't hardhearted, but this episode is the first we see him actively trying to avoid getting emotional.
- Papa Wolf: Denny, Emily's biological father, may have a short temper, but he's actually a pretty good parent. When he thinks that her stepfather, Randall, is her abuser, he flips out and beats the crap outta the guy.
- Preppy Name: Jamie’s hyphenated name: Jamie Huntington-McKenna comes off as this, as does her father's name, Avery Huntington.
