By Pooh
Mad phat props to Sars, Wing, Wendola, and Mama Bear. Mad phat anti-props to the MBTV VCR curse.
Chung-chung! We're off to the pervert races with a guy in a beige uniform peering in the half-open door of an apartment. He goes in and calls for the tenant, Mrs. Bernstein, and then gasps, "Oh, my God!" as he sees that her living room has been ransacked. He continues into the bedroom, where he and the audience are horrified to find Mrs. Bernstein, an elderly lady, tied to her bed, apparently dead. He and I both run out of the room. Fasten your barf bags, kids, it's gonna be a skeevy ride. Cut to a beautiful profile shot of my boyfriend, Detective Elliot Stabler, walking through Mrs. Bernstein's living room. We learn that Mrs. Bernstein lived alone as Stabler and Benson go into the bedroom and all the color drains from their faces when they take in the scene. We learn from the CSU guy that the perp ejaculated on her thigh and tied her up with her own support hose. Benson deduces that the perp came unprepared and the rape was an afterthought. Stabler is understandably disgusted and wonders, "How do you get those thoughts about someone who looks like your grandmother?" Roll dead-hooker-scary-headline-bad-rip-off-theme-song credits.
Fade in on Keller and Schillinger congratulating themselves on their success in getting rid of O'Reilly. No wait, I'm confused. It's Stabler and Dr. Skoda shaking hands, and Stabler thanking the good doctor. Cap'n Cragen (tm Wendola) happens upon this scene after the shrink has left, and wonders what was up with that. He and Stabler have a disagreement about whether Skoda is "a handful" or "the best at what he does." Cragen is visibly upset (read: REALLY deep creases in the forehead, coupled with squinted eyes, as opposed to bugged-out eyes), and wants to hold off on calling Skoda in on the case. Stabler informs his boss that it's too late, he's "already invited him in." Cragen rolls his big ol' Muppet eyes and sighs.
Cut to Benson and Stabler briefing the rest of the SVU on the victim and the crime: Lenora Bernstein got up, had her usual breakfast, got back into bed, and some "junkie skell" came in through the window she forgot to lock, tied her up, gagged her, and probably raped her. We learn that she was seventy-two years old, widowed, and her only son already died. Her address book reads like the obits, with names crossed out and funeral cards in every page, which prompts Jeffries's first line of the episode, "As if it weren't terrifying enough facing the twilight years alone." Thanks for the cheer, Monique! Anyway, Stabler just can't wrap his mind around this kind of crime, and questions what kind of man rapes a little old lady. The good doctor busts out with the theory that the perp is "sexually inexperienced. Late teens, early twenties, a social misfit. If he's been employed at all, it's been intermittent, menial work." "Projected mother rage?" suggests Benson. Skoda agrees, "Yeah, that would track. Mother may have molested or abandoned him." Cragen's had enough with the psycho-speak, and with all due respect, he "would really like to hear from the perp himself how he felt about his mother." Skoda just chuckles to himself about the little Muppet ignoramus and walks away.