Olivia's welcomed back to the squad by a departing Cragen, who's finally getting a temporary holiday, thanks to all the loose-cannon shenanigans of his detectives. He'd list them all, but then this would be only Part 1 of a two-parter consisting solely of Cragen listing all the times the SVU detectives lost their shit. Anyway, he's been temporarily reassigned to the chief of D's office. Benson calls it insane, when what's insane is that a) it took so long to happen and b) it turns out this lasts all of one episode.
So who's in charge? Munch. Sgt. Munch to you, who reluctantly assumes Cragen's Office Keys of Command, under threat of a beating from Fin. Dr. Anna Young, played by Cynthia Nixon, shows up all blond with glasses and wanting to report a possible case of child abuse.
She tells Elliott and Olivia one of her patients, Janis Donovan, whom she's treating for post-partum depression, called her this morning, enraged. She was giving her year-old daughter April a bath, but no matter how hard she scrubbed, she "'couldn't get the filthy slut clean.'" She could hear the baby screaming. Benson and Stabler check out the apartment, where they can't hear anything. Olivia manages to search the apartment like a normal person, while Stabler kicks in doors like a rageaholic. A little body floating facedown in a full bathtub turns out to be a doll. There's no one in the apartment.
Fortunately, there's a helpful neighbour, the kind who likes to wander into apartments while police are kicking in doors. Olivia notices a picture of the psychiatrist with the baby and wonders why she said she'd never met April. The helpful neighbour is all, "I don't know who this 'Dr. Young' is, but that's Janis." Back at the unit, Munch has tracked down Janis's driver's licence. She's not a psychiatrist. "Must be some kind of whackjob," snarls Fin, as helpful as ever. Munch says it was obvious something was wrong and seems pissed he didn't realize "Anna Young" most likely came from Freud's daughter and Carl Jung. Well, if the SVU detectives haven't been trained to make those kinds of deductions, it's a good thing Cragen's no longer running things.
Munch figures Janis is just an attention-seeking time-waster and wants to close the case. Elliot and Olivia ignore him, since they want to make sure the baby's okay. It's nice to know they've learned a little something about listening to their CO.
The detectives track down Dr. Henry Carlisle, played by Bronson Pinchot, star of such '80s blockbusters as Beverly Hills Cop and Perfect Strangers. Unfortunately, his current C-list celebrity status meant I assumed that whatever else happens this episode, Balki was probably raping people. The detectives trick him into admitting Janis is a patient of his and run down her performance as Dr. Anna Young. They also inform him it'll be big trouble for him if anything happens to the baby. So threatened, he provides them with the museum where she works and an emergency contact.
And now, the parade of witnesses: a former babysitter washing a dog in the back of a dog-washing...van? I guess? plays the "bitch crazy" card, saying Janis was always late picking up April, but insisted she was on time and would cry when the real time was pointed out to her. Also, she threw a bottle once and accused the babysitter of feeding April hot sauce.
The current babysitter gets interviewed by Fin, telling him that when Janis didn't drop April off this morning, she called Janis's apartment, only to get a gruff Russian woman named Petra who said Janis wasn't there.
Janis's boss at the museum of natural history (guest star Stephen Spinella, also presumably raping people) says Janis is one of the best arachnologists they've ever had. How does one even tell? He doesn't know that she hasn't shown up for work today, and says he figured she's out in the field. Then he pointlessly shares some details about milking spiders, which wouldn't interest anyone except maybe Det. Goren. He agrees to give them a list of her hot spots, which includes a church with a wacky older woman, who tells them about a "heated discussion" Janis had with herself. Olivia's cellphone goes off -- in church! Elliot asks the wacky old woman if Janis seemed psychotic. The woman says Janis seemed psychotic one moment and then perfectly sane. Olivia gets off the phone to say Janis's car had LoJack, and it's heading north on the West Side Highway.
Fin and Chester have tracked the car to a park, and then Chester spots one of those annoying red-herring walkers; you know, where the woman says, "I think I'll wear a hoodie and sunglasses and hunch over all furtively as I walk my baby down the street." You only see them on television shows. In the park itself, Elliot and Olivia find a cave, which is on the hot-spot list, so they decide to go spelunking. Not far in, they find an electric lantern and jars with spiders. Farther in, another electric lantern, with Janis crouching by an empty baby seat. Olivia asks where her baby is: "I'm not big enough to have a baby. And my name's not Janis. It's Tammy." So in case we hadn't figured it out already, we're going the multiple-personalities route.
