A teenage girl's mother insists that her boyfriend be charged with statutory rape. The situation takes a turn for the worse when the mother ends up dead.
Tropes
- Abusive Parents: Denise Eldridge, both emotionally and physically. In addition to beating her daughter, trying to prevent her from being loved, and trying to force a nonconsensual gynecological exam on her, Carrie's school reports that Denise was unbothered by reports of Carrie having troubles in school, as for example not having wearable shoes or a winter coat to come to school in.
- The Alcoholic: Denise Eldridge, which the defense uses in their case. When Benson searches Denise's home she finds an incredible collection of alcohol bottles in every nook and cranny, including in the laundry hamper, under the couch cushions, in the oven,note in her underwear drawer and hidden in a chandelier. Warner tells Benson that Denise had such advanced liver cirrhosis, she would have been dead in two years from alcohol abuse if she hadn't been beaten to death.
- All Periods Are PMS: The defense winds up arguing that Carrie killed her mother because of pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder. Casey lampshades her disgust at the suggestion that women are so emotional that their periods cause them to kill people.
- And Your Little Dog, Too!: Denise tries to get Justin locked up in order to hurt Carrie.
- Anti-Alcohol Aesop: Denise is an extreme alcoholic with alcohol bottles hidden in every nook and cranny of her home. Carrie says that "I loved my mom very much, but when she was drunk she wasn't a mother."
Undermined by the events of the story, as Denise is an unpleasant person (and abusive towards her daughter) even when there's no evidence she is drunk, and her backstory suggests her behavior is the product of the negative attitude towards life she learned from it - alcohol is just an excuse for her underlying pathology. - Asshole Victim: Carrie's mother is shrill, vindictive, and has so little respect for her daughter that she attempts to force a nonconsensual gynecological exam on her, not relenting until outside intervention compels her. Eventually, after she is killed, it is revealed that she was killed because she attempted to put her daughter's boyfriend in jail and ruin his life in order to prevent her daughter from being loved.
- Bittersweet Ending: Carrie is sentenced to five years in a juvenile facility and has to live with the guilt of her actions, but she is at last safe from her abusive mother and Justin still loves her.
- Break the Cutie: Carrie goes from an impetuous but sympathetic teen girl to an imprisoned, emotionally broken matricide after her mother drives her over the edge to homicide by trying to imprison her boyfriend and destroy their relationship, and after Detective Benson, Carrie's would-be savior, tricks her into confessing.
- Chewbacca Defense: Olivia calls Carrie's defense a "Twinkie defense."
- Conveniently an Orphan: Justin is an orphan, which saves the episode from having to complicate the plot by dealing with his relatives and keeps the focus on Carrie, Denise, Olivia, and Simone.
- Crusading Lawyer: Simone Bryce is "the Mother Teresa of children's rights".
- Despair Event Horizon: When Carrie is led to believe that Justin has betrayed her and doesn't love her any more, she immediately breaks down and confesses because nothing else matters after that.
- Disappeared Dad: Carrie's father left Denise the day he found out she was pregnant, leaving Denise resentful at having her life "ruined" by single motherhood and setting the stage for the main plot 17 years later.
- The Dog Bites Back: Carrie's mother abuses her throughout the episode until Carrie snaps, winds up getting ahold of a lamp, and beats her mother to death with it.
- Friendless Background: The principal notes that Carrie has no friends at school.
- If I Can't Have You…: Olivia's mother came after her with a broken vodka bottle when Olivia told her she was going to move in with her fiance, warning Olivia "I'll never let anyone else have you!"
- I Did What I Had to Do: Benson engages in behavior she's ashamed of more than once through the episode, but what she has to be ashamed of varies wildly from moment to moment. In the beginning she has to make excuses for being The Mole who interferes with her teammates' work by surreptitiously calling in an outside Crusading Lawyer to gum up the works on the developing statutory rape investigation; not too long thereafter she is telling Blatant Lies to bust the girl she was trying to protect at the beginning of the episode, and feeling ashamed about that, too.
- I Just Want to Be Loved: Carrie's defining character trait, to the extent that apparent loss of love is a Berserk Button for her. She kills her mother after the latter makes it clear she's going to destroy Justin so Carrie will lose him and no one will love her, and she breaks down and confesses once she's fooled into believing Justin has betrayed her and no longer loves her.
- Indy Ploy: When Justin, at work, learns that Carrie has killed her mother, he rushes off to see her and improvises a plan to evade the cops and prevent them from determining which of the lovers killed Carrie's mother, preventing them from securing a conviction. Carrie screws things up.
- Interrupted Intimacy: The plot is kicked off when Denise walks in on her daughter Carrie and her 21-year-old boyfriend Justin.
- It's All About Me: Denise explains that the reason she's insisting that a gynecological exam be performed on her resisting daughter is that she's a parent, she has rights!
- It's Personal: Benson and Stabler each have their view of the case colored by their own backgrounds - Stabler sees a girl like one of his daughters sleeping with a grown man, Benson sees a girl abused by her alcoholic single mother. Benson in particular feels such a connection to the case that she breaks protocol by secretly calling the Crusading Lawyer who helped her through a similar circumstance to interfere with the case.
Benson: I really misjudged her. All I saw was a desperate teen needing help.
