Episode Report Card Wendola: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Uncivilized
By Wendola | Season 1 | Episode 7 | Aired on 11.14.1999
At a playground, Stabler watches over Dickie as he climbs a jungle gym. "When are you going to come talk to my class?" Dickie is asking him, as he flips over the rail into Stabler's arms. I install a set of parallel bars in my apartment and begin practicing my flip. "Maybe I could bring your badge up to show-and-tell!" Dickie says. "Uh, yeah, we'll talk." Stabler says. Then he glances across the playground and sees a man in a business suit sitting on a bench with his trouser legs hiked up above his knees, evidently in the process of putting one of his socks back on; obviously one of your classic voyeuristic exhibitionist sock-fetish foot-fondling self-gratification sandbox-fixation NAMBLA pervos. Dickie notices that Stabler is looking around. "Looking for pedophiles, Dad?" he asks. Heh heh! So cute the way he says "pedophiles"! "Where did you get that from?" Stabler asks him. "Danny Baker! He says you spend your time looking for pedophiles!" "And what did you tell Danny Baker?" asks Stabler. "I told him that you were a cop. But you can tell him yourself when you come to our class!" "Deal," says Stabler. He hauls Dickie up to play on the high monkey bars. We get a warm feeling inside.
Turbit and his lawyer walk past the detectives' desks on their way out the door. Cassidy slams a file drawer and gives Turbit the stink-eye. Stabler steps in Turbit's path and gives him the stink-eye. Benson gives him a look like, "Ew!" as he passes by. Man, even Munch is grossed out! Finally Turbit reaches his beloved and reassembled Dorkcycle. He wheels it out the door and looks back with a faint smile as he leaves. Munch turns to look at everyone as if to say, "You thought I was the freak?"
Stabler and Benson bring flowers to the parents of Ryan Davies. "The case is not going very well," Stabler tells them. Mr. Davies gets upset and paces around. "It's my fault! I should have never let Ryan go!" The detectives inform them that they haven't found the right person yet, but there will be a hearing to try and lock Turbit away. "Who else could have done it?" says Mrs. Davies, frantically. "We have some solid leads," says Benson, which judging by her tone really means "that wall we've hit is solid."
Stabler is showing his badge to his son's classroom and talking about the importance of checking the ID of someone who claims to be a cop. "Don't be afraid -- demand that they show it to you, not just flash it at you." The little tykes begin to pass the badge around as Stabler continues, "The two things that the, uh --" he pauses, uncomfortably, not knowing what to say. "Child molesters," the teacher finishes for him. "Child -- molesters," repeats Stabler, going on to say that the child molesters count on play-acting, impersonating cops or doctors, et cetera. "Or, they might say, 'Hey, I've lost my kitten, can you help me find him?'" I have to admit right now that I'd go off with Stabler even if he said he needed help finding a pit bull with dysentery. Stabler goes on and warns the class to never get into a car with someone they don't know. "What if you do know them, and they do something bad to you anyway?" asks one little boy. "Tell someone you trust," says Stabler. He tells the class how to say no. "Can everyone say it now, loudly -- NO!" "NO!!" the whole class repeats. Except for this one voice going "Yes! Yes, Stabler! YES!!!" Oops, sorry -- I guess that's me. ["And me. And Pooh." -- Sars] "What if your dad's the one that's hurting you -- then what?" asks one little boy. Stabler pauses and crouches down to look him in the eye. "Then you tell Dickie, and he'll tell me. Okay?" The kid smiles and nods. Oh, Stabler! We love you so.
Chung-chung! The civil commitment hearing. Turbit's lawyer is asking Dr. Greenblatt if Turbit ever attacked anyone while in prison. "Not to my knowledge," says Shrink Greenblatt, dressed today in Gestapo Business Casual. The Seinfeld-girlfriend lawyer is on the warpath: "So it's for this one crime, for which my client paid his debt to society --" "-- and which, to a extreme degree of likelihood, he will repeat," cuts in Greenblatt. "In your opinion!" says the lawyer, gleefully, because she gets to show off her Lawyer Acting Chops at last. "In fact, Doctor, isn't this whole legislation just a cheesy end-run around the cherished concept known as double jeopardy?" She rattles on and on until the judge says, "We get your point." So do we. The judge goes on to say that he needs time to review the case so they'll reconvene tomorrow. "Until then, Mr. Turbit, you're a free man." Turbit looks around with the blank, feral, nervous look of a guinea pig cornered by a whole class of third-graders.