Back at the station, Elliot's winning sensitivity comes through as he berates "Tammy," who's insisting she doesn't know anything about a baby and says she's only six. Olivia tries the Good Cop route, which seems to open Tammy up a little bit, and she says a man, Burt, took April, but she doesn't know where. Despite Olivia's honey approach working better than Elliot's vinegar (or, let's say, battery acid), Elliot gets up in Tammy's face again about how she's going to prison. Tammy's gaze snaps onto him, and she slaps him and starts screaming with a Russian accent. And now we've met Petra! She yells for Elliot to "grow some balls" while he handcuffs her and yells for her lawyer.
Huang comes in to read everyone the pamphlet on how it's not multiple-personality disorder anymore, but "dissociative identity disorder" and that it's real but over-diagnosed. It's also usually the result of child abuse. Elliot offers up his professional opinion, which amounts to "it's all bullcrap." Huang talks about "alters" (alternate personalities) and a whole lot of stuff that I swear has already been done to death on one or more of the L&Os already, and agrees to help trigger whichever alter knows where the baby is, before the lawyer gets there. In an added bonus, Olivia mentions Elliot getting "bitch-slapped."
Too late, says Sgt. Munch, who's in his dress blues, preparing for a press conference asking for help looking for the baby. The lawyer's already there, and Elliot and Olivia go to talk to him. Her current personality is a spoiled brat named "Dorie" who wants Olivia to tell her "a-hole" lawyer that she didn't do anything wrong, ergo she doesn't need a lawyer. Naturally, Olivia's all over trying to get the lawyer to skedaddle, and she and Elliot spring into action with the proper form to get her to waive her lawyer. Elliot works some of that old Stabler charm with a wink and a smile to get her to sign the form with her proper name, and the lawyer reluctantly leaves: "Call me if you change one of your minds."
Huang moves in, but Dorie's more interested in flirting with Elliot, asking to see his gun. Elliot says if she tells him where the baby is, he'll show it to her. "If I knew, I would sooo tell you!" she giggles. Huang totally cock-blocks Stabler with some more questions, and wants to hypnotize her, but she says Dr. Carlisle wouldn't like it. "Come on. For me?" says Stabler. Hope that doesn't backfire on you, Elliot. She won't, though, even for him, because she feels safe and doesn't want to go away.
So it's up to Dr. Balki to draw her out, even though he's still in denial that any of Janis's personalities are capable of violence, Elliot's bitch-slap notwithstanding. So he's going to hypnotize her now, with Huang looking on. Hypnotized, Janis says April's at the babysitters, even though she can't remember taking her there. She talks about looking for black widows in the cave.
Through the glass, Elliot says, "She killed that baby." I'm sure Olivia missed his resolute optimism.
Meanwhile, Dr. Balki tries to draw Burt out. Janis's face gets mean, and she picks up a chair and throws it at the window and upends the table. Elliot and Olivia rush in to subdue her, hopefully before Balki and Huang shit themselves. "April is gone and she's never coming back!" snarls Janis, or I guess that should be Burt. She might also have said, "There is no Dana, only Zuul," but I could be mistaken. Balki taps her on the shoulder to bring her out of the trance, and Janis looks around, confused.
In the squad room, the detectives are working down the endless useless leads generated by Munch's press conference. Munch himself strolls in to ask how things are going, and right behind him is a blond woman who says they've made a big mistake: "April's fine. She's been at my apartment all day." And you are, asks Olivia. "Cass Magnall. I'm April's mother."
Extensive questioning reveals Cass was eight months pregnant with April when she scored some heroin from a narc, and Janis has been looking after April for her, and she knows nothing of Janis's multiple personalities. When Stabler asks Cass about the child abuse theory, and Cass gets squicked out before admitting she herself was abused, but she never told Janis. "Why would she care? She'd never stick around to protect me." In fact, Janis ran away, and their father took it out on Cass; he dragged her around by the hair, demanding to know where Janis was. Cass didn't know, and was forced to drink hot sauce, and was raped. And their mother just watched.
"Dr. Young" has been watching this with Munch through the one-way glass, and she gets upset (not for herself, mind you, but on behalf of Janis and Cass). Munch goes to get her a tissue, and Olivia relays that April's been found, safe and sound, which is great, except for Munch feeling silly for going on television and pledging all the extra man-hours to find her. When they go back into his office, they find Janis going through papers on his desk. She says she was just trying to figure out where she was. Olivia figures out that Janis is back, and introduces herself. Cass shows up at the door, and the sisters greet each other, and Cass asks when they can go home.
The dueling psychiatrists have it out, with Huang thinking Janis needs to be committed, and Carlisle telling him, "Don't be ridikalous." Olivia wants to guarantee she won't get worse, and Carlisle says she's on the road to recovery, and it's great that she's building a relationship with her sister. Huang essentially shrugs.