Stabler: Look, I saw my daughter going out with a grown man. Sometimes it's hard to keep your own crap out of the work.
- Karma Houdini: Justin goes unpunished for auto theft and obstruction of justice.
- Kick the Dog:
- Denise calls her daughter a slut, tries to get her boyfriend arrested, and beats her while explaining she is not interfering for Carrie's own good, but because she wants to make sure Carrie is unloved.
- Olivia's mother said she was going to get Olivia's fiance kicked out of school if they didn't dissolve their relationship, because if Olivia's mother couldn't have her she would make sure no one else would. Then she tried to attack Olivia with a broken vodka bottle.
- Lady Drunk: Denise is a bitter, middle-aged misanthrope with fatal liver cirrhosis and alcohol bottles hidden in every nook and cranny of her home.
- Lethally Stupid:
- Carrie fails to carry out her boyfriend's plan and gets herself locked up (even though the prosecution could never have secured a conviction without her assistance) when she admits to killing her mother instead of keeping her mouth shut. When Benson pretends Justin ratted her out, Carrie instantly believes that he has abandoned her and doesn't love her anymore, even though he's been risking jail to be with her through the whole episode. Carrie believes so readily because she thinks cops are not allowed to lie, and is shocked when Benson admits that, in fact, she did lie.
- At trial Carrie refuses to let her attorney present evidence that she killed her mother by reacting violently while her mother was beating her (which is why her attorney winds up having to rely on a pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder defense).
- Lying to the Perp: Benson runs a standard police scam on Carrie to find out whether she murdered her mother, falsely claiming Justin has betrayed her and told the detectives details of the murder. Carrie is completely taken in and confesses.
- The Main Characters Do Everything: The beat cop who called the SVU detectives in to a seemingly mundane domestic squabble explains that any time they hear the "r-word" they have to call SVU.
- Matricide: Carrie killed her mother.
- Mirror Character:
- Carrie is this for Olivia, who also grew up dealing with a controlling alcoholic mother. The fight in which Carrie killed her mother is nearly identical to the one Olivia had with her mother before she left home - the difference being that one girl's violent response had lethal effect and the other's didn't, but as Olivia says, she knows what it's like to want your mother dead.
- Simone is this for Olivia; both of them are female mentor figures who attempt to help a troubled young woman make it through the dissolution of the young woman's relationship to her abusive mother. Subverted in that Olivia, unlike Simone, is ultimately forced to act against the girl she was trying to protect.
- The Mole: It turns out that it was Benson who betrayed the squad by calling in Crusading Lawyer Simone to complicate their investigation; Simone was the person who helped Benson get through a nearly identical situation as a young woman.
- Never the Obvious Suspect: Detectives assume Justin killed Denise for trying to get him arrested for statutory rape and so he and Carrie could be together. Turns out it was Carrie.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Subverted; at first it appears Simone accidentally inspired Carrie to murder her mother by telling her the courts would be more likely to consider Carrie's legal emancipation if she were Conveniently an Orphan. This turns out to be a Red Herring, as Carrie actually killed her mother after snapping under the stress of being beaten, slut-shamed, and having her boyfriend (and their relationship) threatened.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Benson dismisses a sexual relationship between a 21-year-old man and a 15-year old girl as consensual sex, in contrast to her more usual attitude that a girl of that age cannot consent. It turns out that Benson is heavily identifying with the girl's point of view because of their common background.
- Parental Neglect: Denise sends Carrie to school with shoes that are falling apart and without a winter coat.
- Rescue Romance: invoked by Benson as an explanation of the intensity of Carrie's yearning for Justin; Benson is projecting, having gotten engaged to one of her mother's students when she was 16 as a means of escaping her home.
- The Resenter: Denise's character is defined by the bitterness she feels over having had her life "ruined" by single motherhood - she resents Carrie's father and Carrie herself.
- Slut-Shaming: Denise calls her teenage daughter an "ungrateful slut" in public. She also calls her a slut while beating Carrie so badly that she snaps and kills her mother.
- Starcrossed Lovers: Justin and Carrie. The detectives even compare them to Romeo and Juliet.
- Struggling Single Mother: Denise considers her life to have been "ruined" by having been left to care for Carrie by herself after Carrie's father left when he heard about the pregnancy.
- Sympathetic Murderer: Carrie's abuse at the hands of her mother causes her to snap and beat her mother to death. Even Casey ultimately feels sorry for her and agrees to make her a deal for a light sentence, albeit in part due to the intervention of Olivia (who also grew up with an alcoholic mother).
- There Should Be a Law: Denise wants the SVU detectives arrested for failing to arrest Justin for statutory rape.
- Unreliable Expositor: Denise claims she's trying to bust Justin for statutory rape in order to prevent him from "ruining" Carrie, the way Denise was ruined by Carrie's father, who impregnated and abandoned her. In the end, Carrie tells Benson that Denise said she was trying to break up the relationship so that no one would love Carrie.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Subverted; at first it appears Denise is behaving so aggressively toward her daughter because she doesn't want her to be Defiled Forever by her age-inappropriate sexual relationship; at the end it turns out she was really just doing it For the Evulz.
- Woobie of the Week: Carrie Eldridge