The morning, Stabler is gratuitously sleeping shirtless, at least until his spoiled brat drunk-driving daughter Kathleen comes roaring in to complain about how embarrassing it is that she has to wear the orange vest while she picks up trash, which is the only punishment for her second drunk-driving arrest. Like Elliot hasn't already done enough, and in so doing risked his career (and Cragen's, apparently). Kathleen is supposedly in college, but refers to the other "kids at school" who saw her picking up trash and yells at her mom for being too old to be pregnant, because people will think it's hers. Maybe, if these "people" are as stupid as Kathleen is. Stabler needs to throw a few chairs around home. His cellphone rings. "Be right there," he says.
"There" is the Donovan residence, where Ma and Pa Donovan have been killed by shotgun blast. Another call on Stabler's cellphone sends him running back home -- it appears Janis is there, with a knife.
Elliot and Olivia arrive at Stabler's home, where a uniform tells them Janis and Kathy are inside; they peek through the window, and see Kathy and Janis in the living room. Janis in particular seems to be having a happy little chat, other than the giant knife she's holding in her right hand.
Elliot makes his way inside, where Janis, as "Dorie," is telling Kathy about how it was love at first sight for her and Elliot. Hey, speak of the devil! Kathy seems to be keeping herself well-composed, but doesn't hesitate too much when Elliot sends her out the door. "I guess he made his choice," says Dorie (adding, after Kathy leaves, "She's kinda fat"). Too bad they didn't think to let the pregnant woman hear Dorie call her fat; I guarantee Dorie wouldn't have known what hit her.
Elliot wants Dorie to put the knife down on the coffee table, and she's suspicious of Elliot acting all cold. Seriously. Elliot might as well be saying, "Don't worry, my partner totally isn't sneaking up behind you to disarm you." Before Olivia grabs her, though, Dorie says she's scared of Burt, who killed her parents.
In the hospital, Casey's spoiling for a murder trial, since Janis confessed, and Elliot clarifies that Janis didn't; Dorie did (Olivia further clarifies that Dorie flipped on Burt). Carlisle's been in Janis's room; when he comes out, Olivia busts on him for the "road to recovery" getting a little rocky. Casey steamrolls right over Carlisle, who says Janis is too "fractured" to stand trial.
Back at the squad, Cragen is back already. "It didn't hurt that Sgt. Munch released a maniac who promptly killed Mom and Dad," he tells Chester and Fin. Sweet. Thanks, dead people! Munch tells Cragen that Olivia and Elliot found some old photographs at the Donovan household confirming the child abuse. Janis was offered a plea deal, which she wouldn't take.
The trial? Well, it doesn't go well. Casey does her best to demonstrate that there is no objective proof that these alternate personalities aren't anything more than Janis faking it. She raises some good doubts, but then goes and yells and browbeats Janis on the stand badly enough that Janis snaps and tries to choke her (as Burt). I mean, you can imagine the jury sympathizing with Janis at that point. The headline in the New York Post, I mean, Ledger, is D.A. FLOPS, KILLER WALKS. But Stabler is, I presume, working on the Sudoku. He's certainly not reading the story, otherwise Casey wouldn't need to stroll in and let him know Janis got off by reason of insanity. He hands over the paper because there's an interview with Cass about the drug use and abuse. Casey's eyes immediately go to the photo, specifically to a book on the shelf behind Cass. It's a law journal that she consulted for the trial, as it's chock-full of articles about multiple personalities and criminal responsibility. Elliot shrugs, figuring Cass was helping her sister with her defence. "Before she got out of prison?" says Casey. A magnifying glass reveals a stamp on the book: "Property of Bedford Hills Correctional Facility." Gasp! But that means...Cassie stole a book from jail!
After a jailhouse snitch confirms that Cass had that book in her cell at least six months, and she and Janis faked the whole thing, Olivia and Elliot swagger over the hospital to congratulate Janis on her magnificent performances. Janis feigns ignorance, at least until the detectives reveal they found deleted information on her computer about multiple personalities. "I was good, wasn't I?" she says. "Caught you in my web." I'm not sure the metaphor really holds by this point, but I'll allow it, especially given that Cynthia Nixon did such a good job switching between characters. Anyway, Cass is warning Janis to keep quiet, but Janis isn't worried: "Double jeopardy's attached. There's nothing they can do to me."
Darn right, says Elliot, who proceeds to cuff Cass. She cries that she didn't shoot them, and Janis confirms Cass wasn't even there, but Olivia says it doesn't matter, because she conspired with Janis. "You might as well have pulled the trigger together," says Elliot. He and Olivia drag Cass away, with a bug-eyed Janis yelling after her that it's not her fault: it was her battered-child syndrome. So, wait. Are you telling me Balki didn't rape anybody?